Hi everyone,
I am seriously considering going to graduate school in financial engineering. So far, I based my preferences on the programs' rank (that I found here) and curriculum. Schools that stood out include CMU, University of Chicaco, Baruch, Berkeley, and NYU. It would be of great help and stimulus to me if anyone could advise me regarding how I should proceed during this year to maximize my chances of getting into the above mentioned schools, or suggest a different collection of schools that I am more likely to get into. Below I describe my current situation. I know it is lengthy, but I would be endlessly thankful if you took the time to read it.
General:
I had finished my undergraduate degree at University of California, San Diego with a GPA 3.4 and a double major in cognitive science and probability & statistics and a minor in economics in December 2009. My GPA in probability & statistics, considered alone, was 3.5. Also, I was a transfer student from a community college (does it matter a lot?).
Regarding GRE, I will begin studying today and take the actual test most likely at the end of July. I took a sample test yesterday and scored 500 on verbal and 780 on quantitative. Should I take CFA I exam as well? It seems like studying for it will be a great way to acquire further and more thorough knowledge of finance. In addition, I am thinking about taking math subject GRE as well just to test myself as well as learn some new things here and there. What score would justify my spending time of math subject GRE?
Recommendation Letters:
There is a teacher from the computer science department and a teacher from the mathematics department who will gladly give me recommendations. I took my first course in artificial intelligence from the prior and my last course in stochastic processes from the latter. Additionally, I should also have recommendations from my current boss (more info below) as well as from my mentor for the internship (more info below).
Mathematics:
In mathematics, I have taken just about 20 upper-division, though all undergraduate, courses including 7 (all of them) courses in statistics, 4 (all of them) in probability and stochastic processes, and 4 in artificial intelligence and statistical inference. I am currently learning Bayesian statistics from 'Bayesian Theory' by Bernardo and 'Probability Theory' by Jaynes. After looking at a lot of MFE programs, I should have everything that is needed and more in terms of mathematical prerequisites and recommendations.
Programming:
In terms of programming, I have been working as a programmer analyst while going to school for 2 years and used SQL, VBA, Access, and Excel. During my last quarter, I developed and adapted a green apple detector entirely in C for my project-based internship at a computer vision company that specializes in building harvesting robots. I am currently employed as an algorithms engineer at a search engine optimization and marketing company where I work with SQL Server, Java, Perl, Matlab, and R. Although I have not used
C++ professionally, it is the programming language I am most comfortable and have most (personal) experience with. Although I feel confident that my programming skills should meet and potentially exceed the expectations of most of the MFE programs out there, I am not entirely sure. Please let me know if there is there anything I am missing here, ie should I explicitly take a course in
C++?
Economics and Finance:
My major concern rests with the economics and finance side of my background. I took two upper division courses in microeconomics though only a lower division course in macroeconomics and public policy. Additionally, I took courses in decision theory, mathematical finance, econometrics and financial markets. Unfortunately, I completely screwed up the financial markets course. I forgot to bring my notes to the open-notes exam, and I missed a few lectures as well. At the moment I plan to either retake this course or to take the next course at UCLA this Fall. Should I retake the course? I already revisited the entirety of the material from that course, and I feel confident about every single concept in it now. This is where I need advise the most as I have no idea what I should do.
Regards,
Vitaly
