NEW MFE Rankings ???

[alain]

At the end if the rankings make sense we will know how good the model is. If it ends up showing that Random University is #1, we will know it is not a good methodology, but if it stays consistent with what the general public thinks the rankings will further fortify what the reality is.

You are setting yourself for failure already because you are expecting a defined set of universities to be #1.

Also, the general public might be wrong.

 

[Joy Pathak]

You are setting yourself for failure already because you are expecting a defined set of universities to be #1.

Also, the general public might be wrong.

I don't think it is wrong in any way to assume universities like CMU, NYU, Berkeley, will fall in the top 10 ranks. If they don't then I think it is fair to say that there is some wrong with the methodology. This is definitely not setting oneself up for failure. At the worst, my original hypothesis will be rejected if the answers come out to be different.

By your statement, one should never have any expectations in empirical studies and should just shoot off in the dark and expect to hit something and take that at face value. If those universities don't fall in the top ranks there is something wrong with the statistics or data and the study should be re-done.

 

[Connor]

Rankings that tell me that programs like NYU, CMU, and Berkeley are at the top doesn't seem so useful to me. I think of more usefulness is ranking schools outside the top 5 or 10.

 

[Joy Pathak]

Rankings that tell me that programs like NYU, CMU, and Berkeley are at the top doesn't seem so useful to me. I think of more usefulness is ranking schools outside the top 5 or 10.

Which is why we are picking 25 schools...

There are only 5 top 5... the rest will also be compared in the list of 25.

And you hit the jackpot..that is the MAIN reason I am doing this ranking, is to show/see how the schools outside the top 5-10 rank against each other/etc.

It is very rare (Although we see quite a bit) that you see people asking for a comparison on UCB, NYU etc. Most of the people making posts ask about universities outside the top 10, and this is where the ranking comes into play.

 

[niski]

First of all, I respect those who were engaged on building those rankings because I am assuming
that those were only with good intentions in their hearts.
But in my point of view these rankings are somewhat nonsense.

Rankings are objective, for example, in sports. You won the game you get 2 points. Draw 1. Loss 0. It is
a nice indicator of how each team is performing and everyone accepts the fact that the champion should
be the team that end up finishing in the first place on the ranking. There is no subjectivity involved.

I understand that is natural to extend the notion of a ranking to other things than sports, and in some cases
it might work as well. But ranking MFE programs? For me it makes more sense, for example, to divide into 3 (or 2? or 4? or k?
how to select k?) groups 'top programs', 'ok programs' and 'we just want your money programs' for example. I mean,
choosing the best program is a highly personal thing. Of course it you should consider other´s opinion, but
the ranking is just the best quantitative estimator of one person - namely, the creator of that specific ranking criteria. This is
kind of artificial because I am sure that even the creator of the ranking cannot tell which that one program is better than the other
for everyone else, since there are subjective factors which are impossible to translate into algorithms.

I mean, who can assure that NYU´s program is better than Columbia´s or CMU´s? This question is even not well defined at all
and thus it is impossible to be answered, and thus it doesnt make sense to assign numbers #1, #2 and #3 to them. No one with brains will make his decision based on
the ranking position. I think that it is more fair and respectful to the universities and more useful to the intelligent future student
to instead of showing a cold ranking, present the data used to build the ranking and let each one use this data the way he wants.

just my .02$

 

[Andy Nguyen]

No one with brains will make his decision based on the ranking position.

You will be very surprised. I never encourage using ranking as the deciding factor but often surprised at how many people who don't want to do research themselves and instead relying on a ranking to decide where to study.

 

[Joy Pathak]

First of all, I respect those who were engaged on building those rankings because I am assuming
that those were only with good intentions in their hearts.
But in my point of view these rankings are somewhat nonsense.

Rankings are objective, for example, in sports. You won the game you get 2 points. Draw 1. Loss 0. It is
a nice indicator of how each team is performing and everyone accepts the fact that the champion should
be the team that end up finishing in the first place on the ranking. There is no subjectivity involved.

I understand that is natural to extend the notion of a ranking to other things than sports, and in some cases
it might work as well. But ranking MFE programs? For me it makes more sense, for example, to divide into 3 (or 2? or 4? or k?
how to select k?) groups 'top programs', 'ok programs' and 'we just want your money programs' for example. I mean,
choosing the best program is a highly personal thing. Of course it you should consider other´s opinion, but
the ranking is just the best quantitative estimator of one person - namely, the creator of that specific ranking criteria. This is
kind of artificial because I am sure that even the creator of the ranking cannot tell which that one program is better than the other
for everyone else, since there are subjective factors which are impossible to translate into algorithms.

