"MFE program profile evaluation" master thread

[Sushant]

Personally I think that getting an internship in trading with GS is a great achievement and really strengthens your profile. After all, I guess that kind of internship is what even MFEs would consider themselves fortunate to get.

 

[Freakonometrics]

Not saying you're a sure fire for top programme's just because of your internship at GS, but it is a VERY strong positive indicator for future employment (let alone the fact that you have someone willing to write a LoR for you). As you can probably figure out yourselves, any top programme wants their candidates to go to the top firms.

 

[ahe]

Personally I think that getting an internship in trading with GS is a great achievement and really strengthens your profile. After all, I guess that kind of internship is what even MFEs would consider themselves fortunate to get.

Not saying you're a sure fire for top programme's just because of your internship at GS, but it is a VERY strong positive indicator for future employment (let alone the fact that you have someone willing to write a LoR for you). As you can probably figure out yourselves, any top programme wants their candidates to go to the top firms.

Thank you both so much for the input... But do you think the fact that I'm not a math major/lack a few of the math courses needed, will basically counteract that positive impact?

Just trying to get a general sense here, so that if it's just a wild idea I'll plan for other options...

 

[Qgurl]

the question is more like, between your application and handful of 3.8-4.0s from top universities across the world with the right backgrounds (programming / mathematics ) and demonstrated grades in these preparatory subjects, which should admission officers choose? taking into account admission at most of these programs are about 10%, its more about being competitive than sufficing. your application is sufficient, I'm not sure its competitive in the application pool.

Since you mentioned high school, how good were your math in highschool? were you ranked USAMO participant? not that matters much but just to support your application on " quantitative aptitude"

 

[Umnik]

Hi, everybody!

I am interesting, whether I have chances of being accepted into top schools:

Education:
Specialist in mathematics (5-year degree from Russia - between BSc and Msc), graduated 4 years ago, GPA is low - 3.3.
While studying, participated in several olympiads

Experience:
1 year at Big4 Consulting, 1,5 years at Strategy department of a big state-owned mining company, almost 2 years of work in liquidity department (mostly trading bonds and structured products making) in a small bank.
Programming experienct includes C in the university and Octave.

References:
1 from my university supervisor, 1 from my current supervisor at work, 1 from my former boss (who is currently heading another company abroad)

Tests:
TOEFL 109
GRE 167Q 154V 3.0A

Programs I have applied or planning to apply:
Stanford
Princeton
Columbia
University of Toronto
MIT Sloan
NYU
Cornell
ETH Zurich

I am interested, whether it is a realistic idea to apply...

 

[Xinyi]

Hi all! I feel so confused about my future career path, please jux give me some suggestions, appreciate so much!
Currently, im an international student in US university (top60) major in business and math, junior yr.
now my major in accounting, and if i wanna apply for MFE next year, is accounting major a pitfalls? cuz now i just take some business core
curriculum in business school, i still have time to switch my major to finance.
So now my dilemma is--need i keep doing accounting and pass CFA I next year, or, switch major to finance?
The second problem is since I am in junior year, i have limited freedom to choose electives. there are two options: I need 2 extra class ( a class
covering stochastic processing) to get a minor in information science, or, to take more programming class?
My portfolio is as followed:
GPA :3.5/4 cum and 3.8/4 (math)
Register in GRE general and sub next year.
Math class--- Calculus 1 2 3, Differential equation, PDE, Probability, Linear Algebra, Math modeling, Statistic (2 classes), numerical analysis(
next semester), Real analysis (next semester)
Programming ---Java, C, processing

 

[Freakonometrics]

• LSE (safety, b/c it's rolling & from what I've seen, not to hard to get in but still has a decent rep in Europe)

Are you serious? LSE is arguably the best eco/fin school in europe but undoubtably best connected to top banks in London.

It has a selection rate of 4%

 

[bansalmohit]

Are you serious? LSE is arguably the best eco/fin school in europe but undoubtably best connected to top banks in London.

It has a selection rate of 4%

@Freakonometrics: Where do you get the info that the selection rate of LSE is 4%. I heard that the admission rate was around 10% and acceptance rate around 20%?

