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COMPARE Columbia OR vs Baruch MFE

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It was like ~10-12K for 1.5 years in-state when I applied there, talk about a bargain!

That went up by ~50+% (in-state, the % is less for non-in-state since it went up by same dollar amt. and starting amt. is higher out of state) by the time I graduated because our state's wonderful legislature has been waging war on public education. And then up again due to the supplementary fee. But at least there has been added value to the program from the supplementary fee (I think it's currently refunded under certain conditions, but I'm no longer as concerned about the details since I graduated), the tuition hikes are just there to offset state budget cuts :(

Advait - as far as I can tell, fees are disclosed on the baruch mfe website. You should look there. If it's still not clear, you should contact them directly. I know they have an email and I know they answer it.
 
Advait - as far as I can tell, fees are disclosed on the baruch mfe website. You should look there. If it's still not clear, you should contact them directly. I know they have an email and I know they answer it.

They probably answer you since you're an alum! I've tried asking other stuff on numerous occasions and have got responded with severely banal remarks. I've also asked this question on this forum before and both the alumni and the Director completely ignored it even though he claims to maintain high levels of transparency with regards to the program (which is fine). I did apply this year and got rejected in spite of the fact the person who interviewed me for the 1st round concluded "he answered all the questions correctly" so the whole experience was personally perplexing and disconcerting to say the least. I have all pre-requisites covered with stellar grades (straight As from an Ivy League and a top institute in India) and there is almost no room for the Admissions Committee to have rejected my application given their application review process as stated on their website.

Also, a couple of statements on the Baruch MFE website based upon my interactions with one of the Baruch Admission Committee members and application experience are just blatantly false/lie.
 
Welcome to the real world. Everyone promises transparency, very few people actually deliver it.
 
I don't really have any questions, so I wouldn't know if they answer me or not.

I've tried asking other stuff on numerous occasions and have got responded with severely banal remarks

I would hate to break it to you, but if you are complaining that your rejection reply was not informative enough, you might be looking to work in the wrong industry...

I have all pre-requisites covered with stellar grades (straight As from an Ivy League and a top institute in India) and there is almost no room for the Admissions Committee to have rejected my application given their application review process as stated on their website.

Welcome to 50% of the applicants to the Baruch MFE program. When I applied, a perfect Math GRE score didn't get you to the 75th percentile, and I'm sure it's gotten more selective since. Like with any top program you are competing against people who went to top universities worldwide and have extensive records of achievement. Additionally, interviews are not there just to judge your academic qualities. If they were, they would be somewhat unnecessary. They are also there to gauge "fit", and my guess is, (unless you're just being bitter with rejection and this has caused a radical shift in your psyche), you let your attitude shine through, which is not exactly admission-worthy to say the least. But of course, I have no idea, being in no way affiliated with any admissions committee.

Additionally, since the expansion of pre-MFE classes, the probability of getting admitted not-through-pre-MFE route has dropped by my back-of-the-envelope estimates to somewhere in the 2-3% range.
 
Lyosha is right about the pre-MFE route, and there's a very good reason for this.
 
I would hate to break it to you, but if you are complaining that your rejection reply was not informative enough, you might be looking to work in the wrong industry...

No, this is not what I was implying. I did not even get a rejection email. However, even if I hypothetically was, your above quote as it stands make no sense to me given the fact that 25% of my current work is in the financial industry in the quant area.


Welcome to 50% of the applicants to the Baruch MFE program. When I applied, a perfect GRE score didn't get you to the 75th percentile, and I'm sure it's gotten more selective since. Like with any top program you are competing against people who went to top universities worldwide and have extensive records of achievement.

I never mentioned a word about my GRE score. Your argument about the selectivity of the program is senseless and to certain extent an indication of your ignorance about your alma mater assuming whatever your alma mater claims to be true is actually true. Baruch MFE APPARENTLY (which is incontrovertibly one of the blatant lies on the website. I can mathematically prove this if I am provided with some information) has an admissions philosophy of admitting any number of applicants who satisfy the admission standards of the program. So, there is absolutely no question of selectivity! Just think about it logically!

