Avoid this U of Toronto MMF program: SCAM
- Thread starter Carl Jenseen
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Hi.
I am a 2013 MMF alumnus. I want to address certain misconceptions introduced by the anonymous OP. It is true that the program accepts some people who would be much better off in an MBA or business-related graduate program. That said, I met many brilliant people too, with obvious Math/programming skills. It is also true that the intensity is insane, particularly in the first term. But this is also logical, since the master only lasts 1 year. As in every university, some profs are engaging and thoroughly interested in teaching meaningful and clear lessons, while others simply cover material at Mach 10. But, again, I think this should be expected in any curriculum. Finally, I agree with the internship bit, since the program could do a better job at placing students in institutions which better reflect their interests and future expectations.
Now the constructive criticism part. I do think that the program should select candidates who are more quant-oriented and less business-oriented, but this is no reason to trash the MMF. At the end, you can always choose your studying buddies and friends. You are responsible for your own learning, and not the people that you study with. There were a LOT of mediocre people in my undergrad, but that never prevented me from studying and learning. Blaming other people for your incompetence is just silly. Additionally, there is a clear contradiction in your statements. First you say that "You fail course twice and you're expel, bye to your 40k." and then "Incoming students getting worse and worse, so far two profs called class "weakest class in history of program." It doesn't make any sense to criticize the program for accepting anyone and then hitting them hard for failing obviously unqualified people. What is it, then?
As for the teaching quality issue, again, I think the opinion is unrealistic. Without giving particular names, I was also critical of many profs, particularly those affiliated with Rotman. Nevertheless, I still think that most profs are decent and know their material very well. I know that Stochastic Calculus is hard and challenging, but seriously, what did you expect? Gym class? I think the profs do the best they can considering the short time frame. Maybe the program should be longer (I'm thinking 1 year and a half), but that would imply higher tuition fees and stuff.
I seriously don't know were the job placement comment is coming from, since most of the people I know already have a job. I urge you to talk to 2013 alumni.
As any academic program, the MMF has its lights and shadows. I only scratched the surface because these issues do require an extended post. Yet, I feel that the OP is dramatizing things too much (even claiming that the program "destroys lives"!) and giving a rather oversimplified and shallow view.
If anything, I think the program would benefit from raising the bar on the TOEFL test to select more articulate candidates.
Cheers,
Carlos Alejandro Núñez Trujillo
I am a 2013 MMF alumnus. I want to address certain misconceptions introduced by the anonymous OP. It is true that the program accepts some people who would be much better off in an MBA or business-related graduate program. That said, I met many brilliant people too, with obvious Math/programming skills. It is also true that the intensity is insane, particularly in the first term. But this is also logical, since the master only lasts 1 year. As in every university, some profs are engaging and thoroughly interested in teaching meaningful and clear lessons, while others simply cover material at Mach 10. But, again, I think this should be expected in any curriculum. Finally, I agree with the internship bit, since the program could do a better job at placing students in institutions which better reflect their interests and future expectations.
Now the constructive criticism part. I do think that the program should select candidates who are more quant-oriented and less business-oriented, but this is no reason to trash the MMF. At the end, you can always choose your studying buddies and friends. You are responsible for your own learning, and not the people that you study with. There were a LOT of mediocre people in my undergrad, but that never prevented me from studying and learning. Blaming other people for your incompetence is just silly. Additionally, there is a clear contradiction in your statements. First you say that "You fail course twice and you're expel, bye to your 40k." and then "Incoming students getting worse and worse, so far two profs called class "weakest class in history of program." It doesn't make any sense to criticize the program for accepting anyone and then hitting them hard for failing obviously unqualified people. What is it, then?