 

[Freakonometrics]

@Freakonometrics: Where do you get the info that the selection rate of LSE is 4%. I heard that the admission rate was around 10% and acceptance rate around 20%?

http://www2.lse.ac.uk/study/graduate/taughtProgrammes2012/MScFinancialMathematics.aspx

Intake/applications in 2010:​

26/641

 

[bansalmohit]

http://www2.lse.ac.uk/study/graduate/taughtProgrammes2012/MScFinancialMathematics.aspx

Intake/applications in 2010:​

26/641

so the admission rate is 4%. Any info on the acceptance rate?

Also i think ahe based his/her opinion after looking at the trackers at quantnet. I also have feeling that LSE is a very safe bet for a good candidate.

 

[KaiRu]

I'm not that sure that LSE is a safe bet. If you look at the programming courses at LSE than there are only few Java courses for MSc in Applicable Mathematics and C++ for MSc in Financial Mathematics and that's all. Hence, I very doubt that if you are not a CS major with some hardcore low-level programming skills or have some experience then this will help you to do a real world quantitative development in C++ (debug, fix bugs, enhance peformance, work with legacy code etc.).

This information can be a bit outdated though, so take it with a grain of salt.

 

[bansalmohit]

I'm not that sure that LSE is a safe bet. If you look at the programming courses at LSE than there are only few Java courses for MSc in Applicable Mathematics and C++ for MSc in Financial Mathematics and that's all. Hence, I very doubt that if you are not a CS major with some hardcore low-level programming skills or have some experience than this will help you to do a real world quantitative development in C++ (debug, fix bugs, enhance peformance, work with legacy code etc.).

This information can be a bit outdated though, so take it with a grain of salt.

Safe bet for admission, not quant job.

 

[Freakonometrics]

so the admission rate is 4%. Any info on the acceptance rate?

Also i think ahe based his/her opinion after looking at the trackers at quantnet. I also have feeling that LSE is a very safe bet for a good candidate.

Basing anything of the tracker is just downright silly and naive.

(1) For anyone who wants to get into finance in London, he/she will pick LSE above any other grad school
(2) Yield will probably be high because of (1)
(3) Admissions rate is only 4% and because of the high yield, acceptance rate will not be much higher

Funny enough people seem to think that because a school is not located in the U.S., it can't be elite/hard to get in to. You'd be wrong.

 

[Sushant]

Personally I shared bansalmohit's perception too, but it was largely because quite a few rather ordinary (scholastically speaking) acquaintances of mine went to LSE but among those that went to CMU or Berkeley or Stanford, there was none who was not a whiz. True, these inferences were drawn from a very small sample of 12-13 people, so I shouldn't pretend that these results can be reliable.

 

[bansalmohit]

Basing anything of the tracker is just downright silly and naive.

(1) For anyone who wants to get into finance in London, he/she will pick LSE above any other grad school
(2) Yield will probably be high because of (1)
(3) Admissions rate is only 4% and because of the high yield, acceptance rate will not be much higher

Funny enough people seem to think that because a school is not located in the U.S., it can't be elite/hard to get in to. You'd be wrong.

Personally i know couple people who could not get top school in US and were offered a place at LSE. Tracker just supports the view. It is nothing to do with location. There are many schools outside US which are much harder to get in than MBA at Wharton. Example: IIM Ahemdabad, India . Acceptance rate: 0.2 percent

 

[ahe]

Sorry guys if I had the wrong perception... it's just a LOT of people I know got into LSE very easily...

 

[BWB]

I am new to the board so if my question has already been answered could someone please direct me to where I can read the previous thread so there will be no redundancy?

Any who, I am currently a senior finance major a non target university looking to get into mfe, MF, or QF. I have done a self teach C++ and looking to be certified soon( before I apply), a few CS classes and have taken up to Cal 2.
3.4 GPA 760 GMAT

I am apply to

Claremont Graduate MFE
Baurch College MFE
Columbia Math Fin
NYU Poly

I know my GPA is very low but my GMAT was pretty good.
Do I have a legimetate shot at these school and also what more can I do to improve my chances I was looking to apply to all by Round 2.
Hoping to be a quant trader, or hedge fund analyst after I finish

Thanks in Advance

BWB

 

[Shantanu Misra]

Hi,

Please review my profile for MFE .

