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In a bit of despair...

What schools would you recommend, given the 3.23 GPA and 770 GRE quants on the downside, with several MFE courses and blue sky research experience (and at least one phenomenal recommendation letter) on the upside?
 
You can start from program rankings and start doing research about the programs. You have plenty of information available online.

For Computer Science for instance, any of the top 40 programs have strong research areas. Depending on your preference (from artificial intelligence and databases to advanced operating systems and visualization) you will reduce the list. If you know well enough the program then you will build a good 'statement of purpose' and your whole application.
After that, with a bit of luck, anything is possible ...
 
I'm very strongly considering applied math. Here's why:

Lehigh University | Blank Template

Unfortunately, he's Lehigh's ONLY focused financial engineer, although my optimization professor I'm sure would make an EXTREMELY good quant if she wasn't utterly guaranteed tenure by now (though there's still hope that Simons or Shaw would snatch her up anyway).
 
Adam said:
You're probably not going to want to hear this -- I certainly didn't when I was just out of college -- but you're supposed to be miserable in your 20s. Your 20s are the decade when you're supposed to take some crappy job you don't really want while trying desperately to figure out what the hell you're supposed to do with your life. It sucks, but trust me, it gets better. It really does. You just need to get through this part first.
Click to expand...
This may be the wisest post I've ever seen on Quantnet.
 
If I were you then I would try to do a masters degree at a slightly better school than you are at right now (don't get me wrong, it may be a good school but I never even heared of it). I am thinking on the level of Cornell, Univ Michigan, UCLA, etc.

If you want to do something quantitative then MSc in Statistics or Computer Science seems like a good choice. If you want to do more of a "qualitative" degree then I wouldn't bother, wait a few years, and just do an MBA (but again, try to do it at a reputable university - at least top 15).

You may have missed a lot of deadlines for programs in the U.S, but there may be a few possibilities. I am pretty sure Courant has a late deadline for applicants for their masters program (Columbia may be the same way, but I am not sure). So just look around and apply.

Programs in Europe are also a possibility. There its a little easier since you need to contact the professor you want to work with directly, so there is no bs like admission committee that your application needs to go through.

If your last few years gpa is good then there is a chance of being admitted into an alright program given strong letters of reference. If you want to talk about admissions to Statistics programs then I would be happy to talk to you about it since I went (and also going) through this process.

Hope this post helps.
 
Thanks for that.

My GPA after my two disaster semesters (freshman spring, sophomore fall, with 2.98 and 2.52 respectively) have been 3.10, 3.88, 3.18, and 3.26 respectively on cumulative, and in all cases higher on the major. Not phenomenal, and not terrible, either. According to the head of career services, I'm running an extremely solid GPA and 3.0 is the top 30% cutoff for engineering. That said, it belies the fact that I was enrolled in stochastic processes by my second sophomore semester and have taken quite a few MFE courses here at Lehigh already.

Columbia's deadline was Dec 1st. I'm planning on applying to CMU and Baruch if I do apply. CMU is rated the best, and Baruch is the economic choice with an excellent job placement record, which is the point of the MFE.
 
I meant Master programs in Stats/Math/CS and not FE. Try to find a funded program or just apply for a PhD.

I think getting into CMU or Baruch may be difficult given your profile, but you can try anyway...
 
Well here's an update...since I applied to Stony Brook's applied math/stat a month late for the PhD program, I got shot down, so no grad school for me.

I'm first in line for a stat-arb trading position at Echo Trade (should one become available). A senior equity trader VP came by to our school looking specifically for the "quants" (VWA-HA!...actually, there is a PhD quant in the class...my favorite professor's jewel PhD student...she's a really wonderful lady and just heart-warming to be around.), and I was the only one that met him from the quant end of the university, along with 3 other people from the business school. Three of us got treated to dinner, we had a great talk, and so, I'm first in line from the entire university for any stat-arb positions.

Of course, I'm also looking into the Japanese auto manufacturers for any positions which could benefit from OR. Vanilla finance puts me to sleep and there's no way I can work xty hour days simply grinding along. I need to do something intellectually challenging or I get irritated too quickly.

Also...in case I literally get nothing, I'm at least keeping a daily blog (http://ikquant.wordpress.com) to keep busy. Thank goodness for tenth grade writing abilities which got me out of a year of English of college.

Oh, and then there's the 60th anniversary of the OR department coming up in six days, where I'll present some undergrad QF research that I currently have going.

Also, I'll communicate more often through the blog, because most of the time, I get a "all servers are busy" or timeout here on QN when trying to access my account for the most part, so...yeah.
 
So guys, VERY FRANKLY: I think the demand for quants will be growing and that is the reason why I am leaving ever shrinking Electrical Engineering to join MSMF.

What do you guys think. Getting a job after the MSMF program will be difficult. And I am not talking about the top ten programs like CMU, but might be BU or Kent.
 
subhrain said:
So guys, VERY FRANKLY: I think the demand for quants will be growing and that is the reason why I am leaving ever shrinking Electrical Engineering to join MSMF.

What do you guys think. Getting a job after the MSMF program will be difficult. And I am not talking about the top ten programs like CMU, but might be BU or Kent.
Click to expand...

Any reason why you don't want to aim for a top 10 program? Also, don't bother with BU - it is a waste of both time and money.
 
The thing is, I probably have a very low gre verbal score. My Q is 790, but V is only 370. I might try to take it again, but who knows whether the score will go up or not.

Apart from that I could apply to a top program.
 
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