Application Strength

[_theline]

I spent a little over a year preparing for the actuary exams before realizing it wasn't the career path I wanted to take, believing it to be more of a mathematical field of work. I passed exam P with a 9/10 and was ready to take FM but didn't. Preparing for FM is what got me interested in the more sophisticated mathematics behind finance, so I started looking into becoming a quant. Basically I'm curious what types of schools my background would best qualify me for.
- B.S. in Mathematics with honors from a top tier public university, 3.47 GPA
- 15 hours of graduate coursework in math and probability
- Three years of work experience in University finance and accounting

I haven't taken the GRE yet, but I've historically been decent at standardized tests. My main concern is GPA/work experience.

Thanks in advance!

 

[CasanovaJ]

Are you a domestic applicant/US citizen, or international?

 

[_theline]

Domestic/U.S. citizen

 

[CasanovaJ]

With those credentials + checking the "US citizen" box on apps, you'll get into every top quant program in the country.

 

[_theline]

Are you serious??? Admissions are easier for US citizens?

 

[CasanovaJ]

I just started a "top 10 program" this week. There are ~100 people in the program, it's over 90% international, and of the 5 or so Americans in the program, a few of them have even weaker credentials than you do. MFE programs (and most of the other STEM graduate programs in the country for that matter) have become so desperate for US citizens that as an American it makes me fear for the future of the country.

 

[C S]

I just started a "top 10 program" this week. There are ~100 people in the program, it's over 90% international, and of the 5 or so Americans in the program, a few of them have even weaker credentials than you do. MFE programs (and most of the other STEM graduate programs in the country for that matter) have become so desperate for US citizens that as an American it makes me fear for the future of the country.

MFE students are hardly the cream of the STEM crop. Plenty of talented Americans exist in abundance in top STEM graduate programs across the US. The fact that they don't choose to pay high tuition for a financial engineering program is hardly something to make one fear for America's future. Quite the contrary.

 

[_theline]

That's very interesting. I've also

MFE students are hardly the cream of the STEM crop. Plenty of talented Americans exist in abundance in top STEM graduate programs across the US. The fact that they don't choose to pay high tuition for a financial engineering program is hardly something to make one fear for America's future. Quite the contrary.

Any input on the thread subject?

 

[CasanovaJ]

My undergrad education was in a more traditional engineering field, I've generally had a pretty good amount of exposure I think to a pretty wide cross-section of STEM, and while I agree that financial engineering seems to be having a bit more trouble on this than the other fields are, my observation has been that pretty much all of STEM is struggling with it to at least some degree. We can disagree (and frankly from a patriotic standpoint I hope you're right and I'm not), but to his original question, I think US citizens absolutely are getting a leg up now with MFE admissions.

Interesting debate/discussion from a couple months ago on the whole "why are MFE programs so overwhelmingly foreign" thing--
https://www.quantnet.com/threads/large-number-of-international-students-in-mfe-programs.17021/