As for the teaching quality issue, again, I think the opinion is unrealistic. Without giving particular names, I was also critical of many profs, particularly those affiliated with Rotman. Nevertheless, I still think that most profs are decent and know their material very well. I know that Stochastic Calculus is hard and challenging, but seriously, what did you expect? Gym class? I think the profs do the best they can considering the short time frame. Maybe the program should be longer (I'm thinking 1 year and a half), but that would imply higher tuition fees and stuff.
I seriously don't know were the job placement comment is coming from, since most of the people I know already have a job. I urge you to talk to 2013 alumni.
As any academic program, the MMF has its lights and shadows. I only scratched the surface because these issues do require an extended post. Yet, I feel that the OP is dramatizing things too much (even claiming that the program "destroys lives"!) and giving a rather oversimplified and shallow view.
If anything, I think the program would benefit from raising the bar on the TOEFL test to select more articulate candidates.
Cheers,
Carlos Alejandro Núñez Trujillo
Last edited:
Hi,
I'm also a 2013 MMF Alum (Carlos can probably confirm). I've been meaning to write a review at some point, but have not been very active on the site for the past couple of years because of time constraints. When this anonymous review was pointed out to me though, I decided it was worthwhile to take some time to answer some of these claims.
Personally, I came from a Math-focused undergrad, and this program provided me with exactly what I wanted it to. It bridged the gap between Math and Finance, and got my foot in the door for a career in Finance. I'm still working at the company where I spent my internship, and the salary made the tuition cost more than worthwhile in my case.
I also had an opportunity to get involved with a lot of things that built on my experience. I participated in the Rotman Online Trading Competition, and qualified to represent U of T at the Rotman International Trading Competition where we placed 6th overall, and 1st in one of the high profile cases. I also received a scholarship for peer leadership at last year's reception.
I agree with Carlos that our program had some students that were stronger than others. Something to keep in mind though is that, as with any higher education, it is not the program's responsibility to motivate lazy people to learn. The students who were willing to put in the time and effort to get the most out of the classes and their internship left the program satisfied.
I can see where some students may be a bit blindsided though. We had some group projects where certain members made very little effort and didn't contribute. When finals rolled around and these people had to demonstrate their knowledge individually, they obviously struggled. In my opinion, the fact that the program did not pass these students provides more credibility to the degree.
There were some courses that I enjoyed more than others, but I expected this with a fixed curriculum. You might have to struggle to motivate yourself in a course that you might not find interesting, but that may be useful for application in the industry. Ultimately, you can always choose to avoid jobs that depend heavily on things that you don't find interesting. And if you don't find any of it interesting, I don't think the program is to blame- the website is pretty spot on with what courses they offer and what subject material they cover.
I'm more than willing to answer any specific questions any of you have when I have a chance. Try not to form an opinion so quickly when you've only heard from some clearly disgruntled students. There are more of us out there who are enjoyed our experience, we just may not be as vocal because we didn't know that we had to be.
Thanks,
Gideon
I'm also a 2013 MMF Alum (Carlos can probably confirm). I've been meaning to write a review at some point, but have not been very active on the site for the past couple of years because of time constraints. When this anonymous review was pointed out to me though, I decided it was worthwhile to take some time to answer some of these claims.
Personally, I came from a Math-focused undergrad, and this program provided me with exactly what I wanted it to. It bridged the gap between Math and Finance, and got my foot in the door for a career in Finance. I'm still working at the company where I spent my internship, and the salary made the tuition cost more than worthwhile in my case.
I also had an opportunity to get involved with a lot of things that built on my experience. I participated in the Rotman Online Trading Competition, and qualified to represent U of T at the Rotman International Trading Competition where we placed 6th overall, and 1st in one of the high profile cases. I also received a scholarship for peer leadership at last year's reception.
I agree with Carlos that our program had some students that were stronger than others. Something to keep in mind though is that, as with any higher education, it is not the program's responsibility to motivate lazy people to learn. The students who were willing to put in the time and effort to get the most out of the classes and their internship left the program satisfied.