I mean, who can assure that NYU´s program is better than Columbia´s or CMU´s? This question is even not well defined at all
and thus it is impossible to be answered, and thus it doesnt make sense to assign numbers #1, #2 and #3 to them. No one with brains will make his decision based on
the ranking position. I think that it is more fair and respectful to the universities and more useful to the intelligent future student
to instead of showing a cold ranking, present the data used to build the ranking and let each one use this data the way he wants.

just my .02$

You are entitled to your opinion. I am trying to make this study into less of an opinion ranking and more of a statistical ranking. If it was an opinionated ranking I would not ask anyone for inputs.

This is a research project. It will include a full fledged paper that will go up as a working paper.

I do not want to categorize programs as any you suggested. That is VERY subjective and I wan't to keep this ranking as possibly non-subjective as possible. People think many programs are just money-making programs, we will know soon enough of how much of that is true.

Presenting all the data and letting people do the job?

This is already done. It is called the internet, but you still see hundreds of threads being made asking people to compare. Maybe this ranking system will help them make the decision.

It is good, that you know where you stand with your decisions, but unfortunately a good % of the population don't and this study is to possibly aid in their decision as the study will aim to include as many important factors.

This ranking is to help students .... not to promote a university or downgrade a university. It will merely show how the universities compare against each other when some of the key factors are included. The paper will also include rankings for each and every variable and then a combined ranking.

There will be external factors checks , robustness check , dummy variables, etc. We will try to make the model as accurate as possible at predicting the rankings.

I now have a total of 5 volunteer including myself who have agreed to help, so it might end up being a solid ranking with a larger number of universities.

I will put up more details as the days go. It will be a while, maybe a month or so, before we have any results.

My aim is to help the general population... not 1 or 2 people. People who are "brainy" enough to get into schools like NYU, Berkeley, and Princeton also ask for comparisons.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Seeing this is Joy's research project, I hope more people would volunteer to help him collecting data. I'll be interested in the data (for our wiki, etc). If you need access to any info, we can help as well.

 

[niski]

I appreciate your effort and I wish you good luck.

I still think that you´re trying to quantify the unquantifiable. I know that the info is available on the internet. My opinion is that is more rational to base my decision using the raw data that you´re using than the output of your algorithm. I know that we quants, like to get a bunch of data, make some magic and sell some quantitative output to someone.
Ok. But now cmon...we´re friends here and the data is not that HUGE. It is still possible to make better personal decisions looking at those figures...

And I still think that is not polite to rank among what we informally call the best ones.

The fact that there is a huge amount of post asking for comparison might reflect the fact that the ranking is useless. I wonder if the number of such posts would really increase if we had all the data used to make those rankings available on one table. It might not reduce the number of questions, but it might be easier for us to reply with a single "look at the table, and you should be mature enough to know how to weight these info and take them into consideration with your very very personal life and issues"

---------- Post added at 04:55 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:23 PM ----------

You will be very surprised. I never encourage using ranking as the deciding factor but often surprised at how many people who don't want to do research themselves and instead relying on a ranking to decide where to study.

I turn away in fright and horror from this lamentable plague of people :]

 

[iddqd]

I would probably consider Boston to be on par if not bigger than San Fran as a financial hub... there are a lot of buyside firms there and throughout New England.

Also disagree that there isn't much academic research published in this field. See for just a few examples:

http://www.iijournals.com/toc/jot/current
http://www.thejournalofrisk.com/
Risk magazine

 

[Joy Pathak]

I would probably consider Boston to be on par if not bigger than San Fran as a financial hub... there are a lot of buyside firms there and throughout New England.

Also disagree that there isn't much academic research published in this field. See for just a few examples:

http://www.iijournals.com/toc/jot/current
http://www.thejournalofrisk.com/Risk magazine

Good point on Boston. New York and Chicago will be given the most importance for 10/10 and the rest accordingly. I will have to look into the weightings of the hubs a bit more outside NYC and Chicago.

I mean't more in the terms of quant finance being published in the top Finance journals, so journals with high impact factors. I mean, there are obviously papers published in those journals but not that often. Some of the biggest papers in the field were published in American Econ Review and Journal of Political Economy .....but there is a lot that happens at the banks and trading firms I am sure they does not get out where the practitioners experience in teaching comes into play.

I have read a few papers from the links you provided previously. They are of high importance, but it seems in the finance academics field the general consensus is to published in JFE, JF, RFS, and so on. Maybe it is different in QF.

I was just trying to emphasize the importance of practitioners and how they can get students they like jobs and so on. ofcourse there are many journals that publish in quant finance. Many of the high impact paper researchers send their papers to general top math and stats journals also.

It was more of a general statement regarding the importance of practitioners.

Thank you for your suggestion.

 

[niski]

And I just want to write some other opinions that I have and would like to share to whoever might be interested .

