"MFE program profile evaluation" master thread

[RajS]

Improving my application

Hi,
First, let me thank you guys for posting information on these forums. I had lot of questions about financial engineering and a lot of those questions got answered by going through the forum.
I graduated from Univ of Minnesota with MS in Computer Science more than six years ago. I had a good GPA (4.0) at that time, but that is long time ago. Since then, I have been working in Microsoft as a software design engineer. In Dec, I took CFA level 1 exam and I think I will make through it.
I am planningn to apply for FE programs for 2009 admission cycle. What are good ways of improving my application? Would it really strengthen my application if I take CFA level2, as opposed to, say, some Math courses in some community college/online? I might have to brush up my math skills a little bit before joining any program, but except to strengthen my application, math courses may not help me so much for the FE program itself.
Anyone has any suggestions as to how I can strengthen my resume?
Thanks
Raj.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

You should view CFA as a long term project and math as a present need to get into MFE. CFA is not gonna help you with the application if you don't get good background in math. Also, by refreshing math, you will have a better chance at getting 800 GRE Q. Just in case you haven't known, you will have to take 2 math courses in the Baruch MFE program (calculus-based probability and stochastic calculus). Just ask any student who currently taking the first course to see how much time they are spending on that course
By the way, if you get admitted in 2009, you will have the same professor who teaching probability now so the more reason to take math seriously.

 

[RajS]

Improving my application

Thanks a lot Andy for the info!

After doing some online research, I found one refresher math program offered by UC Berkley for FE applicants: MFE Prospective - For Prospective Students - Pre-Program Courses - Haas School of Business.
There is one financial engineering certificate program offered by Columbia Univ that is math intensive, but it is pretty expensive and takes one year to complete: CVN - Columbia Video Network

Are there any other math programs/courses/certifications that you can think of that can be helpful in the admission process/FE program? I can do self-study as well, though I am not sure if that helps in getting into the porgram in any way. I can try to take subject GRE in maths, but that would be an overkill for me, from where I stand.
Thanks
Raj.

 

[Jason WU]

Profile evaluation needed

Hi guys, I am new here. This is a wonderful forum, and Baruch sounds to be a great school.
Please evaluate my profile:

Positive:
1) Solid Math Background. Top3 Undergraduate Math major in China, with 3.69/4.0 GPA
GRE: 530V/800Q+5.0; GRE MATH Subject: 850, 95%; TOEFL IBT: 113/120
2) Some exposure to both Finance and Programing courses, with Straight A grades. (Programing: VB, C/C++)

Negative:
1) Barely any related working/intern experience in the finance field :-k ...

Concering Baruch's career service, will my situation be hard to got a job after graduation?

Thanks in adcance

 

[alain]

Hi guys, I am new here. This is a wonderful forum, and Baruch sounds to be a great school.
Please evaluate my profile:

Positive:
1) Solid Math Background. Top3 Undergraduate Math major in China, with 3.69/4.0 GPA
GRE: 530V/800Q+5.0; GRE MATH Subject: 850, 95%; TOEFL IBT: 113/120
2) Some exposure to both Finance and Programing courses, with Straight A grades. (Programing: VB, C/C++)

Negative:
1) Barely any related working/intern experience in the finance field :-k ...

Concering Baruch's career service, will my situation be hard to got a job after graduation?

Thanks in adcance

Don't worry about getting a job now. Your main concern should be to get into one of the MFE programs. The job situation will sort itself out later.

 

[Jason WU]

Thanks alain.
Just done reading some of the threads here, and I got more insight about the Baruch's MFE program

 

[dstefan]

Hi guys, I am new here. This is a wonderful forum, and Baruch sounds to be a great school.
Please evaluate my profile:

Positive:
1) Solid Math Background. Top3 Undergraduate Math major in China, with 3.69/4.0 GPA
GRE: 530V/800Q+5.0; GRE MATH Subject: 850, 95%; TOEFL IBT: 113/120
2) Some exposure to both Finance and Programing courses, with Straight A grades. (Programing: VB, C/C++)

Negative:
1) Barely any related working/intern experience in the finance field :-k ...