I can see where some students may be a bit blindsided though. We had some group projects where certain members made very little effort and didn't contribute. When finals rolled around and these people had to demonstrate their knowledge individually, they obviously struggled. In my opinion, the fact that the program did not pass these students provides more credibility to the degree.
There were some courses that I enjoyed more than others, but I expected this with a fixed curriculum. You might have to struggle to motivate yourself in a course that you might not find interesting, but that may be useful for application in the industry. Ultimately, you can always choose to avoid jobs that depend heavily on things that you don't find interesting. And if you don't find any of it interesting, I don't think the program is to blame- the website is pretty spot on with what courses they offer and what subject material they cover.
I'm more than willing to answer any specific questions any of you have when I have a chance. Try not to form an opinion so quickly when you've only heard from some clearly disgruntled students. There are more of us out there who are enjoyed our experience, we just may not be as vocal because we didn't know that we had to be.
Thanks,
Gideon
Hi,
I knew quite a lot of graduates from UofT mmf program. In general, they are very competent and professional.
I have to agree that 10 years ago, the UofT program was considered one of the most prestigious math finance programs in Canada. However, in recently years, the quality of the students on average was not as good as the ones that I knew before.
I guessed it was due to the competitions for good students from the top programs in the US.
I knew quite a lot of graduates from UofT mmf program. In general, they are very competent and professional.
I have to agree that 10 years ago, the UofT program was considered one of the most prestigious math finance programs in Canada. However, in recently years, the quality of the students on average was not as good as the ones that I knew before.
I guessed it was due to the competitions for good students from the top programs in the US.
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Made an account so that I can comment on this post. Having recently graduated from MMF (same class as Carlos and Gideon), I would like to offer my perspective on this program.
Student Pool:
A key component to the success of any professional Masters program is the student selection process. Chances are, a strong student with a past history of success will continue to be successful in the future as they have learned how to be successful. Therefore, having a strong student pool will correlate with higher post graduation employment rates, creating strong brand equity. This will subsequently result in a larger application pool to select strong students from, thus completing the virtuous cycle.
MMF has positioned itself well in this area. Having resisted the urge for mass expansion similar to what we see in some programs in the States, MMF has a quota of ~30 students per year, and an application pool of ~500 prospects every year (at least in the two most recent years). Theoretically, this should give MMF plenty of opportunity to select the best students (or the best left-overs =D) each year; however, this is where the program does something wonky. Instead of one unified interview/testing process for applicants, MMF has a in-person interview for applicants in the Greater Toronto Area and a telephone (Skype) interview for remote applicants. The nature of the interviews vary significantly. The in-person interviews are group interviews in which you have to prepare a presentation and can last 4 hours long. The phone interviews are roughly 15 mins long, and the technical questions asked vary in difficulty. This part always perplexed me as I am not sure how they are able to maintain the same quality in students that are accepted through these two very different interview processes.
With that said, in my year, I was thoroughly impressed with how smart and knowledgeable my classmates were. The program seems to target a very diverse student pool. We had people with backgrounds in physics, math, engineering, actsci/stats, computer science, economics, and business administration. As a result, someone was an expert in the topics the profs were teaching at any given point in time. This resulted in very engaging peer discussions and a lot of peer learning. Due to the intense nature of the program, the interactions you have with your peers are also very unique, as you spend more time with your classmates than anybody else in your life for the duration of the program. Meeting my talented classmates and becoming friends (12am candy runs, 10 people sushi lunches, push-up contests and other shenanigans) with them is the part of the program I enjoyed most.
Education:
The difference between professional Masters programs and non-professional Masters is that the former will likely have a more applied curriculum than the latter. This is because professional Masters programs are designed with the intent of landing students jobs after graduation. It is true that MMF has somewhat shifted its focus toward Risk Management in recent years with less focus on stochcal and pricing; this is because most of the jobs these days are in Risk Management, and there is simply not enough time to slot in more courses.