We usually see all sort of rankings published in the media, ´top 10 places for vacation!'
´top 10 places to work´, ´top 10 restaurants´. This is pure marketing. People need to sell magazines, people need to sell information. To rank top 10 places for spending your vacation is very, very attractive. People are lazy to think, people are in a hurry, people have lots of things to do and thus likes to buy easy information. It is more tempting to look at a numbered rank rather than a 50 page full analysis of how to decide where to go and then suggest some places and then induce the reader to find out by itself where is the best place to go. I guess that a 50 page document trying to help how to decide a program is far more educative than to read the output of an algorithm.

Real rankings are sport rankings, fortune´s rankings and so. I believe that there is no reason to map an algorithm to what could only be a ´marketing ranking´. You guys are not selling magazines, I feel that you are trying to come up with something serious, using rigorous statistics and so, but maybe an informal magazine style ranking written by some top specialist is better suited in this case.

Anyway, case I´m wrong and it is possible to make such ranking for MFE programs that can really tell which program is the best among the top - to all people (otherwise there is no reason for a ranking unless it is a marketing type ranking) . I suggest applying the same analysis to came up with the following interesting rankings

- Rank among all girls in the world, the best for me to marry
- Rank among all banks in the world the best for me to put my money in
- Rank among all the cities in the world the best for me to live in
- Rank among all the cars in the world the best for me to buy

 

[Dibbs]

I'll have to agree with niski on this one. I do not see how this ranking can be so objective ?

Choosing a MFE program should be something very personel, and people should put more effort in choosing one. There are already many rankings of program, and student reviews, etc. and even with all this information, people are still unsatisfied and feel it is necessary to start threads.

The information that will be provided with your type of ranking, I believe, will still not be able to satisfy students. They need to have their questions answered on a per-user basis.

my 2 cents.

 

[Joy Pathak]

You guys are not selling magazines, I feel that you are trying to come up with something serious, using rigorous statistics and so, but maybe an informal magazine style ranking written by some top specialist is better suited in this case.

Anyway, case I´m wrong and it is possible to make such ranking for MFE programs that can really tell which program is the best among the top - to all people (otherwise there is no reason for a ranking unless it is a marketing type ranking) . I suggest applying the same analysis to came up with the following interesting rankings

Nice random rant on rankings. lol You are entering financial engineering and already distrust algorithm outputs.

I am not doing ranking to promote anything. I have no vested interest in any magazine. If QuantNet decides to publish it then so be it, if not it will go up on SSRN or maybe a small journal with high acceptance rate lol. My intention is to help...as crazy as that might sound...I am honestly just looking to help the hundreds of students who ask for comparisons ...to set up a gauging system so that the decision process can be made easier.

I have already got quite a bit of response in emails from students who have asked me to include certain universities. Unfortunately for people deciding curerntly this ranking won't be out for a while so it won't help, but it will help the future applicants in the upcoming year and the universities offering rolling admissions.

 

[niski]

By definition, to me at least, a ranking should be universal and it should be very simple to build and understand.
Universal means - there is no doubt to anyone how to know who is first, who is second and who is third etc . I don´t know how to define 'simple to build' but it should not depend on too much data and complex math.

I like math and like complex math applied to solve complex problems. But the way I understand what is a ranking is very clear in my mind. Things very different from that could be called anything, but not a ranking.

I will finish this post quoting Descartes

"Common sense is the most fairly distributed thing in the world, for each one thinks he is so well-endowed with it that even those who are hardest to satisfy in all other matters are not in the habit of desiring more of it than they already have. "
Rene Descartes

---------- Post added at 08:10 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:05 PM ----------

Nice random rant on rankings. lol You are entering financial engineering and already distrust algorithm outputs.

I am not doing ranking to promote anything. I have no vested interest in any magazine. If QuantNet decides to publish it then so be it, if not it will go up on SSRN or maybe a small journal with high acceptance rate lol. My intention is to help...as crazy as that might sound...I am honestly just looking to help the hundreds of students who ask for comparisons ...to set up a gauging system so that the decision process can be made easier.

I have already got quite a bit of response in emails from students who have asked me to include certain universities. Unfortunately for people deciding curerntly this ranking won't be out for a while so it won't help, but it will help the future applicants in the upcoming year and the universities offering rolling admissions.

What I´m trying to convince you is that, if you want to help, help them by teaching how to think and make a hard decision, and not by giving them the result of your algorithm. I´m pretty sure that you are really helping yourself much more than the others since you´re learning, doing research and struggling on how to make such a ranking.

 

[Joy Pathak]

By definition, to me at least, a ranking should be universal and it should be very simple to build and understand.
Universal means - there is no doubt to anyone how to know who is first, who is second and who is third etc . I don´t know how to define 'simple to build' but it should not depend on too much data and complex math.

