COMPARE Princeton MFIN vs Columbia MSOR

[Lolasff]

Hey everyone,

This forum is being of a good help for me so once again I'd like to thank all of you for being so active in answering my questions

I'm currently in touch with a Columbia OR grad student. He graduated 1 year ago and is now working as an associate trader within BNP Paribas, a French IB in NY ...

According to him, the coursework is very flexible except the 3 mandatory math classes that every OR student has to take. He did the same thing and took most of FE classes enabling him to write on his resume: OR with FE specialization

He also had the opportunity to choose between Columbia OR, Princeton's MFIN and Berckley... He ended up going to Columbia because all the programs were offering quite the same classes, Princeton was in 2 years which was discouraging then Columbia has great reputation in NYC. Their bad placement record this year is due to bad market conditions due to subprime crisis... Many good programs are having bad placement record this year due to market conditions, I don't think Columbia is the only one...

 

[Yuriy]

If Columbia allows you to major in OR and take most of FE courses, then it could be almost no different from their FE program.

In that case, I do not understand why the FE program suggests going for OR in case of rejection.
I would understand it if by doing so they make you take classes like supply chain management that might not always attract the top students.