mfin? is it really worth it ?

[rickwoo]

Hello all, I want your point of view on the following question:

• How people will perceive a mfin in top schools (UCB,Columbia,MIT, Princeton)? Is it really prestigious?
• BB banks tends to hire more and more non target schools, is it really worth it to do our best to get the best mfin/mfe program and in final get the same salary as a guy from a lost university majoring in English or in biology.

Please think outside the box, don't hesitate to think in the way people who doesn't know what mfin/mfe stands for.

Thank you

 

[qiangouzi]

deleted

 

[Rafael F]

mfin/mfe is mainly for undergraduate who can't land a job in BB, losers in undergraduate BB recruiting. These undergraduate need second chance of recruiting.
Ask youself, if you can find a job in BB with salary over 100K, why go to graduate school pay them 70K tutition?
In short, if you dont' do mfe/mfin in these target graduate school who give you a chance of interview again, you are not even close to those nontarget enligh major who are smart enough to land a trader offer at BB in their senior year.

The ultimate goal of this game is to find a good job. That's the only truth and rule to tell who is the winner&loser.

In other words..
I disagree with you, there are ppl who came from different backgrounds and want to get some experience in finance; others that come directly from BB. If you take your time to see who gets in Princeton/MIT/Columbia, you'd see that many of them worked previously at top bulge bracket banks.

A masters is not about 'getting a new chance to find a job'. thats absolutely bullshit

 

[Kevin Ramlal]

Hello all, I want your point of view on the following question:

• How people will perceive a mfin in top schools (UCB,Columbia,MIT, Princeton)? Is it really prestigious?
• BB banks tends to hire more and more non target schools, is it really worth it to do our best to get the best mfin/mfe program and in final get the same salary as a guy from a lost university majoring in English or in biology.

Please think outside the box, don't hesitate to think in the way people who doesn't know what mfin/mfe stands for.

Thank you

tbh i dont think non-target english majored undergrads are even elligible to do some of the quant jobs that an MFE will be able to obtain. I'm going to speak more on the MFE as opposed to the MFin programs since I've done alot more research on the former. TBH the logic of "same salary" is flawed. Doing an MFE gives u a specialized qualification, so I'm assuming those who do an MFE actually want to do something quant related. Yes you can argue that there are undergrdads who end up in BB in a not-so-quantish role like i dunno FX sales, but why would an MFE-goer even care about that since its removed from his/her feild?

this is like saying, why go do an MFE when there are people who went to a mid-tier med school and come out with 200k+ salary jobs. If a BB career is your goal then understand that there are ALOT of different roles, many of which the typical MFE-goer would not care much about. Research what particular area of the BB you want to work in, not just "S&T" or "IB". I found that many of the derivative/vol traders at banks come with a strong quant background and higher education.

 

[volmacro]

Hello all, I want your point of view on the following question:

• How people will perceive a mfin in top schools (UCB,Columbia,MIT, Princeton)? Is it really prestigious?
• BB banks tends to hire more and more non target schools, is it really worth it to do our best to get the best mfin/mfe program and in final get the same salary as a guy from a lost university majoring in English or in biology.

Please think outside the box, don't hesitate to think in the way people who doesn't know what mfin/mfe stands for.

Thank you

I think you are confusing an anecdote with statistics. It is not easy for even an English major from an Ivy League university to break into a BB, let alone an English major from a "lost university." I also think that while the percentage of bank hiring from non-target schools may greater than the percentage hired from target schools, it's probably not that much greater, and the population of non-target schools is significantly larger than the population of target schools, making the overall acceptance rate far lower from the non-target school applicant pool. A degree from a top target like the ones you mentioned significantly increases your chances of your resume getting in front of the hiring manager and landing an interview. If you don't come from a top undergrad, the Master's degree would help a lot.

An MFin from a top school is relatively prestigious -- it's not the same as an undergrad degree from those institutions -- there is a more club-like association with recruiters if you have the undergrad degree, but the MFin/MFE degrees are not too far off. The main purpose of an MFin or MFE is presumably because you want to do more advanced quantitative work.

Also, if you look at newspaper headlines in the past few years about hedge fund and BB layoffs, who is getting laid off and who's getting hired? If I'm a manager faced with the decision of firing, or hiring, workers, it's pretty hard to justify nowadays firing the quant or hiring someone with fewer quantitative abilities. You may be able to break into finance without an MFE degree, but I think you may find your career less and less stable over time as the quantitative competition continues to increase.