Joy Pathak
Swaptionz
- Joined
- 8/20/09
- Messages
- 1,330
- Points
- 73
So....I have heard all kinds of stories about this program. On the old threads here and other forums. Well good and bad. Good from american students at the uni and bad from international students.
I went around doing some research to gain enough facts. What I have found is...they admit 100ish students from around 300ish applicants. They do not have the toughest admission criteria but they donot literally admit "everyone". They get alot of applicants because of their location, but they do admit alot.
They admit so many students because of the different concentrations. It's like getting Masters in Corporate finance, Financial economics, trading, financial programming in itself. The students get split significantly so you arent competiting for similar jobs. You can choose half the curriculum how you want. Extremely flexible. The curriculum is also a requirement for their PhD Finance program at IIT so it is also a great stepping stone for anyone who wants to prepare for a PhD Finance program in the future.
Another thing I noticed was almost 99% is International students. This causes an issue with placement. The career services can do only so much. I saw some previous Alumni who were mostly americans at UBS/investment banks and prop trading firms. There were some from top foreign universities who secured amazing placements also. Very few obviously.
There is a component in which a student can opt to do a Thesis/Research project with an advisor if he/she chooses too. There are few professors who are active researchers.
There are some famous names in the faculty, Gorham, Ong, Bilson...etc. Herbert Simon was a prof there before he went to Carnegie. They have a nobel prize winner on the physics faculty which is amazing. The university is obviously doing something right.
The downtown location is also amazing.
I think the reason the program has gotten such a bad wrap is because the international students could not get placements and are unhappy about that and are giving bad reviews. I think because they dont have strict admission requirements the students that come in are obviously not the greatest and then have a tough time getting placements. They have 2 huge career fairs through the year with several hedge funds, Ibanks, prop firms, etc that come to campus also.
I think IIT is discounted too much. It might be a great program. I would love to hear from some americans or possibly canadians in the program or anyone else who has any opinion on it.
I went around doing some research to gain enough facts. What I have found is...they admit 100ish students from around 300ish applicants. They do not have the toughest admission criteria but they donot literally admit "everyone". They get alot of applicants because of their location, but they do admit alot.
They admit so many students because of the different concentrations. It's like getting Masters in Corporate finance, Financial economics, trading, financial programming in itself. The students get split significantly so you arent competiting for similar jobs. You can choose half the curriculum how you want. Extremely flexible. The curriculum is also a requirement for their PhD Finance program at IIT so it is also a great stepping stone for anyone who wants to prepare for a PhD Finance program in the future.
Another thing I noticed was almost 99% is International students. This causes an issue with placement. The career services can do only so much. I saw some previous Alumni who were mostly americans at UBS/investment banks and prop trading firms. There were some from top foreign universities who secured amazing placements also. Very few obviously.
There is a component in which a student can opt to do a Thesis/Research project with an advisor if he/she chooses too. There are few professors who are active researchers.
There are some famous names in the faculty, Gorham, Ong, Bilson...etc. Herbert Simon was a prof there before he went to Carnegie. They have a nobel prize winner on the physics faculty which is amazing. The university is obviously doing something right.
The downtown location is also amazing.
I think the reason the program has gotten such a bad wrap is because the international students could not get placements and are unhappy about that and are giving bad reviews. I think because they dont have strict admission requirements the students that come in are obviously not the greatest and then have a tough time getting placements. They have 2 huge career fairs through the year with several hedge funds, Ibanks, prop firms, etc that come to campus also.
I think IIT is discounted too much. It might be a great program. I would love to hear from some americans or possibly canadians in the program or anyone else who has any opinion on it.