I like math and like complex math applied to solve complex problems. But the way I understand what is a ranking is very clear in my mind. Things very different from that could be called anything, but not a ranking.

I will finish this post quoting Descartes

"Common sense is the most fairly distributed thing in the world, for each one thinks he is so well-endowed with it that even those who are hardest to satisfy in all other matters are not in the habit of desiring more of it than they already have. "
Rene Descartes

---------- Post added at 08:10 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:05 PM ----------



What I´m trying to convince you is that, if you want to help, help them by teaching how to think and make a hard decision, and not by giving them the result of your algorithm. I´m pretty sure that you are really helping yourself much more than the others since you´re learning, doing research and struggling on how to make such a ranking.

Lol You want me to teach people how to make a hard decision and think?

I think it will be fun to see such a ranking because it will really show how many of the not-top 5 program compare. Because MFE is soooooo much different then MBA, we cannot use MBA rankings to compare. Also many programs are housed in math departments so general finance department wont help.

I think it will be very interesting to see how many universities actually pan out when you take so many variables into consideration. I believe I haven't left out any variable that is important. We all made our decisions on programs based on these variables MOSTLY, some more than others.

I have a general curiosity in seeing the outcome also. Maybe NYU will end up ranking #25 for some odd reason? lol

---------- Post added at 07:16 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:15 PM ----------

I'll have to agree with niski on this one. I do not see how this ranking can be so objective ?

Choosing a MFE program should be something very personel, and people should put more effort in choosing one. There are already many rankings of program, and student reviews, etc. and even with all this information, people are still unsatisfied and feel it is necessary to start threads.

The information that will be provided with your type of ranking, I believe, will still not be able to satisfy students. They need to have their questions answered on a per-user basis.

my 2 cents.

I will include Toronto, don't you worry

 

[niski]

You said you are willing to help people with a problem. I´m just suggesting the best way to help them to cope with the problem. In this case it is by teaching them how to think and make hard decisions.

I respect your views, but for me is not funny and no that useful to see how the worst of the worst compare.
I think is rather sad actually. But thats my peculiar sense of humor lol.

It could be funny to watch it working. I also like to see the output of my algorithms, I do understand what you feel. But it is not funny to 'sell' this to other people who, unfortunately is not able to think critically as they should.

For example in the case of quantnet ranking, I really think that is more instructive and philanthropic to publish the ranking and at the same time criticize it, rather than just showing the methodology used.

 

[finenggr]

just a suggestion. Rather than building up rankings in the form of 1st,2nd etc, we can give grades to schools such as A, B and so on. I believe that comparing let's say top 3 programs on an overall basis doesn't make sense. Some may be good on one factor while not as much on others. If some program comes out to be truly outstanding compared to others, it may as well get an A+. The whole idea being to group programs into leagues where top 'n' programs get an A, next 'm' programs get a 'B' and so on.

Hope the idea is clear.

 

[Joy Pathak]

Update 1

This is the list of universities we have come up with. Let me know if I have missed out on anyone's program. I am trying to keep the list big right now, but I am sure it will get cut a bit possibly. I am trying not to put super new programs. I might make a small study on 1 yr data by the new programs that came up in 2009 like MIT, RPI and UCLA which have placed students in quant positions.

The program has to be a Quant Finance program. It could be called some other program previously, but it should have a strong quant curriculum as an option atleast. It could be Master in Financial Engineering, Master in Mathematical Finance, Master in Financial Mathematics, Master in Finance with Financial Engineering concentration and so on. Also, if it has gone through "name changes" that is fine too. For Example; IIT program was initially in 1990 the Masters in Quant finance and Masters in Financial Markets -Concentration Trading. The two programs went through several changes and then combined into the Masters in Finance program with several concentrations and so on. So if anyone knows of any other programs like this, please tell me so I can add it if it qualifies.

These are the data points for now: We will be emailing in 1.5 weeks the representatives of the universities to attain as much placement data as possible. The rest of the data we have attained online , (Cost,duration,length of program, faculty,internship opportunity, etc)



University of California Berkeley
Carnegie
Baruch
NYU
Boston University
Claremont Graduate
Cornell
USC
University of Toronto
Florida State
Georgia Tech
Universite' Laval
HEC Montreal
University of Michigan
Kent State
North Carolina State
NYU Poly
Purdue
Illinois Institute of Technology
Rutgers MSMF
Stanford
Stevens Institue of Tech
Fordham
Depaul university
University of dayton
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
University of Chicago


Can some student of the universities, or anyone, tell me when the University of Chicago, Fordham and NYU programs were started?

:Columbia Added.

 

[vivekj]

Joy, How about including some reputed schools in regions other than North America, say NTU in Singapore.

NTU is a old program with decent placement (Historically 100% percent within three months of completion of the course as reported in their website).It would be good to see where they stand in comparison to the schools in US.