Should I get an MFE?

[PurpleTurtle]

Currently working as a SWE at a startup. I don’t really enjoy building applications, and find modeling/simulation to be more interesting, so quantitative finance (or a related field like risk management) seems like it might be a better fit.

I have a Master’s in CS from a top 5 CS program and a Bachelor’s in Operations Research from a really solid school.

Given my background, does an MFE make sense for trying to transition into quantitative finance? Or should I just try to transition without an MFE?

 

[Lukee]

How is your math background?

 

[PurpleTurtle]

How is your math background?

My Bachelor’s in Operations Research was from a school where Operations Research is in the math department, so I took a lot of math classes as an undergrad and did pretty well in them. Also my GRE Q is a 170.

 

[MikeLawrence]

My answer to your poll is in-between the options given. You have a really good profile already, so your odds at getting a chance without an MFE are not bad. However, your profile also matches many of the admits to the top programs who THEN proceed to get the top jobs. So getting an MFE absolutely improves your chances.

It would be best for improving your top end payoffs, and definitely speed up the process to big firms and positions. You seem like the 'ideal' candidate, if your financial situation is solid I would shoot off your application to the top schools and use that to launch into the industry rather than working your way in from the bottom (which you probably have the skills to do). It will just be easier that way. Go straight for Princeton, Berkeley, and the biggest brand name schools. Baruch is always a great program, but given your background brand name is probably what you want most to launch in. Baruch's biggest draws for me are its focus on C++ and reputation for putting out really solid students who are well prepared. It appears to be the best for recent grads looking for a great foundation, though its harder to tell given they are almost exclusively from overseas. If you go down the line at the other very top programs they often have more work experience.

It is a great program, but your C++ skills are already top of the line and you seem well prepared, so I'd go for Princeton solely for exposure and recognition and then draw on your past experience for coding skills.


If Dan or Andy see this I wonder if my picture of more recent grads at Baruch holds up. It's hard to tell from websites. It's also easier to track people at Princeton when they post all their current students with LinkedIn links every year.

 

[PurpleTurtle]

My answer to your poll is in-between the options given. You have a really good profile already, so your odds at getting a chance without an MFE are not bad. However, your profile also matches many of the admits to the top programs who THEN proceed to get the top jobs. So getting an MFE absolutely improves your chances.

It would be best for improving your top end payoffs, and definitely speed up the process to big firms and positions. You seem like the 'ideal' candidate, if your financial situation is solid I would shoot off your application to the top schools and use that to launch into the industry rather than working your way in from the bottom (which you probably have the skills to do). It will just be easier that way. Go straight for Princeton, Berkeley, and the biggest brand name schools. Baruch is always a great program, but given your background brand name is probably what you want most to launch in. Baruch's biggest draws for me are its focus on C++ and reputation for putting out really solid students who are well prepared. It appears to be the best for recent grads looking for a great foundation, though its harder to tell given they are almost exclusively from overseas. If you go down the line at the other very top programs they often have more work experience.

It is a great program, but your C++ skills are already top of the line and you seem well prepared, so I'd go for Princeton solely for exposure and recognition and then draw on your past experience for coding skills.


If Dan or Andy see this I wonder if my picture of more recent grads at Baruch holds up. It's hard to tell from websites. It's also easier to track people at Princeton when they post all their current students with LinkedIn links every year.

Thanks for the thorough response Mike! Would you have any recommendations on improving my profile for MFE admissions? I have heard Princeton, Baruch, and Berkeley all have very low acceptance rates for their respective programs.

 

[MikeLawrence]

Thanks for the thorough response Mike! Would you have any recommendations on improving my profile for MFE admissions? I have heard Princeton, Baruch, and Berkeley all have very low acceptance rates for their respective programs.

It's low, no denying, but your profile is as good as any I've seen on here. There are some one-offs with math olympiad stuff that top you but not many. You've got as good a shot as any.

Start going over interview question books, and touch up on high level math. What level of Analysis have you gone through? You said OpReasearch at a really solid school so I'd guess you're pretty well prepared. Never hurts to ask though.

How much finance have you studied? If you don't have any background there, definitely study to pass CFA 1 and maybe take the options course offered here. That is your current weakness, but you have the hard stuff down from what I can tell. Transferring from STEM to FE is doable, transferring from base FIN to FE off of one semester of Calc I is practically impossible.

Intuition-Based Options Primer for Financial Engineering

quantnet.com

And if you get into Baruch, don't hesitate to go for it, that wasn't what I was saying. It is fantastic, but slightly harder to judge from within Quantnet than some other programs. Baruch is loved here, and then put around 20th in other rankings, which either means that quantnet is on the inside track and is simply better, or they are just biased somehow through years of close connection. I'm inclined to think the first is true because the other rankings methodologies are little weird and some of their choices for 'top' schools are weird, but it's possibly a little of both. You're a smart person, I don't really need to tell you much there. You'll do your own research. All the top programs are really good, but some do the best placements consistently. It's sorta luck of the draw if you aren't coming from five years in Strats from Goldman Sachs; if you are, then you just go to Princeton no questions asked. The rest of us just send a bunch of applications and run through many interview question and coding problems. At least half of which you are legit on already.

 

[MikeLawrence]

Baruch is always a great program, but given your background brand name is probably what you want most to launch in. Baruch's biggest draws for me are its focus on C++ and reputation for putting out really solid students who are well prepared. It appears to be the best for recent grads looking for a great foundation, though its harder to tell given they are almost exclusively from overseas. If you go down the line at the other very top programs they often have more work experience.

If Dan or Andy see this I wonder if my picture of more recent grads at Baruch holds up. It's hard to tell from websites. It's also easier to track people at Princeton when they post all their current students with LinkedIn links every year.

Apparently CMU's latest class is 88% new grads with no work experience, so Baruch being so might not be that unusual. Still, no confirmation on whether it is mostly new grads.

 

[MichaelLewis]

Here’s a class profile for Berkeley.

Class Profile | Master of Financial Engineering | Berkeley Haas

From average test scores to the fields in which they've worked, here is a look at the Berkeley MFE class profile for the most recent entering students.

mfe.haas.berkeley.edu