Profile review for MFE - US and Switzerland

[Eduardo Faria Cabrera]

Hi everyone,

I'm preparing applications for 2026 MFE/MFin programs and would appreciate some perspective on my profile. I plan to apply mainly to programs in the US and Switzerland, including MIT, Columbia, NYU, ETH Zurich, and EPFL.

I’m finishing my BSc in Electrical Engineering at Escola Politécnica — University of São Paulo (Poli-USP), which consistently ranks as the top university in Latin America. My GPA is 8.8/10, placing me around the top 3 in my class. Recently, I’ve taken several master’s-level courses in Computer Engineering (probabilistic modeling, ML) and Mathematics (time series, stochastic processes, quantitative finance).

My test scores are: GRE 167Q / 160V and TOEFL 104.

Professionally, I work as a Quantitative Researcher at Giant Steps Capital, the largest quantitative hedge fund in Brazil. I interned there before receiving a full-time offer seven months ago, and I now have roughly 1.5 years of experience. My work involves intraday trading research, volatility/volume forecasting, and large-scale backtesting. I also lead research on transaction cost analysis and market impact for a long/short equities portfolio. Additionally, I previously interned in ML and numerical methods, including a research internship at EPFL’s Adaptive Systems Lab in Switzerland. I have two published papers in AI/ML.

Given my background, I’m trying to assess how competitive I might be for programs at this level and whether there’s anything in particular I should strengthen before applying.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

[Andy Nguyen]

ETH UZH and EPFL MFE seem like logical choices for Swiss programs. Make sure you read the recent reviews from both programs where students mention challenges getting jobs in Switzerland for non-EU students. Many would end up going to London and elsewhere.
Do you know programming? C++ or Python?

 

[MikeLawrence]

Seems like you check all the boxes. Knowing your programing level in both C++ and python helps, but I assume you're decent- maybe need to get up to speed with cpp- I'd apply everywhere and see what sticks.

 

[Eduardo Faria Cabrera]

Thanks for the replies, really appreciate it.

On the programming side:
I’m very advanced in Python, since it’s my main tool as a quant researcher. For C++, I use it occasionally when needed, but it’s not the core of my work, I’m comfortable with it, just not at low-latency engineer level.

Regarding Switzerland, thanks for the insight. I checked some of the recent reviews and I’m aware of the challenges for non-EU students in the job market there.

Thanks again for the input.