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COMPARE Columbia MSOR vs. BU MSFM vs. Rutgers-MQF vs. Claremont MFE

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9/20/09
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So far, I have admits to all these schools. Which would be the best choice for me? My goal is to work in NYC in any finance position, from IBD to trading to quant. Right now, I am leaning towards Columbia MSOR. Any input is appreciated!
 
I think you should apply to Masters in Child Psychology Programs in Budapest.

That is what I think you should do.

Lol

Columbia....
 
I think it all depends what you want to do.

Pathak and other, do you really think MSOR is a comlete program. I think it is a mix and match of different things put together if you are planning to go FE route.

Columbia MFE is the real deal. Also, does the name of the degree not matter - MS in Operations Research.

I am not sure. any one any comments​
 
I think it all depends what you want to do.

Pathak and other, do you really think MSOR is a comlete program. I think it is a mix and match of different things put together if you are planning to go FE route.

Columbia MFE is the real deal. Also, does the name of the degree not matter - MS in Operations Research.

I am not sure. any one any comments​


I think as others have stated Columbia MSOR is basically MFE. From one of the reviews it was seen that the courses the person took were similar almost to MFE. This has been discussed a lot in the forums.

The guy who posted the review got a job as a derivatives trader upon graduation.
 
I checked the courses myself. You cannot take any MFE CORE courses from MSOR. So that leaves you with electives, which does provide the fianancial knowledge, but how about the fundamentals, which is only in the core courses.

Any one else
 
I checked the courses myself. You cannot take any MFE CORE courses from MSOR. So that leaves you with electives, which does provide the fianancial knowledge, but how about the fundamentals, which is only in the core courses.

Any one else


Youre right about the MFE core courses being exclusive... but from what I have read and seen at Columbia, you can always fit yourself into classes by talking directly to teacher and getting signatures. An insiders secret i suppose, but it really comes down to how much youre willing to risk and go above and beyond the normal safe route. By that I mean, as an MSOR student trying to take all the MFE courses, you'll sometimes feel like youre an acrobat jumping through hoops. But the important point is that it can be done.
 
regarding FE courses, yes, MSOR students can take all those courses as well, except that they need to get some signatures. That's the beauty of MSOR, it's a very flexible program. On top of that, I can also take a few courses from Columbia Business School to expand my job search horizon.
 
In some cases though, the teachers will not let you join a class due to over crowding. That is the risk you take. Depending on the year, or semester, there may be more crowding or less which will usually determine the decision. Just keep that in mind.
 
I checked the courses myself. You cannot take any MFE CORE courses from MSOR. So that leaves you with electives, which does provide the fianancial knowledge, but how about the fundamentals, which is only in the core courses.

Any one else

Youre right about the MFE core courses being exclusive... but from what I have read and seen at Columbia, you can always fit yourself into classes by talking directly to teacher and getting signatures. An insiders secret i suppose, but it really comes down to how much youre willing to risk and go above and beyond the normal safe route. By that I mean, as an MSOR student trying to take all the MFE courses, you'll sometimes feel like youre an acrobat jumping through hoops. But the important point is that it can be done.

Columbia MSOR is one the programs that has been discussed extensively here..Please take a moment to look at posts from financeguy in the attached thread

some truth about the Columbia MSOR - Forum | Quant Network
 
Columbia. Its OR program has a VERY VERY good rep. Definitely, you gonna get benefit from it.
 
With 100+ students in the OR program, idk if getting MSOR will actually help getting a job.
 
The reason that scared me away was the fact that I have to compete with 100+ students for a job and most will be interested in finance (if not all).
 
aren't students from other schools competing for the same finance jobs anyways? its not like if you go to say JHU which has a current class size of 10, you are only competing against those 10 students for a job.
 
It depends on how good the career service of the program is.
Some programs, it mainly consists of the career service emailing the job listings to every students, resulting in the huge pile of resume for a single job.
Better programs would have individualized help, such that you get sent to only the job you are interested and they never introduce more than a few students to one position. In that sense, you only have to compete with candidates outside of the program. This is the approach that top programs do. You certainly can't afford to do that if there are no dedicated career help or the class size is 200 plus.

To find out which program has which approach, best is to research through our review section
Program Review | Quant Network
 
aren't students from other schools competing for the same finance jobs anyways? its not like if you go to say JHU which has a current class size of 10, you are only competing against those 10 students for a job.

Lol... About time you said that.

You're competing against every student in your class, your badge from the year before and before that who did not get jobs, and every other student in every financial engineering, financial mathematics program, graduating from the 40+ universities now that offer the program AND PhD's of Physics/Math/Engineering of top schools and not top schools who have sudden changes in their career goals... and Masters and undergrad of quantitative subjects who get exposed to this field...computer scientists from India...etc etc etc...

I think in one of the previous threads a while back one of the guys working at a BB had said that for almost all good positions they get almost 50-60K applications.
 
wow 50-60K apps? thats quite ridiculous.

I am pretty sure thats what he said. I am trying to find the thread. I am not 100% sure though..I am sure the people who have worked in the recruiting side would know better.

---------- Post added at 12:03 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:53 AM ----------

I was wrong.. he had said 10K. Sorry.

there were 60 interviewees from that school. that means more interviewees from other schools. that means there's no telling how many people applied and didnt land an interview from even that school as well as from other schools. you can't interview everyone, obviously. there very well could have been far more than 700 apps. the BB where i'm at now in the NYC area literally received over 10,000 apps, interviewed about 250, and ultimately hired 10 new traders (reports with these stats are emailed internally by HR graduate recruiting team... i imagine other BBs will have similar stats). my BB has hired MORE traders than most BBs this year, keep in mind as well
 
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