I went through your profile and you did not go to a top university (I'm sorry I'm being honest) and you made it, didn't you ? No offense, from what I can see, my profile at least on paper is significantly stronger than yours. There is unfortunately not one metric (I do not know your GPA) where you actually beat me. If you want I could share it with you with transcripts but it would be a futile exercise. I obviously do not mean this to belittle you. I'm merely stating that there is a contradiction of sorts here.

For the record, my interviewer was very happy with my "personality" as he could gauge it over the phone and he unfortunately could not come up with an incontrovertible reason as to why my application was denied. Apparently, every application after the 1 st interview is put to vote and he recommended a "Yes". He said that he does not know why the majority voted a "No". So, your speculation unfortunately is false.

The fact that I did not get admitted means little to me. I am merely divulging it in the interests of transparency.
 
Hmm, what if they looked at your older QN posts and some negativity shined through, as Lyosha said?

Because if you say something they dislike, you'll often get "smoked."
 
Hmm, what if they looked at your older QN posts and some negativity shined through, as Lyosha said? Because if you say something they dislike, you'll often get "smoked."

I did not say anything negative about Baruch MFE personally before my application was rejected. I was not sycophantic about it and there is no reason to be. I merely stated what I honestly felt about it. If the members of the Admission Committee are going to be so immature to the extent that they let their decisions be affected by the fact that I did not sing laurels and praises (since I was foolishly using a name that was not anonymous and since Andy for some reason does not want to allow members to post anonymously on public threads) on a public forum about their program, I'd see that as a blessing in disguise personally.
 
I went through your profile and you did not go to a top university (I'm sorry I'm being honest) and you made it, didn't you ? No offense, from what I can see, my profile at least on paper is significantly stronger than yours. There is unfortunately not one metric (I do not know your GPA) where you actually beat me. If you want I could share it with you with transcripts but it would be a futile exercise. I obviously do not mean this to belittle you. I'm merely stating that there is a contradiction of sorts here.

you-mad-bro.png
 
You are going about it the wrong way. It's black on white for you, and you're clearly reading the sentences, but somehow you're not comprehending the meaning of "any number of applicants who satisfy the admission standards of the program".

This means that:
1. Anyone qualified gets admitted
2. If you are not admitted, that means you are in some way not qualified.

You wonder out loud how you can be so accomplished on paper yet get rejected. But then as backing you compare whatever college you went to to whatever college I went to. This shows a lack of comprehension of the sentence "any number of applicants who satisfy the admission standards of the program" because you clearly think that admission into the Baruch MFE program is a race, when the website clearly says it is not - it is a qualification procedure.

So the only valid question to ask is "why did I get disqualified when you did not?" Lets believe for a moment you went to Harvard and got straight A's in everything from Archery to Arithmetic. Clearly you didn't get DQ'd by your academic record. So why bring it up over and over and over again if it is clearly not the answer? Personally, I can see a few negative qualities that you possess, and I've only known of your existence for ~12 hours.

At this point we are going in circles...
You: "I'm so smart, how could I get rejected?"
Me: "You probably weren't rejected because you weren't smart enough, look elsewhere, perhaps attitude?"
You: "But I'm smarter than you, how could I get rejected?"

etc.

Lets end it? You probably didn't get rejected because of your academic profile... look elsewhere for answers.
 
For the record, I never said I'm "so smart". Secondly, your perception of me is based on an information set that has no intersection with the information set with the Baruch MFE program. I only spoke to one person and I believe it went rather well and he was "happy" with the interview both in terms of technical competency, communication skills and personality as told to me by him. I said my application on paper was stronger than yours. That, as far as I understand, does not necessarily mean that I imply that I am "smarter" than you.

You can vouch for your program as much as you want and it ain't gonna mean a darn thing! I have better programs to choose from with the only issue being funds so I'll have to figure something out. Or, I'll just try going to an IIM later on. It's cool!

@ Joy : I'm not into V grade posters dude and if you think it was "cool" to use a poster instead of typing it out and saving time, I personally pity you. If you thought it was an innovative way to not have your post deleted or flagged, I pity you even more.
 
Also keep in mind that perhaps your reason for rejection cannot be disclosed, i.e. you asked a former boss to write you a recommendation letter, and he wrote "Advait must be the smartest guy in the world because he quit his job the day before we were going to fire him". <--- this (supposedly) actually happened to someone.