As the program crams down so much material into 8 months, a lot of the topics were not discussed in great detail, and a strong focus has been placed on applying/implementing the concepts learned in class by way of non-stopping assignments. This is the part of the program I did not enjoy, as I frequently found I needed more time to absorb the concepts learned in class. However, the relentless assignments did create a strong imprint of the lecture material in my head, and even if I weren't able to fully understand all the concepts I have learned in class, I can easily pick up my notes and a textbook to review should I need it for work.
The professors in the program are all experts in their fields; however, this does not necessarily mean they can all teach. Consistent with my previous experience as a student, I found some professors to be amazing, and highly effective in communicating ideas; whereas there are a rare few professors who simply did not know how/lost the passion to teach . The disconnect comes from the fact that this program costs 40k, so students who (rightly) expected an amazing lecture experience in every class will be disappointed. In these cases, much of the learning will come from reading textbooks, researching online, and discussions among peers.
Internship and Full Time Placement:
Regarding internship placement, the OP made a misleading statement saying MMF will force you to take the first internship offer. This is simply not true. Yes, MMF encourages you to take the first position you get. This is because MMF has established a working partnership with the sponsors of the program, and tries to ensure that the sponsors get the candidates they want each year, so they will come back with internship positions in the next year. However, this is not a rule written in stone. In my year, there are a few students that got to pick a later offer over the first offer they received. Usually, they received both offers within a short time frame, so they discussed with the program office and got to pick the one they liked more. Also, if you really do not like the offer you received, and there is no alternative offer on the table, you are not forced to take it. The rule goes, if you decline the offer, then your resume will not be visible on the MMF's internship job board for sponsors, and you will be responsible for obtaining your internship. In essence, the program is only responsible for securing your first internship offer.
In terms of full time placement, I was surprised by lack of formal support the program office provides. Coming from Ivey Business School, I was spoiled by the internal job board full of full-time positions for graduating students. No such thing exists in MMF. Sometimes, an email would be distributed to the students about open positions; and if you talk to the program's recruitment coordinator, she will forward opportunities your way when she learns of them. However, there is no formal support. That being said, most, if not all of my graduating class obtained full-time positions 3-4 months after graduation. Some of these positions are a direct continuation of the internship within the same company; others are due to the brand recognition associated with MMF, where companies simply like to interview/hire MMF graduates. Contrary to what has been mentioned by other commenters, many of the positions my classmates obtained are at the Associate level (or Senior Analyst level). I have found that it is much easier to get interviews with the degree.
My overall experience in MMF has been a very positive one. I would recommend it for anyone who wants to work in finance in a relatively mathematical role. It prepares you with the necessary knowledge, some internship experience, and brand recognition (at least within the Toronto area) for you to help you find full-time positions easily. However, if your goal is education and research, or if you are thinking of pursuing a phd in mathematical finance afterwards, I would say there are better alternatives out there than this 12 month program.
Student Pool:
A key component to the success of any professional Masters program is the student selection process. Chances are, a strong student with a past history of success will continue to be successful in the future as they have learned how to be successful. Therefore, having a strong student pool will correlate with higher post graduation employment rates, creating strong brand equity. This will subsequently result in a larger application pool to select strong students from, thus completing the virtuous cycle.
MMF has positioned itself well in this area. Having resisted the urge for mass expansion similar to what we see in some programs in the States, MMF has a quota of ~30 students per year, and an application pool of ~500 prospects every year (at least in the two most recent years). Theoretically, this should give MMF plenty of opportunity to select the best students (or the best left-overs =D) each year; however, this is where the program does something wonky. Instead of one unified interview/testing process for applicants, MMF has a in-person interview for applicants in the Greater Toronto Area and a telephone (Skype) interview for remote applicants. The nature of the interviews vary significantly. The in-person interviews are group interviews in which you have to prepare a presentation and can last 4 hours long. The phone interviews are roughly 15 mins long, and the technical questions asked vary in difficulty. This part always perplexed me as I am not sure how they are able to maintain the same quality in students that are accepted through these two very different interview processes.
