Acceptance Rates for MFE programs

[smudge]

Anyone have any data (official or otherwise) about acceptance rates for FE/Math Finance programs? I know Baruch's is 14%, but I'm trying to find data for some other programs.

How about Columbia, NYU, Stanford, UCB, Chicago, Princeton, etc?

Thanks.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Some can be found on the wiki. I'll update them for this year
Here is UCB acceptance rate. Surprise ?

Semester           Applicants      Admitted          Rate       Enrolled     Yield
Fall 2002        240                  77           32%          60      78%
Fall 2003        390                  92           24%          59      64%
Fall 2004        251                  73           29%          60      82%
Fall 2005        208                  81           39%          60      74%
Fall 2006        243                  91           37%          59      65%
Fall 2007        367                  83           23%          65      78%

 

[Yuriy]

I'm curious how is it possible to have the number of enrolled students be 59-60 every year. One year they admit 92, 59 of them enroll, another year they admit 73, 60 of them enroll.

 

[smudge]

I actually hadn't done any research on UCB, but just listed it because I heard they have a good program.

Initially, I was surprised the acceptance rate was that high, but I've just taken a look at their application requirements. I'm thinking the 3-5 minute video essay weeds out a lot of prospective applicants...

 

[Andy Nguyen]

I'm thinking the 3-5 minute video essay weeds out a lot of prospective applicants...

Nope. The video requirement was added only a few months ago and applied to the 2008, 2009 applicants.
They are not the only one asking for that video essay. What are the purpose ? My guess is that it will save them long distance phone cost so that they won't have to call some promising applicants in Asia to find out that they don't speak English well.
Whether that prevents those who can't speak English from applying, we will have to see the 2008 numbers to know.

 

[Yuriy]

Maybe not many people apply to UCB. Not everybody wants to go to the west coast if they have strong chances of getting into schools on the east coast. Plus some people who think they won't get in don't apply. Baruch's situation is different, it is on the east coast, tuition is much lower, and applicants think that admission standards are not so tight as at Columbia, NYU or UBC

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Here are some more info about NYU and UCB from their alumni posting in Nov '07
From NYU alum

I graduated about a year ago from NYU's math-finance masters program, but I began it way back in 2001 as a part-time student. I think the acceptance rate back when I entered was towards the high end of the 20% - 40% range (else how would I have gotten in ;-) , but as such programs have increased in popularity, the application rate has soared and the acceptance rate has dropped. Here is what they said in an email to alumni a couple of weeks ago:
"Applications to the full-time program have been growing by leaps and bounds from about 350 in 2005 to 500 in 2006, to over 750 this year. So while our class size has grown slightly, from 27 in 2005 to 33 in 2006, applications have grown even more rapidly. In other words, we have been able to maintain the same high level of quality students as in past classes. Admissions are very competitive. This year we accepted only about 9% of our applicants for full-time study."
I saw an article on the UC Berkeley MFE website from the March/April 2006 Financial Engineering News (http://mfe.haas.berkeley.edu/download/fe_news_report_2006.pdf) which said "The program now has an annual intake of 60 students from applications that number anywhere from 200 to 400 each year." That's a bit ambiguous as to whether sixty is the class size or the number of students accepted; if it's the class size it sounds like the acceptance rate would overlap or exceed the 20%-40% range. That article also claimed a "100%" placement record for graduates. NYU used to make a similar claim, but in the same alumni email I quoted above they said: "This year placement is proving to be more of a challenge than usual. Obviously, adverse market conditions are a major factor. So far, 15 of 32 students looking for full time positions have received full time offers and 8 have accepted them. Students continue to get interviews for good quantitative positions at top firms, but the pace of offers lags behind previous years. Past experience has shown that we can expect many offers to come in the November to January time frame, but it would be dangerous to wait longer before acting."

Please note that the 9% acceptance is for the FT program only. They have PT, non-degree, etc programs and if included, the number is no where near 9%

Here is a post by UCB alum

I can't comment personally on NYU, but I recently finished the MFE at Berkeley.

Regarding admittance statistics, I believe my class was in the 20-40% range as spoken about. Despite this, the caliber of students was extremely high (~40% already with PhDs, ~75% with perfect GRE quant scores). None of us were really sure how/why the admit rate was so high while still attracting top notch candidates.