But as you can imagine if this were the case, you could not be informed of it due to contractual obligation on the side of Baruch MFE. Not saying this was the case, just sayin'.

I was using "smarter" as a broad term, clearly not entirely correctly, but rather just to make a point. I will be the first to admit that I did not possess the strongest academic resume' of my cohort.
 
@ Joy : I'm not into V grade posters dude and if you think it was "cool" to use a poster instead of typing it out and saving time, I personally pity you. If you thought it was an innovative way to not have your post deleted or flagged, I pity you even more.

images
 
Also keep in mind that perhaps your reason for rejection cannot be disclosed, i.e. you asked a former boss to write you a recommendation letter, and he wrote "Advait must be the smartest guy in the world because he quit his job the day before we were going to fire him". <--- this (supposedly) actually happened to someone.

This can't be possible in my case because if this were true, I wouldn't have been interviewed!
 
A wise person once said, "if you bite off more than you can chew, be prepared to spit it back out."

And don't forget - great things are already known, they don't need an introduction.
 
A wise person once said, "if you bite off more than you can chew, be prepared to spit it back out."

And don't forget - great things are already known, they don't need an introduction.

dogg-meme-generator-that-totally-blew-my-mind-17aed0.jpg
 
You are going about it the wrong way. It's black on white for you, and you're clearly reading the sentences, but somehow you're not comprehending the meaning of "any number of applicants who satisfy the admission standards of the program". This means that: 1. Anyone qualified gets admitted 2. If you are not admitted, that means you are in some way not qualified. You wonder out loud how you can be so accomplished on paper yet get rejected. But then as backing you compare whatever college you went to to whatever college I went to. This shows a lack of comprehension of the sentence "any number of applicants who satisfy the admission standards of the program" because you clearly think that admission into the Baruch MFE program is a race, when the website clearly says it is not - it is a qualification procedure.

Regardless of how you wanna spin it, I am convinced this whole admission philosophy is a sham! It is basically an ingeniously nefarious way to suck in potential applicants' 135 USD as application fees by having them believe they have a semblance of a chance when most of them quite frankly do not and it also helps you to beef up your admission statistics besides the increased revenue.


I was told by one of the members of the Admissions Committee that they were looking to interview ~100 applicants for round 1 and ~50 for round 2. Now, why would he indicate that they are assessing applications with a preconceived interview 1 and interview 2 slot size if it weren't true?! And if it is true, it is in direct contradiction with the Baruch MFE admissions' policy as they claim it! Essentially given your admission policy, a hypothetical scenario where, say, all 700 applicants apply, go through 1st round of interviews and go through 2nd round of interviews and accept the offer to create a batch size of 700 should have a finite non-zero positive probability. But, this is most certainly not the case.

Moreover, I've been directed towards another forum called chasedream.com unfortunately after my first round interview, a Chinese education forum, where all the questions asked in Interview 1 and Interview 2 are available in great detail with perfect solutions. Also, one interviewee was so snobbish that he wrote the equivalent of : "If you don't understand the question since the interviewer has a weird accent, just answer the questions in the order I've written since he asks the questions in the same order!"
Regardless of whether this is actually true or not, this is retardedly hilarious! The questions moreover haven't even changed over the years! This is ridiculous! Are the admission committee members naive or just downright lazy?!! I did not pay 135 USD to sign up for this biased ludicrous application review process!


Additionally, since the expansion of pre-MFE classes, the probability of getting admitted not-through-pre-MFE route has dropped by my back-of-the-envelope estimates to somewhere in the 2-3% range.

Consider this :

As per the Baruch MFE website, I believe the right way to interpret the admissions philosophy is that if you have completed all the prerequisites with a minimum of B (this is how they describe the requirements of a satisfactory application), have satisfactory communications skills, are a good fit to the program and do well on the interviews, you should be offered admission. Correct me if I am wrong!

Now, do you really believe that of all the applicants who apply, only 2-3% of the applicants satisfy the above conditions (given that in the case of an applicant who can understand Mandarin/Cantonese, the probability that they do well on the interviews ~1 if they do a bit of research!) If yes, have you completely lost it ?
 
I believe the right way to interpret
You can believe all you want, it won't make it reality.

Look, I'm sorry you got rejected. But honestly, I'm not here to be your therapist. Sorry.
 
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