MFE Profile Evaluation-2022 / Turkish Girl with Econ background

[raspberry]

Hello everyone!
I am in my masters application process for a while but I am really in the dark about how realistic my school targets are, would love to get your eyes on it.

Major : Economics & Management (double major)
Gpa: 3.64/4.0
Relevant Coursework : calculus I & II (A-), statistics I&II, Econometrics, Linear algebra (Pass) , R programming (D) , Machine Learning Financial Applications (A+), Algorithmic Trading (A+, graduate course), + bunch of finance & econ courses

GRE: 169 Quant - 157 Verbal
TOEFL : 112

Targets:
1) Columbia MFE
2)Berkeley MFE
3)UCLA MFE
4)MIT mfin
5)Chicago Financial Mathematics
6)NYU MFE
7)CMU
8)Yale master in asset mng

 

[Daniel Duffy]

Some general remarks

1. Strengthening of maths skills is a good idea, in partricular more focus on analysis type stuff beyond linear algebra and its applications in Econometrics Some universities have ODE/PDE as prerequisite probably because they are important in their own right as well as promoting skills in real analysis/calculus.
2. C++ and Python skills are probably the two most important languages at the moment.

 

[Kaiser]

So, I was in a similiar position a year ago. I was studying Economics & Operational Research in Turkey and applying to major MFE programs and managed to get some interviews and offers. My top suggestion would be, also consider UK programs, there are pretty solid programs out there which are cheaper. Secondly, take some additional math courses immideately. I would say Differential Equations is just extremely important, also probability and statistics courses help immensely. Thirdly, even if your background is not quantish you can present it more quantish (for example you can refer to the analytical parts in your VC experience etc.). Finally, try to obtain good score from GRE (170 quant would be very beneficial, obviously).

 

[raspberry]

Some general remarks

1. Strengthening of maths skills is a good idea, in partricular more focus on analysis type stuff beyond linear algebra and its applications in Econometrics Some universities have ODE/PDE as prerequisite probably because they are important in their own right as well as promoting skills in real analysis/calculus.
2. C++ and Python skills are probably the two most important languages at the moment.

Thank you very much for your response Mr. Duffy
I have recently signed up to a C++ course and numerical analysis but i will also take Differential Equations.
Although I was not sure if me taking these classes currently would help me in my ongoing applications.

 

[raspberry]

So, I was in a similiar position a year ago. I was studying Economics & Operational Research in Turkey and applying to major MFE programs and managed to get some interviews and offers. My top suggestion would be, also consider UK programs, there are pretty solid programs out there which are cheaper. Secondly, take some additional math courses immideately. I would say Differential Equations is just extremely important, also probability and statistics courses help immensely. Thirdly, even if your background is not quantish you can present it more quantish (for example you can refer to the analytical parts in your VC experience etc.). Finally, try to obtain good score from GRE (170 quant would be very beneficial, obviously).

Hii Kaiser thanks a lot for the response!
I forgot to mention in the post but i got 169 in quant,157 in verbal in the GRE.hope that will do, not much difference between 170-169 i assume?

About London programs, I could not find much quant program. I am considering Imperial's Financial Technology, but I am very much open to suggestions.

Also, I am trying to show my background as quant as possible by highligthing my ML and algorithmic trading courses, hope these will work.

by the way, regarding your suggestion about taking math courses.Would those help if i just recently started to take them, since most of my applications are right now?

 

[Kaiser]

Hii Kaiser thanks a lot for the response!
I forgot to mention in the post but i got 169 in quant,157 in verbal in the GRE.hope that will do, not much difference between 170-169 i assume?

About London programs, I could not find much quant program. I am considering Imperial's Financial Technology, but I am very much open to suggestions.

Also, I am trying to show my background as quant as possible by highligthing my ML and algorithmic trading courses, hope these will work.

by the way, regarding your suggestion about taking math courses.Would those help if i just recently started to take them, since most of my applications are right now?

First of all, yes those math courses would still help since you can show that you are in progress. Best MFE - quant programs in UK are MSc Computational and Mathematical Finance at Oxford, MSc Mathematics in Finance at Imperial, MSc Finmath at LSE, MSc Risk Management & Financial Engineering at Imperial. You can try them. By the way, your GRE score is pretty decent, so, you are good to go. I am currently at Imperial. Please do not hesitate to ask any questions, I would gladly help.

 

[Daniel Duffy]

Regading ODE/PDE courses, this course does all the ODE and PDE stuff in other generic engineering-style courses as well as finance-related topics such as popular Black Scholes, CIR, HW PDE + FDM, as well as my own research on resolving a number of misconceptions on how PDE is used in finance,

Online Courses :: Datasim

www.datasim.nl

And the course is supported by my new PDE book

Numerical Methods in Computational Finance: A Partial Differential Equation (PDE/FDM) Approach

<p>This book is a detailed and step-by-step introduction to the mathematical foundations of ordinary and partial differential equations, their approximation by the finite difference method and applications to computational finance. The book is structured so that it can be read by beginners...

www.wiley.com

The C++ code for these models can be found here.

Amazon.com: Financial Instrument Pricing Using C++ (Wiley Finance) eBook : Duffy, Daniel J.: Kindle Store

Amazon.com: Financial Instrument Pricing Using C++ (Wiley Finance) eBook : Duffy, Daniel J.: Kindle Store

www.amazon.com

And the related C++ courses are here on Quantnet.

All in all, it is a fairly comprehensive package. + coaching.

 

[Chacinluis]

Some general remarks

1. Strengthening of maths skills is a good idea, in partricular more focus on analysis type stuff beyond linear algebra and its applications in Econometrics Some universities have ODE/PDE as prerequisite probably because they are important in their own right as well as promoting skills in real analysis/calculus.
2. C++ and Python skills are probably the two most important languages at the moment.

Completely agree. Look into the curriculum of each of the programs and see how mathematically rigorous they are. Programs like Baruch, Columbia and NYU fin math are known to be heavily theoretical — in these programs having a strong grip in probability, linear algebra and real analysis (and measure theory to be quite honest) is expected in order to properly understand Vector Spaces of Random Variables, Martingales, Brownian Motion, Lp-spaces, Change in Probability/ change in metric(especially Girsanov Theorem), sigma algebras, etc that are usually part of a Stochastic Calculus course. Other programs like MIT's, are part of part of a business school and will not be as math heavy.