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Best MFin programs!

So I've been looking at the MIT program very carefully and was very interested but unfortunately their deadline for applications is early Nov, while my GRE is late Nov! So, with reluctance I have to cross that off my list. From your experience (anyone on Quantnet) how would you rank the following programs?

Claremont McKenna
Washington St Louis (Olin)
Vanderbilt
Boston College
Waterloo
Illinois
Rutgers
York University
Villanova
John Hopkins
Rochester

My advisor spoke highly of Rutgers, Vanderbilt and Boston College (but issue may arise with work experience, they place a premium on there)

My ideal position would be IB or Risk Analysis in NY, Boston or Cali
 
So I've been looking at the MIT program very carefully and was very interested but unfortunately their deadline for applications is early Nov, while my GRE is late Nov! So, with reluctance I have to cross that off my list. From your experience (anyone on Quantnet) how would you rank the following programs?

Claremont McKenna
Washington St Louis (Olin)
Vanderbilt
Boston College
Waterloo
Illinois
Rutgers
York University
Villanova
John Hopkins
Rochester

My advisor spoke highly of Rutgers, Vanderbilt and Boston College (but issue may arise with work experience, they place a premium on there)

My ideal position would be IB or Risk Analysis in NY, Boston or Cali


I am confused. It looks like you want to do a traditional MSF as opposed to an MFE. If that is so we can move forward.

IB and Risk are typical MSF placement. A friend of mine is applying for a risk analyst position right now at RBS.


You want to work in Boston, NYC and Cali, good, you narrowed down the regions.


Claremont McKenna is your Cali choice.

Boston - BC, Bentley, Brandeis. I would probably more heavily weigh on BC for this.

NYC - This is tricky. Villanova does will in this market, but they also place a lot in Philadelphia. If you are ok with the Philly options I would recommend it.

Vanderbilt will also place in NYC, although I see a lot of their placement being down south. You have to be ok with going to school kind of removed from NYC/Philly/Boston.


WUSTL has a great program, but I have heard from friends that it doesn't really do well in NYC. This could be a case by case basis, but just saying.

You include Rutgers in this list, but that is a MFE program. Very, very different from a traditional MSF. Realize this distinction.

U of R - I have a friend in admissions and I am trying to set up a time to speak with her. I have a sinking suspicion that this doesn't place that well in banking. I am from the Rochester area and the school does really well in F500, but I wouldn't call it a capital markets HQ.

UIUC - I have heard mixed reviews on their program. Either way it won't do well with the geographic regions you are interested in.

John Hopkins - PT program, I wouldn't do it unless I lived in that area and wanted to stay. I spoke with admissions there and the program is not really structured. You have like 6 years or something to complete it.
 
It's also worth thinking about non-MFE programs that contain the right mathematics.

Arguably, the best masters for a quant in Europe is the PIII at Cambridge, which contains no explicitly financial mathematics at all. Some people I respect would disagree and remove the 'Europe' qualifier. It's also pathetically cheap, and that applies to most non-finance masters since you pay a serious premium for the financial bit.

There are modules such as "Advanced Financial Models" which pretty much belong on an MFE programme, my mate is taking it at the moment. Also, it is not seriously cheap. For a UK student, expected costs are £16k. You pay £3300 tuition, and then a compulsory £5000 college fee, and then there's your £7k living expenses. The distance-learning MFE at Oxford is only marginally more expensive.
 
The IE-Instituto de Empresa (Enterprise Institute) Business School, located in Madrid, Spain, is ranked among the top business schools in the world. (Surprising that until a week ago I had never heard of it...)

http://www.ie.edu/business/index_en.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IE_Business_School
http://www.ie.edu/IE/php/en/rankings.php

Apparently one does NOT need to be fluent in Spanish to participate in their programs, as they offer degrees taught in English as well.

http://www.ie.edu/home/DegreePrograms/home_masters_eng.php

While the IE does not offer a "quant" degree, they do offer several flavors of the Masters in Finance, which is apparently ranked very highly:

http://www.ie.edu/IE/php/en/noticia_.php?id=600

http://www.mif.ie.edu/pdf/Brochure.pdf

"Master in Finance", targeted toward recent college graduates:

http://mif.ie.edu/

"Master in Advanced Finance", targeted toward individuals with more experience in the field:
http://miaf.ie.edu/

I'm sure that Andy will be pleased that they do disclose their placement results:
http://www.mif.ie.edu/pdf/placement_report.pdf

Apparently, one can even complete the bulk of their new "Global Master in Finance" degree online, with just a pair of two-week residencies in Madrid, plus a third in London:

http://gmif.ie.edu/
http://gmif.ie.edu/program.php

Anyhow, the reason I am bringing this up now is that on Tuesday, July 19th, the school will offer a free lecture in New York City by Kevin Spellman, a faculty member who apparently splits his time between Wisconsin and Madrid. The lecture topic is "Master Class: How the financial crisis is changing portfolio management". It will be held at 6:30 p.m. at the offices of Banco Santander, 45 East 53rd Street in Manhattan.

Advance registration is required via the below link:

http://www.ie.edu/alumniweb/alumniagenda/DetalleEvento.aspx?id=12342&idioma=eng
http://www.ie.edu/alumniweb/alumniagenda/RegistroInvitado.aspx?id=12342&n=1

It sounds like this will be a "recruiting event" to increase awareness among New Yorkers of the various programs offered at the IE Business School.
(Hopefully they will serve tapas... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tapas )

For further information about IE, the school's local (New York) contact is Kim.Janulewicz@ie.edu .
 
Finance analyst? That is too vague. Do you want to work in investment banking, asset management, etc or do you want to be a quant, financial engineer, trader, etc.

If you want to be an analyst in the banking/F500 sense, I think a MSF would be ideal. If you want a job that involves programming, creating trading algorithms, etc you would want an MFE.
 
Finance analyst? That is too vague. Do you want to work in investment banking, asset management, etc or do you want to be a quant, financial engineer, trader, etc.

If you want to be an analyst in the banking/F500 sense, I think a MSF would be ideal. If you want a job that involves programming, creating trading algorithms, etc you would want an MFE.
Anthony,
thank you, it cleared my dilemma, surely keen for MFE.
 
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