Concering Baruch's career service, will my situation be hard to got a job after graduation?

Thanks in adcance

Excellent Subject score - congratulations!

As for the job search, we assist all students with it, and are usually very successful of helping our graduates obtain the type of job they are looking for. Of course, this is a rather premature conversation to have in greater detail now

Good luck!

 

[Jason WU]

Excellent Subject score - congratulations!

As for the job search, we assist all students with it, and are usually very successful of helping our graduates obtain the type of job they are looking for. Of course, this is a rather premature conversation to have in greater detail now

Good luck!

Thanks for the encouragement Mr. Director of the program
As math majors, that score is what we expected, since in fact the test does not go much in depth for those advanced topics and after all that is what I spent 3 years learning

Hope that a strong academic background may offset lack of related working experience :-k

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Just done reading some of the threads here, and I got more insight about the Baruch's MFE program

I think prospective students to Baruch program have a tremendous benefit of perusing this community to gain some insight about the program, the students and what it's like to study there.
Keep reading. There are over 10,000 posts of it

 

[Jason WU]

I think prospective students to Baruch program have a tremendous benefit of perusing this community to gain some insight about the program, the students and what it's like to study there.
Keep reading. There are over 10,000 posts of it

Sure it is. There is a whole lot to dig from the Chat with the Director, very informative :D

 

[Steve RR]

Please evaluate my chances...

Here we go again...
1) NYU
2) CMU
3) Columbia
4) Cornell
5) Berkely

Undergrad: University of Maryland

Majors: Finance, Econ, and Math

GPA: 3.27

Math Classes: Took all the major ones, but got some bad grades (D's) in upper level linear algebra and PDE's. I got a B after re-taking each. Mostly because I took a class freshmen year that sought out to cover way too much material (all of calc, linear algebra, some Diff EQ and analysis). The class is no longer offered. I'll be explaining that on my app.

Stats: Took stats and probability, but no stochastics. Took classes on options where we derived the black scholes.

Comp Sci: Took a class on C and another on scientific computing (MATLAB)...got a C in both, learned SAS, SQL and Python on the job

Other grades: my grades did follow a downward trend towards the end

GRE: 800M, 600 V, 5.0 AWA

GMAT: 750 (49M/42V), 5.5 AWA

Work experience: 3+ years of work experience at capital one as a business analyst in subprime card (lots of big results, leadership, but aside from building some spline regression models, not much "quant" experience)

Other Qualifications: In a week, I'll officially be able to write the letters CFA after my name

I keep going back and forth between thinking I have no chance and that I'm a near shoe in. Thoughts?

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Yours is a tough case. No wonder you feel "I keep going back and forth between thinking I have no chance and that I'm a near shoe in."
Tell us why you select those 5 programs so we can tell you if your reasoning makes sense or not.

 

[Steve RR]

NYU and CMU also have dual degree programs with the MBA, something I'm very interested in.

I like CMU's curriculum seems more complete and well-rounded than other school's.

I am primarily mathematically focused, so NYU is also a good fit. Being in NY doesn't hurt either.

I missed the boat for Columbia's dual MFE+MBA, but it's still not too late to apply to their financial math department, althoug there will be no dual degree there. Similar to NYU, columbia has top profs and excellent location.

Cornell and Berkley I might apply to as a last ditch effort if everything else falls through. Cornell has a lot of comp sci pre-reqs that I don't have I Berkley I may apply to if all others fall through. I'm not sold on their ability to attract top recruiters (of course I could be dead wrong here).

 

[alain]

Since you didn't list Baruch in your choices... I think you won't have much of a chance... if you want to find out, apply to those schools.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Fair enough. So you have done some preliminary research.
However, I'm not totally convinced that you have researched each of them well enough. Have you talked to their alumni, students, faculty and find out what their students do after graduation ?
What are other programs you have looked at and decided not to apply ?
How many is from this list www.quantnet.com/wiki ?

