Just out of curiosity. Given that the program doesn't do much to place students. What is the difference between MAFN and the Master in Stats in terms of placement? Where does the MAFN students gain advantage over the Stats ones?
Maybe it is a little late to reply, but I would like to let other followers see this.
There are TOO MUCH differences between STAT and MAFN Master's programs at Columbia, though the MAFN program is co-sponsored by STAT department.
1. The students' profiles differ a lot. STAT admits a large number of "unqualified candidates". Some of them are even from low-tiered Chinese universities (a part of them). In sharp contrast, the MAFN program only admits students with strong background from those well-known institutions, and the class size is almost less than a half of the STAT program, which has 200+.
2. The curriculums differ a lot. The core curriculum of STAT program requires several courses like: Probability and Statistical Inference, Linear Regression Models, which are the ABCs of Statistics and should have been learned in undergraduate. Although many MAFN courses are open to STAT students, most of them are unable to handle the complex coursework. One needs to look no further than an ironic example: in the beginning of last two semesters, I found there were many STAT students coming to MAFN or other very advanced classes, but after the first lecture or first homework being posted, most of them dropped out and never came back again. I have heard so many STAT students talking about "choosing a easy course to get a higher grade".
3. The placement results differ a lot, even though they both don't offer good career service. Many STAT students never put much effort into finding jobs. Some of them only care about the name of Columbia, and have to go back their country after graduation. Not to mention the much better placement results, the MAFN program has established good reputation in the industry. The competition of Master's students for Finance jobs at Columbia is mostly from MAFN, MSOR, MSFE and B-School.
The STAT program cannot be compared with MAFN.