COMPARE please help: UChicago finmath/UCBerkeley mfe/Columbia mfe/Cornell mfe

[ICQuant]

I'd go with UCB because the program is hosted at the business School. The people there give potential students a lot of care and attention when it's not the case for the remaining schools. I suppose this signifies a better treatment for current students as well and that's what I heard when I spoke to 3 students of the 2012 class. Columbia's MSFE career services haven't been that impressing for 4 years now. I have 2 friends who suffered before finding a job (actually only 2 did). Chicago's Finmath had gotten some bad reviews on the internet but I have no personal experience about it. I wouldn't consider cornell in first place.
As for NYU FinMath, I believe it's a very nice program and definitely better than Columbia's MSFE. I would consider it but probably still go for UCB!

 

[danb]

... UChicago?

Come to NYU, it's cheaper. On a more serious note Columbia has the advantage of starting during the summer (I think, never applied) so you have access to OCR recruiting in the fall.

If you're the rare MFE student that can actually network (personally I'm terrible at it, but most people I know don't try (or rather don't understand recruiting culture here)), then given your background it probably doesn't matter where you go.

are you an NYU student? i actually haven't heard from NYU yet. if you are an NYU student, i would like to hear what you think of the program.

 

[danb]

I'd go with UCB because the program is hosted at the business School. The people there give potential students a lot of care and attention when it's not the case for the remaining schools. I suppose this signifies a better treatment for current students as well and that's what I heard when I spoke to 3 students of the 2012 class. Columbia's MSFE career services haven't been that impressing for 4 years now. I have 2 friends who suffered before finding a job (actually only 2 did). Chicago's Finmath had gotten some bad reviews on the internet but I have no personal experience about it. I wouldn't consider cornell in first place.
As for NYU FinMath, I believe it's a very nice program and definitely better than Columbia's MSFE. I would consider it but probably still go for UCB!

thanks a lot for your opinion. yeah i have heard exactly the same thing from the few columbia kids i know. they are all smart, but some definitely had to struggle with their career service.

 

[snipez]

I don't think NYU is necessarily better than Columbia. Both programs are pretty similar in many regards, though as I mentioned Columbia starts earlier and that makes a big difference (more optionality), especially if you're looking for a full-time job. Most full-time students at NYU look for internships.

The OCR and general career website postings for NYU and Columbia will tend to look pretty similar. That said, if you're interested in structuring at a large investment bank, you need to get S&T interviews or network (some banks do have stand-alone structuring postings, but they may never be advertised). Realize that many of these interviewers are traders who are looking for undergrads who want to do trading. You'll need to figure out how to tell the interviewers you may be interested in structuring without maybe stating it outright (depends on hiring needs). But first you should figure out whether you want a full-time job or an internship position. NYU gives you the option of dropping to PT if you've found FT work, but for reasons I've already mentioned, Columbia will give you more FT opportunities.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

I don't think NYU is necessarily better than Columbia. Both programs are pretty similar in many regards, though as I mentioned Columbia starts earlier and that makes a big difference (more optionality), especially if you're looking for a full-time job. Most full-time students at NYU look for internships.

Can you explain the rationale what you said which I highlighted?
It's not by accident that Columbia recently allows students an extra semester. Having an opportunity to get an internship before graduation is a huge benefit, specially in this difficult time.
5 years ago, you can get away with not doing so because jobs are plentiful but now every internship/job is competed by not only students in NYC but from programs on the west coast.
I don't see any reason to give a sunny forecast to incoming MFE students. Once thing is clear: there are more MFE students now and there are much less jobs than it used to be just a few years ago.

 

[snipez]

Sure, please note I based my reply on danb's specific background, not that of the typical incoming MFE student. Full-time On Campus Recruiting (OCR) for Columbia starts in the fall when many MFE students are just starting to take the typical intro quant finance courses. At that point, students who have some finance experience (as would be the case for danb) and chose Columbia MFE would have the core quant finance courses under their belt and would be competitive for FT recruiting. It's no surprise that a few of my current Columbia MFE student contacts received several interviews before January.

For internships, starting earlier of course is still advantageous for essentially the same reasons. For those that start in the fall, one typically has to juggle core courses, general career advice, learning basic networking and gaining intuition for how Wall Street works, setting up informational interviews, etc. Even if Columbia MFE said nothing about networking and reaching out to alumni, I'm sure that most students will pick up on the fact that it CAN be a powerful tool; maybe a few actually have a plan for making those connections. By the time internship season is in full swing around early January, a Columbia MFE student really can't make any excuses for not grasping basic quant finance (8 courses under belt), not utilizing the alumni network, and not having done some interview prep.

In short, from a FT recruiting perspective, there's a clear advantage. Obviously anyone can prepare well over the summer so that Fall semester is easier to handle, but having practitioners show you the subtleties of how things work on Wall Street makes a pretty big difference.