Just to be clear, none of us here is qualified to give you a definite answer to your question(s). But as current/alumni/practitioner in the field, we are qualified to give you pointed direction and show you something you may have overlooked.

Now back to your question, your chance of getting into those program is a random number in [0,1]
Your biggest asset would be your CFA designation and some experience.

You want to do mathematically focused program but somehow your math courses background gives me uneasy feeling.
GRE score is good but your grades in programming/math courses are a big turn off.

What you want to get from a program ? Have you thought of doing an MBA or Master in Finance ?

 

[dstefan]

the test does not go much in depth for those advanced topics and after all that is what I spent 3 years learning

When I took the test about 10% of the people were getting the maximum score, so the test was less revealing that way. Top 5% is really excellent.

Hope that a strong academic background may offset lack of related working experience :-k

So long as it becomes clear from your application why you want to pursue a career in finance, you should do very well when applying to NYU, Columbia, Cornell, Stanford, Chicago, Michigan, CMU...
By tha way, when did you decide to apply to the Baruch MFE Program?

 

[dstefan]

Interesting - would you give up an extra year of income to do a dual MBA+MFE degree?

 

[Jason WU]

When I took the test about 10% of the people were getting the maximum score, so the test was less revealing that way. Top 5% is really excellent.



So long as it becomes clear from your application why you want to pursue a career in finance, you should do very well when applying to NYU, Columbia, Cornell, Stanford, Chicago, Michigan, CMU...
By tha way, when did you decide to apply to the Baruch MFE Program?

Thanks Mr Director, I decided when I went through this forum
I heard some of the "big name schools" do not support much to their students' job-hunting, so I looked up specifically for schools that provide good career services, and Baruch is one of them

I am applying for some other schools too so as to increase my chance of getting in ...

 

[Steve RR]

You're right, I have not researched all of them. I did, however, do some in depth research on the schools I was planning on applying to (CMU, NYU, and Columbia). My research was 100% based on reading blogs, forums, and scouring the schools' websites. You're right, talking to people is essential before making a decision. I need to do that.
I may have seen the wiki sight at some point. It looked vaguely familiar. I definately didn't use it extensively, otherwise I would have rememmbered it.

I have considred an MBA. So much so that I'm applying to five programs. All of the math programs I'm applying to offer a dual degree with the MBA. While I do want to get the MBA, I also want to learn the technical side of things. I think the tools I learn there will last me the rest of my life (no substitute for math). A dual degree at NYU is actually my #1 choice.

The other schools I looked at were Cornell, Stanford, Berkley, and MIT. All of these have pre-reqs that I can not meet. As for MS Finance, the only program that I looked at was Princeton. My main hesitation there is that I fear that there will be a lot of overlap with the CFA. Do you know if that is the case?

As for the math grades...they are what they are. I do plan on including an explanation in my essay about how I was a triple major and took that one class freshmen year. When I first took advanced linear algebra and PDE's, I spent most of my time in the beginning reviewing the pre-requesites that I "learned" in my freshment year class. When I took math classes where the pre-reqs weren't taught in that freshmen year class, I got A's. Unfortunately linear algebra and PDE's are two of the more important math classes.

As for the compsci...there's really no excuse for those grades. I didn't enjoy the classes and didn't take them seriously. All I focused on there was trying to pass. Not something I can really say on essay. I did show an ability to pick up SAS, SQL, and Python very quickly at work (relative to my peers)...my current manager will more than likely write something about that.

Would reading a more detailed version of the above (minus the not caring about compsci classes as an undergrad) ease your concerns about the math? Just curious.

I understand that no one is qualified to give a definate answer. Only the adcom's of each school are.

Thanks for responding. It's always nice to get a fresh perspective.

 

[Steve RR]

It's not an extra year of income. It's a 2.5 year program at CMU. At NYU it's a 3 year program, but you start working after two years and take classes part time the third year (mostly, if not all, quant classes). I don't know how I'll be able to work and take all the quant classes part time at the same time. Could get hectic.