COMPARE Columbia MAFN vs NYU Tandon MFE

[melissa yt]

Tandon MFE:
This is a program that seems to have earned both good and bad reputation. You can find conflicting reviews/comments about this program on Quantnet. Acclaimers owe the program's success to Peter Carr's dedication to students' career prospect, and the small class size. Others criticize the program as one that does not teach necessary "hard skills" to bring students into advantage in their job-hunting stage. Nevertheless, the program seems to be constantly improving, especially when it comes to Quantnet ranking.

Columbia MAFN:
It seems definite that this program is more theoratical than Tandon MFE. Harder courses means greater challenges, but also greater chances for you to stand out in the job interview, if you were able to handle the heavy study pressure. However, the "placement rate" is perticularly low (less than 40%) according to Quantnet statistics. This might be because Columbia's career service is far from good, and there're too many students competing (MSFE, MAFN, MSOR, and even Stat, they learn more or less the same things). I assume many of Columbia MAFN students are international, and they end up leaving US to find a job in their home country.

BTW, another drawback is that the course selection is not as flexible as that of Tandon MFE.

UCB's program:
Sorry I do not know much about it. So no comments.

Suggestions (if we just compare Columbia and Tandon):
Considering your background (somewhat limited maths background) and your aspiration, Tandon MFE will give you a higher chance to secure a job (thanks to highly-customized course options, less fierce competition, and Peter Carr's help). However, if you aspire to be a TOP quant, than Columbia should be a better decision. Also, Columbia will throw you in a better situation than Tandon, if you were bot able to find a job in US.

Yeah, my concerns about Tandon were whether they could provide enough hardcore skillset training. To me, I'm not kind of person who's keen about math, especially theoretical math. But I'm flexible to programming, and interested in sth. about machine learning, such kind of practical data science stuff. Quant industry nowadays is changing gradually, more demanding on ds stuff. So it'll be good if I can go somewhere I could choose some ds courses and have enough time for job hunting.
Thank you so much for your sincere suggestions! valuable to me

 

[melissa yt]

A closer look into the three programs' curriculum.
Tandon just lacked in data science training. Only two ds related courses, one is online while the other is kind of introduction.

 

[nybound]

Hi, I just received two offers this month, one from Tandon MFE and another one from Columbia MAFN. The deposit ddl for Tandon MFE is Feb. 28, and I don't think there will be another result coming before this date. So I have to make a decision before that, yet it is kind of a hard decision to make. I did find a few posts about this comparison, but most of them are from about two years ago. Since it looks to me that Tandon MFE is on a fast-growing phase, I am looking for some suggestions as of 2021.

Here's a little bit about myself: I'm a Math and Econ undergrad from a US college. I took some finance and accounting courses during undergrad, and I also took intro to CS and data structure. I don't have full time work experience and only a couple of 2-month internships, one of which is relative to quant.

Things I learned from my research of the two programs:

Tandon MFE: Dr. Carr and Sara are definitely improving the program year by year, especially in terms of career training. I fully understand the outcome of my job hunting is mostly about my own efforts instead of others, but as an international student with not many work or internship experience, the potential help from these two experienced people is really appealing to me. And I think the average class size of 15 people is also a plus. Also, their tuition is cheeper and they gave me an 8k scholarship. However, I am a little bit concerned about the big cohort size that is around 150 students, especially about whether the placement director can take good care of so many students.

Columbia MAFN: They have a more rigorous math curriculum. I am actually not sure if this is a pro or a con, since to me, I feel like a rigorous math foundation is quite important for a quant researcher, which is my career goal, and I am interested in rigorous math courses. But I've also seen people saying they are "too rigorous" and not useful at work or for interviews. Another good thing is the name "Columbia" might be better outside of the US, which I think I also need to take a little bit into consideration as I'm an international student. A big problem I saw people saying about this program is their "minimal" or "nonexistent" career service. I've seen people saying that this program is better for students with previous work experience who doesn't need that much career help, but for someone like me, it might not be that good.

So I will really appreciate some suggestions from you guys. Thanks in advance!

 

[Qui-Gon]

What is your programming background like aside from completing the QuantNet C++ course? I would potentially lean towards Tandon if you feel like you need to beef up your programming skills, otherwise, I think it is a toss-up and that you really can't go wrong with either. If you're planning on living close to campus, perhaps look at surrounding neighborhoods of both and see what you feel fits your preferences better. If I had to choose myself, I would go for MAFN because of the small cohort size and faculty. To be fair though, I haven't looked at Tandon's program closely enough.

I think to really make a decision that you will be satisfied with, you have to approach it systematically. I would get two pieces of paper, make two columns on each -- one +'s and one -'s -- and simply go through and write down as many things as you can for both programs. Congratulations, and good luck with your decision!

 

[nybound]

What is your programming background like aside from completing the QuantNet C++ course? I would potentially lean towards Tandon if you feel like you need to beef up your programming skills, otherwise, I think it is a toss-up and that you really can't go wrong with either. If you're planning on living close to campus, perhaps look at surrounding neighborhoods of both and see what you feel fits your preferences better. If I had to choose myself, I would go for MAFN because of the small cohort size and faculty. To be fair though, I haven't looked at Tandon's program closely enough.

I think to really make a decision that you will be satisfied with, you have to approach it systematically. I would get two pieces of paper, make two columns on each -- one +'s and one -'s -- and simply go through and write down as many things as you can for both programs. Congratulations, and good luck with your decision!

Aside from the C++ course, I took the following courses from school: an intro to programming course that basically teaches a little bit of basic Python, an intro to CS course that is basically "intro to OOP," and a data structure course. So I'll say I only have very basic programming skills and certainly needs more rigorous trainings. If taking this into account, Tandon gets another pro since MAFN has really few programming courses.

Thanks a lot for the suggestion and your nice words!

 

[Marcus Love Quant]

Definitely go for NYU's MFE. Columbia's reputation has been plummeted for years internationally, especially around the APAC region (since you know, most Columbia graduates were from programs like SPS or Stat...It's just every role at every firm will have someone graduated from Columbia). If you got into either the MFE at Engineering or MSFE at CBS, then I'll vote for Columbia, but not for the rest programs.

It's really sad to see that this school is turning education for money for years, do they really need this amount of tuition after all? (at the expense of bad reputation...)

 

[taicon]

Some information from current Tandon MFE student

COMPARE - Columbia MFE vs NYU Tandon MFE

Hey, For the IEOR dept. offered MFE program, the application deadline was 5th January I believe. Are you talking about the same program? Whoops. I applied December 31st, not January 31st.

quantnet.com

 

[nybound]

Definitely go for NYU's MFE. Columbia's reputation has been plummeted for years internationally, especially around the APAC region (since you know, most Columbia graduates were from programs like SPS or Stat...It's just every role at every firm will have someone graduated from Columbia). If you got into either the MFE at Engineering or MSFE at CBS, then I'll vote for Columbia, but not for the rest programs.

It's really sad to see that this school is turning education for money for years, do they really need this amount of tuition after all? (at the expense of bad reputation...)

Yea, I'm actually also leaning toward Tandon at this point. It's true that Columbia's master programs' reputation has gone down a lot and they are more expensive than Tandon. Thanks a lot for your advice!

 

[Yevgeniy]

Tandon is in Brooklyn. Enuf said.

 

[Chacinluis]

Yea, I'm actually also leaning toward Tandon at this point. It's true that Columbia's master programs' reputation has gone down a lot and they are more expensive than Tandon. Thanks a lot for your advice!

Hey. Congrats on those two acceptances last year. Which program did you end up deciding on, and do you feel you made the right choice?