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Baruch MFE Baruch MFE admission standard

jack ren

Joined
3/16/08
Messages
4
Points
11
Hi, guys,

I've heard that the admission standard for the MFE has been rising over the past few years. Asking for help, how big the gap do u guys think there is between an international MFE student and my background?

my background:
- had a BSc Applied Math in an international univ, gpa 3.7; learned by myself basic economics and finance
- used modeling and matlab a lot in the US Mathematical Contest of Modeling and earned good prize; had a certificate of intermediate C++;
- have been working for almost two years in one of the Big four accounting firm as auditor, not finance-related.
- Toefl 107; taking Gre&Gmat immediately

my undergrad univ is not very strong in math around China, but it has a good reputaion for engineerings. Also, I noticed that many of the current students in MFE have finance-related WE. So I think these may be the greatest gaps. :cry: What do u guys think? Do you have suggestions what should I do to make up those gaps?

Thanks:prayer:
jack
 
Andy said:
You probably want to do good in the GRE exam, then get some good working experience in finance (internship, part time job) preferably one that has good amount of time spent using C++
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Thanks for your suggestions, Andy. I have thought about that, but I am not quite confident in hunting for such a job. In fact, if I had a chance to get into such a position, my determination to take MFE would not be so strong. Dealing with numbers only by addition and subtracting bores me a lot. Unfortunately (no offense) as an auditor, I have been doing that for considerable time. So lately I started to look for jobs which could use a lot of my math and programing skills, but it turned out that most of those positions are looking for post-masters or fresh graduates from quantitative majors.

I wonder if taking a job in finance for a period of time would continue to diminish my quantitative skills which are supposed to be crucial for a successful application/career. I have also thought about taking MBA to break into this area, but 21 ages of experience could neither bring much to the desk to talk about, nor be fully melted in the network in an MBA class. So confused. Do you think taking the CFA could be an alternative for the financial W/E? Should I take the CFA or do a master of finance, or just wait for a couple of years to do an MBA?
 
Joshua Barr said:
I was admitted to Baruch with no formal finance experience, though I have been trading options for several years. I have a B.S. in Mathematics and a B.S. in Physics (GPA is about the same as yours) and I have worked for a national laboratory as a software engineer (C++, Matlab) for a couple years.

You should definitely apply. It's worth a shot.
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Thanks for encouraging! I wish I could be like you on the road to MFE. But the problem is I have no engineering W/E at all, nor have any trading experience. I would be sad that I chose to work in KPMG instead of other programming positions a couple of years ago. I once thought that WE would be helpful to be a quant, but it ends up that the dream is getting more and more distant from me. The admission committee seems to put a lot of emphasis on engineering or mathematical background. I used to have one of them, but these two years definitely dilutes that.:wall
 
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