Profile Evaluation and Suggestions for improvement

[Adam.Zia]

My Dear Quants

I am planning to pursue MFE in fall 2012 and I want your critical evaluation of my credentials and suggestions for further improvement to make it to top schools
I am a Resident of a developing country !!

Credentials:
Bachelors in Business Administration Major Finance Minor Mathematics (2007-2011)
GPA: 3.67/4.00
3.75+ average GPA in all mathematics courses i took
GRE: Quant 800/800, Verbal 450/800
Passed CFA level 1 Exam
No significant relevant internship or work experience
Quantitative Coursework: 3 courses on calculus including Multivariate Calulus, 5 courses on Statistics including 1 course each on probability, time series and mathematical statistics, 2 courses on algebra including linear algebra, 1 course on ODE

No programming courses taken or have any knowldge of programming.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

No significant relevant internship or work experience
No programming courses taken or have any knowldge of programming.

^ Those are things you need to fix.
Get a finance internship.
Learn C++ either by taking a few college courses that cover material like one we are introducing
http://www.quantnet.com/forum/threads/c-online-certificate-for-mfe-applicants.6297/

 

[Adam.Zia]

In my country there are absolutely no jobs for Quants what i have seen as yet.. Also Investment banking scope is very limited so there are only a few firms in this area.. Can i have an internship in any investment banking or asset management firm?

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Depends on what kind of things you do there. Absolutely not if you are getting coffee, make copies of pitch books.
How about intern in a technical place where you can learn how to code, debug?
If you come out of that experience hating writing code, it's a good sign this whole "quant" thing is not a good fit.

 

[Adam.Zia]

yeah but that could only happen after i study some programming.. what if i try to get some experience in finance and self study programming? or do i need to take a course? if i take a course i would not be able to work full time than..