Join Temple Fox School of Business or wait for IIT Stuart?

[kunalpatil]

I would really appreciate it if any of you could give me some advice on the situation I am in.

- Area of Interest: MS FE - Fall 2011
- GRE: 1250 (700Q, 550V)
- 4 year undergraduate engineering degree with plenty of math
- 2.5 years non-finance work ex
- Offered admission at Fox School of Business (Temple University, Philadelphia) with no aid.
- Awaiting responses from IIT Stuart, UIUC, Cornell & UMich
- Received rejects from Columbia, NYU & Claremont considering my low Quant GRE score (I’m guessing)
- Taking the GRE again is not an option with my current 12 hours work schedules

I am contemplating over taking up the course at Fox, however I am a little concerned about the following points:
1. 10 month fast track course may be a tight squeeze for anyone with no formal education in Finance
2. The university seems reputed for its Finance & Management courses but the FE course is new and un-ranked
3. Don’t have access to their placement statistics and I doubt they are great now as some seniors on this forum seem to say about Quant jobs for campus placements outside of NYC


Given a choice should it be:
- UIUC (for their very new MSFE again, costing $51k with no aid & hoping for an admit of course)
- IIT Chicago (hoping for aid and an admit of course) OR
- Fox?

I have already spent a lot of money and time on this entire process and can’t afford to defer this to the next year.

 

[NNair]

Someone once said, "I have seen questions like "I got admitted into X,Y,Z. Anyone knows what the job, internship situation is like at X,Y,Z ?" I mean how did they decide to apply at X,Y,Z in the first place. Seriously."

I think these sort of questions/posts mainly come up (like in the post above) when you get into your 'backup' schools rather than your 'top-choice' ones.

kunalpatil, you should also ask the question: "If Fox were the only choice, should I go for it?"

 

[kunalpatil]

Hmm... I guess what you have mentioned makes sense! I really shud be askin that question too...
It would really help if Fox Alumni could post some replies..

 

[atreides]

Hmm... I guess what you have mentioned makes sense! I really shud be askin that question too...
It would really help if Fox Alumni could post some replies..

Have you sought them out? Try searching Linkedin. Have you called the school to ask for placement stats?? You need to be proactive about this. A lot of subpar schools out there will happily take your money, but you have to make sure that you're maximizing your expected utility and ROI

 

[kunalpatil]

I guess I will do that today itself.. Will call them and get my doubts clarified? But I am wondering whther the university will give me any figures as such.. Lets hope they are honest about their stats..

 

[NNair]

Isn't IIT offering an MSF program while Fox offers MSFE?
Anyone who can tell how the repute of each of these would help in securing a job? Which would ideally score over the other?

 

[lonely]

I know one guy last year who graduated from fox mfe , out of 25 guys he was the only one got job immediately upon graduation that's because he once worked at Merrill so one of my ex boss helped him get placed.

 

[kunalpatil]

1 out of 25??? Sounds like they have almost no placements... I am tending to think IIT mite be a better option now.. But I dont know about getting an MSF degree..

 

[Joy Pathak]

1 out of 25??? Sounds like they have almost no placements... I am tending to think IIT mite be a better option now.. But I dont know about getting an MSF degree..

IIT has a huge class for this upcoming year. Almost 400. They have almost close to no support in terms of placement. There is a placement/career services department that have a job board and companies do post on the job board but it is mostly upto the individual to secure themselves jobs/internships. Location is great, and curriculum is great if you have what it takes to put it to use.

 

[mikee]

Hey. I also was admitted to fox's mfe and had been talking to the director a while back and I didn't get a good vibe about job placement. Also, I asked about the programming aspect and was told they use MATLAB (I'm not saying this is bad but isn't c++ the big one to use?) I would think they have a decent philly network and I wouldn't mind working there since it's close to home for me but it still comes back to if I get a job at all... If anyone else has any other info, please share!

 

[atreides]

IIT has a huge class for this upcoming year. Almost 400. They have almost close to no support in terms of placement. There is a placement/career services department that have a job board and companies do post on the job board but it is mostly upto the individual to secure themselves jobs/internships. Location is great, and curriculum is great if you have what it takes to put it to use.

400...this is a lot of people. IIT has obvious advantages with their location, but I 'm still at a loss as to why they choose to run their program with a non-chalant attitude as far as placement goes. How much would it really cost to enlist the services of 2 or 3 quant headhunters to help place students in the program??

How many people applied to the program?? I would like to know the admit %

I guess since they keep receiving hordes of applications from Chinese and Indian students, they have no incentive whatsoever to improve their program on the placement front. No matter how bad a product is, if someone is willing to pay top dollar for it, you're still in business.