I am an undergraduate in Chemical Engineering from IIT Kanpur (one of the best institutes in India) with a CGPA of 8.1/10. I had quite poor grades in Mathematics in college (its a ridiculously tough place for academics and most universities understand this) and I gave GRE Subject test in mathematics where I scored 880 (97% ile). My GMAT is 790 (QA- 51, VA - 47, awa - 6/6).

Work experience: 6 months as a derivatives trader
12 months as a quantitative analyst supporting the commodity team of Schroders.
Past 1.5 years working as a credit quant for a leading investment bank .
In between had a role of a quantitative analyst for an NGO (helped them in developing a predictor model to study future poverty profiles in the region)

I believe my work experience is good enough to land an MFE in a top school and I am sure of getting good recommendations. The problem are mathematics grades and GPA. Considering that my college comes in top 10 in Asia easily and its academics is considered tough globally will the colleges consider my average grades?

Please reply,

Thanks.

 

[Aditya Chandrashekhar]

Hi Andy,
I am very much interested in Math Fin. Following is my profile:

B.Tech: Chemical engineering IIT Madras
CGPA: 7.43/10
Math grades: C C D E ( 4 different subjects, on the scale of 10 c=7 d=6 e=4)
CFA Level 1 cleared
Subject Math GRE score: 690/60%
General GRE: 165 ( 800 old scale ) and 153 ( 520 old scale )
Above average recommendations.
2.5 years experience in Java, 2 projects in Matlab, 2 years of C++ in high school.
10th : 93.2%
12th : 90.4%
NTSE Scholar.

I am really very interested in this course.I feel this is ideal for me since i like math and coding.

But as you can see my math grades and Math GRE score are bad. Would you suggest I report my Math GRE scores. Would that be better that just reporting poor grades?

I was thinking of applying in Georgia tech, boston univ, michigan univ etc. Due to my poor Math Grades i feel CMU and NYU are out of reach. Please tell me the chances of getting a good job since I heard American economy is not very good presently.

Thanks
Aditya

 

[Kiran Kumar Vanam]

Hi Andy,
Please review my profile and tell me which univs I should apply for(I am not looking for top univs, but for univs which are worth considering ROI/placements ).

I think this is the worst profile in this entire thread, but then I am trying to improve it in all possible ways.
My graduate percentage is a huge minus,so please tell me how to improve my profile.​

I didnt take GRE yet, but then I am expecting Verbal - 500, Quant - 800 AWA - 4​

I am very good at C++ and I have an exp of 15 months with Solid Works(CAD/CAM product) in C++ .​

​

PG DAC(Diploma in Advanced Computing) : 64.4%
B.TECH : 64.48%(but in maths my percentage is above 85%)
12th : 91.6%(97.5% in maths)
10th : 85.5%(90% in maths)

I am planning to take Certificate program in applied mathematical finance for engineers from IIQF, whose curriculum includes

Statistics and Econometrics for Financial Engineering

• Probability Distributions
• Hypothesis Testing and Statistical Inference
• Econometrics For Finance
• Forecasting Volatility and Correlations

Mathematics for Financial Engineering

• Linear Algebra
• Calculus - Ordinary and Partial Differential Equations

Stochastic Calculus for Financial Engineering

• Stochastic Processes in Finance : Martingales and Measures, Ito’s Lemma, Markov Property, Diffusion Processes, Jump Diffusion Processes, Girsanov's Theorem, Levy’s Theorem, Feynman-Kac Formula, Kolmogorov Equations
• Stochastic Differential Equations and Solutions
• Monte Carlo Simulations for Financial Engineering
• Simulation Techniques
• Monte Carlo Simulation in Excel
• Monte Carlo Simulation Using VBA / C++.

Also please answer my queries
1.) Is it necessary to take TOEFL along with GRE to apply for MFE programs?
2.) I am thinking of NUS/NTU singapore univs. Is it worth going there, considering ROI?(I know that U comment only on US based programs, but just tell me whatever U feel)
3.)I dont know much about finance(think that I am starting from level 0), so tell me how to improve in finance, so that I may not face problem after getting into the program.
4.)I am planning for Fall 2012, but for some reasons it may not be possible for me to go for it in 2012, if it is not possible to join in FALL, should I have to wait until fall 2013 or are there any programs that intake in spring 2013?
Thanks in Advance
and sorry for my bad english.​