By the way, the UCB acceptance number was taken from their website last year. They now removed it. Who knows why.

 

[Yuriy]

I think 9% is a good number for NYU considering that 700 people apply. As Financial Engineering becomes more popular more and more people will be applying including those who have no idea what it is. There are schools that have 1% admission rate [at least, in Russia] so there is still room for the number to go down.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

I think 9% is a good number for NYU considering that 700 people apply.

700 people applied to all of their programs (FT/PT/non-degree) (Edit: numbers refer to FT program only)
The acceptance rate of the FT program is 9%.
It's ridiculous to believe the 9% applies to their PT, non degree programs as they are different programs with different standard.

 

[Yuriy]

" Applications to the full-time program have been growing by leaps and bounds from about 350 in 2005 to 500 in 2006, to over 750 this year. "

It says that there are over 750 applications to the full-time program.


Well, anyway. My point is that 9% admission rate to one of the top programs is normal considering that everyone who feels like applying can do so, just fill out an application, take GRE, and ask professors to write recommendations.

When I lived in Russia a number of years ago, students used to take university-specific exams. That is, there was no SAT or GRE, so you would have to go take exams at NYU, Columbia, Baruch, etc. But many schools had these exams at the same time, so you had to choose between NYU, Columbia, Baruch in most cases. And competition was like 4-6 people for 1 seat (16-25% acceptance rate). If you don't get in this year, you try next year. Here in the US, you can take GRE once and send it to 20 schools. If students at Russian schools in those days could take SAT or GRE, competition would be 3-5 times as great. I personally wanted to apply to 5-10 schools but in reality could only apply to 3.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

You are correct, indeed. All numbers refer to their FT program. NYU must have the most number of applicants I know thus far.
Someone with good investigative skills should dig and find out the acceptance rate of other programs.

 

[smudge]

Stanford reports a 15% acceptance rate (50 students) on their website.

 

[dstefan]

Berkeley MFE Class of 2008
Students Applications Received: 367
Number of Admits: 83
Enrolled Students: 65
More details at
MFE Prospective - For Prospective Students - Student Profile - Haas School of Business

Stanford:
Admitted students (2008): around 45/371 ( 12% )
Enrolled Students (expected): 30


Princeton (MFin):
Admitted students (2006): 46/418 (11%)
Enrolled students: 27 (yield=59%)

 

[Andy Nguyen]

From a Columbia student
Over 650 students applied to be a part of the class of '08. Roughly 80 students were offered admission

That's a 12.3% acceptance rate. It's a bit unreliable since the 2008 MSFE size is 67 students so the number of admits must be higher

 

[dstefan]

From a Columbia student
Over 650 students applied to be a part of the class of '08. Roughly 80 students were offered admission

That's a 12.3% acceptance rate. It's a bit unreliable since the 2008 MSFE size is 67 students so the number of admits must be higher

Admission numbers are not official until posted on the website of the program. The numbers above might be subject to the usual confusion between the number of people accepting offers and enrolling and the number of people being admitted.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

I have to agree. That student probably counted the enrolled students. 67 and 80 is not far off when you guesstimate.
In addition, the students who apply to Columbia MSFE are likely to be the same group that apply to Baruch, NYU, CMU, Cornell, UCB so there is no way the 67 enrolled out of 80 admits number is correct.

Since Columbia MSFE has probably the biggest class size every year, it makes sense that they admit the largest number of students. Everyone is welcome to provide a more accurate data.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Baruch has posted its complete admission stats for 2008
Masters in Financial Engineering (MFE) - Baruch College

Average GRE for admitted students 796/575

 

[doug reich]

Those tables are a lot of fun to look at. I know the people who constitute the 2% in our class...

Curious: 28 FT students and 27 international students. I can think of more than a few full-time, not international students. Is an "international student" someone here on a student visa, or is there some other definition?

 

[kapildhaka]

Those tables are a lot of fun to look at. I know the people who constitute the 2% in our class...

Curious: 28 FT students and 27 international students. I can think of more than a few full-time, not international students. Is an "international student" someone here on a student visa, or is there some other definition?

Use some sense dear... Some international students might not be FT students.

 

[doug reich]

OHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh you are so right! Come one, I'm not that dumb. I was operating under the assumption that international students have to be FT to keep their visa.