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MFE Rankings for 2008

... when i tell people here that i did my undergrad and first master at uni. copenhagen, where the level imo is higher than anywhere else I experienced (Princeton, LSE, NYU, Sorbonne), they don't care, but when i say princeton, they all go "Wow".

Lay people are nincompoops, lacking the basic intellectual equipment to critically assess a person's calibre and education. So they have to use external and superficial indices as crutches: He went to Harvard? Wow! He went to Michigan? Well, he can't be that great.

I agree with your assessment of Copenhagen. Nordic Europe uber alles.
 
I agree - but it is still the professionals who are assessing us, and hiring us. And yes, northen euro unis are definately best for undergrad (not sure with grad though)
 
LOL ... yes, the difference is small indeed. Infact, I will be going to the University of Minnesota since I live here. Although a prestigious school would be great, there are various circumstances that force people to study at different places. And I think what the person learns and how well they apply it matters a lot more than a prestigious name tag after the first job.




I work at Goldman as well, and I think Princeton is best :) No, as I said earlier, the difference is SMALL. The article in the other ranking thread got's it going. The only reason why baruch is not in top there is the prestige I think! and yes, that does matter - when i tell people here that i did my undergrad and first master at uni. copenhagen, where the level imo is higher than anywhere else I experienced (Princeton, LSE, NYU, Sorbonne), they don't care, but when i say princeton, they all go "Wow". So that makes a clear difference, but if one likes the curriculum much better at fx baruch, then go for that (and, one might not get offered a placement at all the schools, so just apply for all of them and they will decide for you :)
 
overrated

Well I'm at NYU right now and I took 2 courses. They don't like to follow textbooks that aren't written by their own faculty. So stochastic calculus took on the form of rambling lectures and frequently displayed the professor's own internal conflict between rigour and practicality. In the end we learned Ito's lemma and Feyman-Kac theorem. While the books by Shreve and Oksendal devote about 1 or 2 pages to Tanaka's local time, our professor devotes a whole lecture with no end purpose whatsoever. Worse yet the concept that homework should be returned graded in a timely manner with solutions seems to be too advanced an educational concept as 4 of the 6 assignments were handed back to us after the semester ended and exams begun AND without any solutions because the professor might want to reuse the questions next year. I also heard the computing course was a disaster as the C++ they were taught fell short of modern programming standards.

It appears to me that the NYU faculty are simply gliding on their reputation (earned many years ago) and on the hopes that the extremely difficult admissions process will ensure they only admit the smartest people who would get job placements anyway with or without their help. Surely a money milking machine at this point. You must notice that they don't even collaborate with Stern Business school which is right next to them! Nor do they even have a statistics department. At this point I wish I had applied to CMU.

But ultimately I'm an optimistic person so hopefully the spring semester will be better. Let this be a lesson to others: look pass "reputation", be critical and rational.
 
A post that shows real student experience skipping the name of the school, proffessors, degree etc. All that is important, even essential for some fields.
Quantitative finance program (or applied math ;) ) is really all about acquired skills. In my opinion, a quant needs to work equally in 3 directions: math, implementation, finance. You need to understand presented models and underlying assumptions, you need to implement them and you need to have a financial feeling about the results.

One of challenges for MFE programs is to combine math models with the other 2 directions. It is useful to understand SDE and stochastic calculus, but it is just as useful to be able to prove by implementation. Unfortunately most programs ignore implementation and the they get tangled up in theoretical concepts missing the entire financial understanding ...
 
LOL :) I barely read it, but I'm guessing it won't be well received on this list considering Baruch did not make the top 10.

Just read this post and I felt it needed an answer ...
The ranking is not clear from the article. First of all, criteria is not specified. Then, what is the really the standing? Who is no 1, and who is no 8?

Looking at the list, it seems like the name of the overall school is the main factor. However, how can they explain that some students will choose other schools over these top 10? I mean, I am accepted by 3 out of top 10 schools, and I am not choosing any of them. I must be real crazy, but not the only one ...
In Comp. Sci., I can tell you that a proper ranking would not allow that. A student will go for the better ranked school in 99/100 cases.

The other major issue of the ranking is the track record. Some of the programs included have just started, have no experience in building a proper curriculum. Slowly immersing this field, I can say this is a very difficult task. You need at least 4, 5 years to build a concentrated approach, a special style. Not to mention the network of contacts or placement records.
Overall, in depth research is needed if you want to make the best choice. In this market conditions, it matters more than ever
 
In terms of brand names...isn't one of the closest universities to God's hedge fund RenTec a state school?
 
Indeed. SUNY Stony Brook is a very good school.
 
I found a ranking at http://www.advancedtrading.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=209102204#undefined

1. Carnegie Mellon
2. Columbia
3. Cornell
4. NYU
5. Princeton
6. Rutgers
7. Stanford
8. UC Berkeley
9. University of Chicago
10. University of Michigan
11. Baruch
12. Boston University
13. Georgia Institute of Technology
14. University of Toronto

Hi All,

I searched everywhere but could not get the ranking of FE program worlwide.(searched US news numerous times)
Anyways, Can someone inform as what are the top 20 programs in in and out US. I have a list please edit it if I am wrong.
1)Haas
2) U Chicago
3) NYU
4) Columbia OR dep
5) Columbia Maths dep
6) LSE, London
7) Toronto, CA
8) CMU
9) Stanford
10) Princeton
11) michigan
12) boston
13) Baruch
14) Gatech
please add and edit the list
 
I found a ranking at http://www.advancedtrading.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=209102204#undefined

1. Carnegie Mellon
2. Columbia
3. Cornell
4. NYU
5. Princeton
6. Rutgers
7. Stanford
8. UC Berkeley
9. University of Chicago
10. University of Michigan
11. Baruch
12. Boston University
13. Georgia Institute of Technology
14. University of Toronto

This ranking is crud. Why are Cornell and NYU at #3 and #4 respectively and Baruch at #11? The board of "esteemed veterans" probably have links to these schools or are just plain ignorant.
 
Cheryl Higbee is wrong, the list is alphabeticale ordered
 
Shlomi, maybe it is different in hebrew but in english the B comes before the C... HAHAHA just kidding :)
 
In the link they mention the top 10, which are alphabeticale ordered and also include four other "honorable mentions", thats why B is after C...
 
Rutgers...NUMBER SIX? Bad joke, yes?

From what I see, the statistics professor thinks the market is too complex to statistically model and anyone who is beating it must be "cheating"...

I'm not in the MSMF but in the MS Stats, and it overlaps with MSMF like 50% from what I hear. And from what I see, I like the fact that I'm learning R, but other than that, it seems par for the course...stochastic calculus, numerical methods (not sure which language they use, it seems C++ only pops up sparingly), but nothing amazing.
 
Rutgers...NUMBER SIX? Bad joke, yes?

From what I see, the statistics professor thinks the market is too complex to statistically model and anyone who is beating it must be "cheating"...

I'm not in the MSMF but in the MS Stats, and it overlaps with MSMF like 50% from what I hear. And from what I see, I like the fact that I'm learning R, but other than that, it seems par for the course...stochastic calculus, numerical methods (not sure which language they use, it seems C++ only pops up sparingly), but nothing amazing.

1) They're alphabetically ordered.
2) I doubt the curriculum at Rutgers varies that drastically from the other schools in the list. Some will put more emphasis on math, finance, or computing than others but that is about it. Incidentally many professors I have met in math and finance have a similar view to your stats professor.
 
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