With that said, in my year, I was thoroughly impressed with how smart and knowledgeable my classmates were. The program seems to target a very diverse student pool. We had people with backgrounds in physics, math, engineering, actsci/stats, computer science, economics, and business administration. As a result, someone was an expert in the topics the profs were teaching at any given point in time. This resulted in very engaging peer discussions and a lot of peer learning. Due to the intense nature of the program, the interactions you have with your peers are also very unique, as you spend more time with your classmates than anybody else in your life for the duration of the program. Meeting my talented classmates and becoming friends (12am candy runs, 10 people sushi lunches, push-up contests and other shenanigans) with them is the part of the program I enjoyed most.
Education:
The difference between professional Masters programs and non-professional Masters is that the former will likely have a more applied curriculum than the latter. This is because professional Masters programs are designed with the intent of landing students jobs after graduation. It is true that MMF has somewhat shifted its focus toward Risk Management in recent years with less focus on stochcal and pricing; this is because most of the jobs these days are in Risk Management, and there is simply not enough time to slot in more courses.
As the program crams down so much material into 8 months, a lot of the topics were not discussed in great detail, and a strong focus has been placed on applying/implementing the concepts learned in class by way of non-stopping assignments. This is the part of the program I did not enjoy, as I frequently found I needed more time to absorb the concepts learned in class. However, the relentless assignments did create a strong imprint of the lecture material in my head, and even if I weren't able to fully understand all the concepts I have learned in class, I can easily pick up my notes and a textbook to review should I need it for work.
The professors in the program are all experts in their fields; however, this does not necessarily mean they can all teach. Consistent with my previous experience as a student, I found some professors to be amazing, and highly effective in communicating ideas; whereas there are a rare few professors who simply did not know how/lost the passion to teach . The disconnect comes from the fact that this program costs 40k, so students who (rightly) expected an amazing lecture experience in every class will be disappointed. In these cases, much of the learning will come from reading textbooks, researching online, and discussions among peers.
Internship and Full Time Placement:
Regarding internship placement, the OP made a misleading statement saying MMF will force you to take the first internship offer. This is simply not true. Yes, MMF encourages you to take the first position you get. This is because MMF has established a working partnership with the sponsors of the program, and tries to ensure that the sponsors get the candidates they want each year, so they will come back with internship positions in the next year. However, this is not a rule written in stone. In my year, there are a few students that got to pick a later offer over the first offer they received. Usually, they received both offers within a short time frame, so they discussed with the program office and got to pick the one they liked more. Also, if you really do not like the offer you received, and there is no alternative offer on the table, you are not forced to take it. The rule goes, if you decline the offer, then your resume will not be visible on the MMF's internship job board for sponsors, and you will be responsible for obtaining your internship. In essence, the program is only responsible for securing your first internship offer.
In terms of full time placement, I was surprised by lack of formal support the program office provides. Coming from Ivey Business School, I was spoiled by the internal job board full of full-time positions for graduating students. No such thing exists in MMF. Sometimes, an email would be distributed to the students about open positions; and if you talk to the program's recruitment coordinator, she will forward opportunities your way when she learns of them. However, there is no formal support. That being said, most, if not all of my graduating class obtained full-time positions 3-4 months after graduation. Some of these positions are a direct continuation of the internship within the same company; others are due to the brand recognition associated with MMF, where companies simply like to interview/hire MMF graduates. Contrary to what has been mentioned by other commenters, many of the positions my classmates obtained are at the Associate level (or Senior Analyst level). I have found that it is much easier to get interviews with the degree.
My overall experience in MMF has been a very positive one. I would recommend it for anyone who wants to work in finance in a relatively mathematical role. It prepares you with the necessary knowledge, some internship experience, and brand recognition (at least within the Toronto area) for you to help you find full-time positions easily. However, if your goal is education and research, or if you are thinking of pursuing a phd in mathematical finance afterwards, I would say there are better alternatives out there than this 12 month program.
