Need "Stepping Stone" TO Top PhD Program

[stochman]

Hey quants--first time on this site and really glad I found it.

I'm writing because my dream (and obsession) is to study applied math/quant finance for a PhD at an elite (top 10) school, but I feel like I'm sort of stuck in my current situation.

I graduated from Michigan with a 3.3 in Mathematics. My grades in relevant courses were:

Financial Engineering: A+
Stochastic Processes: B+
Intro Probability: A+
Diff Eq: B+
Mathematical Statistics: A+
Macroeconomics: A
Microeconomics: D+
Advanced Probability Theory: A
Linear Algebra: C+
Abstract Algebra: A-
Real Analysis: B-
Calc III: B
Derivative Securities: B

As you can see, I was largely inconsistent and performed really poorly in some really important classes. However, most of the A grades came at the end of my academic career when I began to take college seriously, so 'personally' I'm confident that I could hold my own in an elite program.

Luckily, I was admitted to the Data Science M.S. program at the University of Virginia. I graduated in 3 years at Michigan with the hope of making up for my undergraduate GPA. I'm learning statistical computing, machine learning, data mining, etc. I currently have a 4.00 and assume that I can keep it that way.

I'm wondering what my next step should be to use as a "stepping stone" towards a PhD program like Princeton's ORFE or Carnegie Mellon's Financial Math. I know my current transcript is too weak, so what can I do to prove I belong?

Thanks

 

[IntoDarkness]

if u can afford it... do columbia msor
make sure u use their 1st year phd sequence of stochastic process and optimization to fulfill watever the master degree requirement, then apply to columbia ieor phd. as long as u ace the classes and develop good rapport with the profs, its like 80% in.

 

[stochman]

Hey--thanks for the reply.

Unfortunately I'm not confident that I'll be able to get in to Columbia MSOR program.

I was thinking it might be higher likelihood for me to do Columbia math finance certificate program, or an MS program at a less prestigious school.

 

[TehRaio]

I'm in a bit of the same situation as you except my GPA is way worse.
from what I've gathered you just need to take mathematics courses that are similar to the ones offered in the PhD programs that you are targeting.

The criticism some have toward the Msc in Quantitative finance, is that the courses are not deep enough compared to whats taught in a regular Msc in Physics or Mathematics where students take research oriented courses not course that teach you lots of stuff but not in a deep way.

My 2 cents is that if you want to do a MFE to make yourself very competitive, you should do a research project or thesis with a professor there so the admission committees understand that you're mainly interested in research not industry

 

[pingu]

Unfortunately I'm not confident that I'll be able to get in to Columbia MSOR program.

Check QN, it seems anybody can get into Columbia MSOR.

 

[IntoDarkness]

Check QN, it seems anybody can get into Columbia MSOR.

pingu is rite. msor is de facto the cash cow program of ieor. if u have the cash, u r in... still, the profs, courses and researches r world class, despite a little expensive. however, if u compare columbia tuition with say out-of-state rutgers, georgetown, out-of-state uva, fordham, its actually a decent deal