Need help in evaluating my profile for quant finance / financial engineering masters

[latus_rectum]

Hi All,
I am not able to gauge my profile strength for mfe programs. I would really appreciate any feedback which you can share with me.
I am planning to apply for fall 2024 in top 7-8 programmes.

Here is my background:

1. Bachelor's in Engineering from a top university in India (IIT).
(Major in Mechanical Engineering, Minor in Electronics Engineering)
Grade: 8.18 on a scale of 10.

2. Was active competitive coder in college. Participated in ACM ICPC, didn't win though.

3. Research paper: I have published a research paper in swarm and evolutionary computation journal. The paper is on solving multi objective problems using particle swarm optimization. Paper, in case anyone is interested. I will get one LOR from the professor with whom I worked on this paper.

3. Work Ex: I have 4 years of work experience. By fall of 2024, I will have 5.
Most of my work experience has been in developing tech for brokerage platforms.
For the first 2.5 years, I was working for Fidelity Investments in their brokerage division for US markets.
Then for 14 months, I did my own startup, not related to quant though. It was in edtech/web3 space. The startup didn't worked out.
And after that till fall 2024, I am working at a startup, again building a brokerage platform from scratch for Indian markets.
I had gotten excptional performance at fidelity, not sure if that matters for the profile. But I will definitely get a very good LOR from my manager at that time.

4. Coding: I am pretty good in programming in multiple languages since I have been coding for a long time now. Proficient in Java, kotlin, golang, C++

5. Relevant Coursework: Real Analysis, Complex Analysis, Linear Algebra, ODE, PDE, Optimisations
My grades are around B- or B+ in most courses.

6. GRE score: 328 (Q169, V159)

7. I am also planning to appear for gre maths subject test to increase my profile's strength. Kindly let me know if this will help or not.

Is my profile decent for top 7-8 mfe programs ? Is there anything I can do now before applying which would give boost to my profile like gre maths subject test ?
Thanks for your time and suggestions.

 

[weab]

You should be able to get into some top 7-8 programs

 

[latus_rectum]

You should be able to get into some top 7-8 programs

Hi @weab
Thanks for your reply.

Do you have an idea on whether gre maths subject test would help to strengthen my profile given my bad grades and gaps in pre-requisites in maths courses?
Or can I remedy my bad grades with a certification for the same courses from datasim, netmath or some other mooc ?

Thanks for your time.

 

[weab]

Hi @weab
Thanks for your reply.

Do you have an idea on whether gre maths subject test would help to strengthen my profile given my bad grades and gaps in pre-requisites in maths courses?
Or can I remedy my bad grades with a certification for the same courses from datasim, netmath or some other mooc ?

Thanks for your time.

I would recommend looking at program websites to see if they would even accept the GRE math subject test. You already have a lot of work experience though so your grades may not be as important.

 

[CourantMathFinance]

The combination of an IIT degree, strong programming skills, and experience working in the financial industry makes your application fairly strong. I agree with @weab that you should be able to get into a top program. It is very rare for an applicant to take the GRE math subject exam, and I would not encourage you to take this unless you are confident you can do well in it.

 

[shuvamsingh]

The combination of an IIT degree, strong programming skills, and experience working in the financial industry makes your application fairly strong. I agree with @weab that you should be able to get into a top program. It is very rare for an applicant to take the GRE math subject exam, and I would not encourage you to take this unless you are confident you can do well in it.

What if i am not from iit but from nit or iiit ( also top engineering colleges in India)with cse and cfa level 1 preparing for level 2 along with internship in world quant and goldman . Final goal is to get an admission offer right out of grad school and landing citadel, janestreet

 

[joe_boy]

What if i am not from iit but from nit or iiit ( also top engineering colleges in India)with cse and cfa level 1 preparing for level 2 along with internship in world quant and goldman . Final goal is to get an admission offer right out of grad school and landing citadel, janestreet

This guy here again

 

[MikeLawrence]

What if i am not from iit but from nit or iiit ( also top engineering colleges in India)with cse and cfa level 1 preparing for level 2 along with internship in world quant and goldman . Final goal is to get an admission offer right out of grad school and landing citadel, janestreet

Hey, @shuvamsingh, I'd copy and paste Andy's original reply if I thought it would do any good. I'm not even tagging him because there's no point.

Take the advice you got in the OG post. If you want more advice, at least have the sense to not copy and paste the exact same question into a new thread.

If English is an issue that is causing you to reuse an original comment, I'm very sorry, and I'm not sure how to help with that.

Two quant internships is very good, much better than I have, that will help you. CFA isn't something I'm going to go for unless an employer specifically tells me I have to, but some firms and schools really like it.

You need to temper your expectations with respect to where you will work upon graduation; focus on what you can control right now and see where you end up. Just take the next best step forward and try to string as many of them actually going forward as possible.