Freemover, any chance to join a quantitative finance program for one semester

[AMEM]

Hello,

I would like to know if there is any chance to join one of the top quant. finance programs (columbia, CMU, NYU, Baruch, UCB etc...) as a freemover for one semester. Since my program (top european) allows me to realize an exchange semester as a freemover . I actually don't expect it, but who knows. If anyone has already gained some experiences i would be thankful if he could share it with me. The next question would be, is it worth to study there for one semester, taking lets say 4-6 courses? ..... Thanks

 

[Andy Nguyen]

It's a tough one, if very unlikely. Your best bet would be to find out which universities your school has an exchange program with, go there and take one or two courses as non-matriculated students. There are always loopholes in the system that allow things like this to happen but it requires very well knowledge of how the registration permission system works at each school.

The MFE curriculum is designed to follow a somewhat sequential order so it's unlikely that you can just jump in one semester and take a block of 4 courses (max you can take per semester).

It could be worth a try only if you want to get a sense of the intensity level at one of these top programs. My experience with those who sit in these programs is that they often can't keep up and drop out after a few weeks.

 

[AMEM]

Thank you for the quick response. I think we have with Columbia, NYU Stern, Chicago Booth, Cornell, UCLA some really prestigious schools as partner universities in the US. All these schools (expect NYU Stern, don't know how it would be with Courant) have top ranked quant. finance programs... I should probably contact someone from the program directly.
I will join a three semester program, and they recommend the exchange semester in the third semester, which would be Fall 2011, when most of the programs in the US also begin. I could take a few first semester courses,....We will see...