 

[kunalpatil]

400? that is just crazy...... I dont know how much attention they would be able to pay to every student.. But somehow I am getting this feeling that campus placements are happening only for students from Top Univs like Columbia, Baruch, Cornell etc..
Does that mean these students from other places are not getting jobs at all?
I have also heard that students do get jobs based on the amount of networking they do.. Does that really happen?
Coming back to my earlier question.. IIT degree is a MSF with a concentration in Financial Engineering where as the Fox degree states MSFE.. What kind of an impact would it have on the job prospects?

 

[kunalpatil]

@Mike.. Which university did you finally select?

 

[mikee]

I'm leaning towards Rutgers math finance at the moment

 

[enthusiast]

I would really appreciate it if any of you could give me some advice on the situation I am in.

-
I am contemplating over taking up the course at Fox, however I am a little concerned about the following points:
1. 10 month fast track course may be a tight squeeze for anyone with no formal education in Finance
2. The university seems reputed for its Finance & Management courses but the FE course is new and un-ranked
3. Don’t have access to their placement statistics and I doubt they are great now as some seniors on this forum seem to say about Quant jobs for campus placements outside of NYC

I am a current Temple MSFE student and can answer some of your questions.

1. 10 month course- (9 classes + 1 project). You can do the course part time (if possible) giving you enough time to digest the material and supplement (extra reading/research) what is being taught in class. If you don't have appropriate background in Finance, Math and Programming any course will be a struggle, atleast in the beginning. After that it depends on you.
2. Only a handful of universities are recognized by wall street in this field. The quality of teaching is good at the MSFE program.
3. Placement stats are not good. Exceptional students do end up getting jobs. It is much more difficult compared to "elite" programs students.

Programming is done in C++ and MATLAB. The 2 courses that use C++ are Continous Time Finance and Advanced Option Theory. I don't think UIUC, UMich, IIT would give you an extra placement advantage either (although the are good school in a general non-MSFE sense). It all comes down to what kind of effort you are willing to put in. Being an international student also shifts the equation quite a bit in terms of cost and selecting a "elite" MSFE program.

 

[kunalpatil]

@enthusiast, thank you for such a coherent and absolute response to my query.

You said, "You can do the course part time (if possible)" - could you explain what that means? I thought the Fox MSFE was only a Full Time 10 month course.

Also, how large is the programming component here, considering I'm from a non-programming background?
I have completed certifications for C/C++ a couple of years ago so I am familiar with the languages, but not fluent.
Do we have refresher or other such courses for Programming that I could/should take prior to the term commencement?

And last, would you recommend the MSFE at Fox to a determined and focused student? (over IIT Chicago's MSF?)

 

[kunalpatil]

Also, would it be cheaper to live in Philadelphia than in Chicago? Will also have to consider things like getting part time jobs to pay for miscellaneous expenses..

 

[enthusiast]

@enthusiast, thank you for such a coherent and absolute response to my query.

You said, "You can do the course part time (if possible)" - could you explain what that means? I thought the Fox MSFE was only a Full Time 10 month course.

Also, how large is the programming component here, considering I'm from a non-programming background?
I have completed certifications for C/C++ a couple of years ago so I am familiar with the languages, but not fluent.
Do we have refresher or other such courses for Programming that I could/should take prior to the term commencement?

And last, would you recommend the MSFE at Fox to a determined and focused student? (over IIT Chicago's MSF?)

1. Part time vs Full time. If you are already on say H1 visa (or US citizen / permanent resident) then you can study part time. If you are on F1 visa then you have to study full time. If you look at the website there is a part time schedule listed.

2. There are no refresher courses at Temple, but I strongly advise that you brush up or take a course on C++. It will help you no matter where you go. For most programs it is a prerequisite.

3. A recommendation to select a program is a very personal issue. There is no right answer that fits all. If you are US based, study hard and network well then I would definitely recommend it. If you are an international student (and no relevant finance work experience) then really hard before joining any MSFE program (including IIT,UIUC, UMich) that does not gaurantee a job (almost surely.... FE students will get the pun). Being an international student will make things much harder at the non-elite MSFE programs. The key is to understand what you are getting into and what is required to succeed. You need to work extra hard, network and learn more than your piers to suceed. Tuition should also be considered when deciding.

4. Cost of living either in Chicago or Philly would not be very different.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

@enthusiast
Look forward to your review of the program for Quantnet. Let me know whenever you are ready.

 

[enthusiast]

@enthusiast
Look forward to your review of the program for Quantnet. Let me know whenever you are ready.

Sure, I will let you know.