COMPARE Princeton MFin vs CMU MSCF

[rajanS]

CMU...

 

[roni]

placements at princeton are much much better. unless you really really really want to get an in depth education on the computational aspects of quant finance princeton's a better choice

what do you mean by "much much better" ?
CMU has great placements.

 

[Joy Pathak]

what do you mean by "much much better" ?
CMU has great placements.

From looking at CMU's employment report their 2010 class had around 82% placement only. 50 out of 60 students accepted offers after 3 months after graduation.

 

[mfegrad]

Joy, class graduated dec 2010 was much higher than 82 percent. You might be referring to dec 09 class, and that's heavily recession influenced.

And take everything arden says with a shaker full of salt

 

[roni]

From looking at CMU's employment report their 2010 class had around 82% placement only. 50 out of 60 students accepted offers after 3 months after graduation.

That's 82% with offers a month or so after graduation. Other schools usually report placements of 3 months after graduation.
And, yeas they are not perfect(and I won't be surprised to see better stats from Princeton) but they are pretty good (considering the big classes they have).

 

[MSFHQ]

Placements at Princeton as great because students come in with experience and top qualifications. It isn't entirely the program driving this.

 

[Joy Pathak]

Joy, class graduated dec 2010 was much higher than 82 percent. You might be referring to dec 09 class, and that's heavily recession influenced.

And take everything arden says with a shaker full of salt

It says 2010. Not 2009. It states 82%

I am not saying it was bad. It's good. But it's not the 100% or close to 100% that everyone thinks CMU places.

 

[mfegrad]

sorry, maybe i should have been more clear.

since the class graduates in december, they refer to it as the class of the following year, when graduation is held. see this:

http://tepper.cmu.edu/master-in-computational-finance/your-career/index.aspx

so the 82% number you're referring to, while not matching the 88% number displayed there, is referring to the class that graduated dec 2009, like i said. again, that number was highly influenced by the state of the economy at the time.

 

[ferdowsi]

I have until Sunday to decide to which school I'll be going next year. Princeton is 2 years, vs. 1.5 years for CMU, plus I have a rather substantial scholarship to CMU. Princeton's network, though, seems more impressive. I've been contacted by both junior and senior industry people encouraging me to attend Princeton and letting me know they can answer any questions I have.

When I started the process, I would have been extremely happy with either of these offers, but having to turn one down makes this choice a bit excruciating.

What do you guys think? I'd appreciate any advice, especially from industry recruiting/hiring perspectives.

 

[alain]

when in doubt, you can always use my "flip a coin" technique.

 

[DMD]

The programs are very different. Which curriculum, faculty, location do you like better?


Congratulations, by the way.

 

[toucheternalck]

i am in position to advice you about this but i am seriously intrigued looking at your tracker. you have been rejected by Cornell and Columbia and admitted by CMU and Princeton i mean how does this happen?

 

[gradaplicant]

i am in position to advice you about this but i am seriously intrigued looking at your tracker. you have been rejected by Cornell and Columbia and admitted by CMU and Princeton i mean how does this happen?

Yes, I would think that if you are accepted into CMU and Princeton, that Columbia and Cornell would be a sure thing! I myself got rejected by both CMU and Princeton, but accepted into both Columbia and Cornell.

If I were to say my own personal opinion, I would choose Princeton. The name is just to damn big to reject!

 

[Oxer]

I would bet my odds on the weightage the schools assign to your GRE scores. my vote would be for Princeton although holistically both programs are top notch. IMHO, If cash is an issue go for the scholarship, otherwise go for Princeton.

 

[DMX]

1. do you want to a super quant education or a more general finance education peppered with quant classes (CMU for the former, Princeton for the latter) 2. how much is the cost difference? will you go into debt? unless you can save 60K+ by going to CMU I would do Princeton. Like most people said, the name is just too big to ignore. Congratulations on amazing offers and I am sure you will do fine whereever you go

 

[ferdowsi]

when in doubt, you can always use my "flip a coin" technique.

By that, I assume you mean flip a coin, and if I want to flip again, then just choose the other result? The problem is that will lead me to the emotional response, which may not be the right one.

 

[ferdowsi]

The programs are very different. Which curriculum, faculty, location do you like better?


Congratulations, by the way.

Thanks. Location would be almost the same: NYC vs. NJ suburbs. Trying to investigate Princeton's curriculum a little more.

 

[ferdowsi]

i am in position to advice you about this but i am seriously intrigued looking at your tracker. you have been rejected by Cornell and Columbia and admitted by CMU and Princeton i mean how does this happen?

Actually, my Cornell WL got turned into an acceptance today. Not sure about Columbia. Stranger still is getting rejected to MIT, which seemed to happen to a few Princeton acceptances. I assume I got rejected to Chicago too since they seems to have sent out many acceptances but no rejections.

These things happen. I did my undergrad at Harvard; I knew several people, including myself, that got into Harvard and Yale but got WL to Brown.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

These things happen. Admission process has something to do with raising yield and if you are perceived as having little chance to enroll if admitted, it's conceivable that you may not get admitted.
The ultimate goal for admission officers is to have lowest acceptance rate and highest yield possible while attracting the most qualified candidates. They usually can only get 2 out of the 3.

As for OP, it's not a bad place to be in when you have to pick between the #1 and #2 ranked program in the 2011 Quantnet MFE ranking.

 

[bigwx]

Actually, my Cornell WL got turned into an acceptance today. Not sure about Columbia. Stranger still is getting rejected to MIT, which seemed to happen to a few Princeton acceptances. I assume I got rejected to Chicago too since they seems to have sent out many acceptances but no rejections.

These things happen. I did my undergrad at Harvard; I knew several people, including myself, that got into Harvard and Yale but got WL to Brown.

just because you guys are overqualified