To the alums posting reviews please put them in the review section of the website.
1. Go to the program's reviews page https://www.quantnet.com/resources/university-of-toronto-mathematical-finance-program.4/reviews
2. Give a star rating by clicking the requisite number of stars on the right.
3. Fill the dialog box with a review of our awesome program.
And done!
@Andy Nguyen
1. Go to the program's reviews page https://www.quantnet.com/resources/university-of-toronto-mathematical-finance-program.4/reviews
2. Give a star rating by clicking the requisite number of stars on the right.
3. Fill the dialog box with a review of our awesome program.
And done!
@Andy Nguyen
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Really, you graduated from their program without knowing what a contradiction is??
Not only is there a possible scenario where both of his statements hold true (i.e. no contradition), there is a very plausible hypothesis. It seems that even those in favour of the program are in agreement about admissions allowing in students with questionable ability, and taking in 30 students no matter what. The purpose of the program is to make money. So if an unscrupulous program could not find 30 qualified students, they could accept some unqualified students to maintain their level of profit, and flunk out those unsuitable candidates after relieving them of their 40k.
A lot of posters here scoffed at the idea that robbing a student of 40k and a year or more of their life could seriously harm their future. I suspect they have well-off parents who are willing to support a nice lifestyle for them if things don't turn out as planned.
This is probably because they already had previous work experience coming into the program.
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The posts written in favor of UoT's MMF are so well written I'm wondering if they're part of an orchestrated response to the OP as damage limitation.
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indeed the case.
same as the swarming number of positive reviews for u of washington and u of minnesota programs... some1 is behind it
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Don't know about the U of Washington but agree with you about the U of Minnesota, which for years I've been saying is a complete con.
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Sounds interesting. Why's Minnesota's program a con?
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They don't have the staff required for a serious program. And Minneapolis is a nothing place where quant jobs mostly don't exist. The real placement rates can't be what they say they are. The program -- I use the term loosely -- is designed to take the money of unwitting foreign students who don't know any better. But then, so are so many other 2nd and 3rd tier MFE programs.
which programs are 2nd tiers? I've seen people mention 2nd tier programs, but can't quite figure out where the dividing line between 1st and 2nd is.
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The dividing line is somewhat arbitrary.
I just hopped on quantnet and saw this at the very top and would like to chime in. I did not do the MMF at UofT but I worked on Bay Street Prior to my own MBA and my internship was on the trading floor at one of the big pension plans here. From what I have seen MMFs do very well; They have some of the most coveted jobs coming out of grad school on the street on both the buy and sell side. They were generally fairly impressive (at least to me who had a relatively qualitative UG) and very valued in the work place. From my own MBA program I did see a trend where alot of the Canadian students and students with good English/interview skills got the more coveted jobs and most of the foreign students ended up in risk jobs (this might be what the OP was facing). I can't comment on the quality of professors but the people I worked with generally knew what the hell they were doing (they were all contributing, sometimes significant, PnL, even though they were relatively junior). As far as the my understanding of the internship, it is organized by the program and your earnings go towards tuition - it is kind of crappy they force you to take your first offer, but no one in my program had a million offers and that's what ended up happening anyway. For full time placement, and I say this from experience in my own program, some people expect the degree do to everything for them - you have to make your degree work for you (network and polish your interview skills). I personally really wished I had more of a quant UG, I would definitely have attended the MMF over my own program if I had the choice.
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I've been thinking the same thing - most of these accounts are all new, too.
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Baruch, CMU, Cornell, Princeton, MIT, et cetera are all good. The only one I've spoken against is Minnesota. With regard to Toronto, I've just wondered at the spate of well-worded positive reviews that got posted in the wake of the OP's scathing review.
