UCB MFE UCB MFE Admission Results Discussion

[AntiD]

Has anyone got ad for round 2? I had my interview on May 26th and till now no further update on status page.

 

[Kosta]

I interviewed around May 26th as well, and found out last Thursday that my application was placed on Hold. Hmm.

 

[Kosta]

My application was recently placed on Hold status. The letter that accompanied notification of my hold status wrote:

We advise you to complete the following:​

• The admissions committee will schedule another interview with a current student or alumnus​

• Take the preprogram courses in C++, Mathematics, and Statistics offered by our department​

• Read Crack’s Heard on the Street, Hull’s Options, Futures, and Other Derivatives, Brealey, Myers, and Allen’s Principles of Corporate Finance and Zhou’s A Practical Guide to Quantitative Finance Interviews and read the Wall Street Journal regularly​

After receiving this letter, I spoke with an administrator at their office, and they indicated that UCB intended to interview me a second time relatively soon. It would seem that it would be in my best interest to read the above books in short order.

My guess is that the Hold status in my case actually means that UCB wants to collect more information.

 

[Michaelbevan]

Kosta.. Since you have a second interview.. you still have a good chance..let us know how your interview goes.. If you don't mind, could you please share your profile?

 

[Kosta]

Hey Michaelbevan, thanks for the encouragement. To be fair, I haven't actually received the interview yet, so there's a lot that can go wrong still.

I have an unusual profile for someone applying to an MFE program -- by training I am a scientist.

Education:
McGill University: BSc in Physiology, minor in Mathematics; MSc in Physiology,
University of Calgary: PhD in Medical Sciences.

I've co-authored 17 peer-reviewed academic publications. The majority of these publications utilized novel statistical analysis, novel time-series analyses and/or novel mathematical models.

GRE:
Quantitative - 780, Verbal - 680, AWA - 5.5
I am a CFA Level II candidate

Work Experience:
Presently running a small investment fund employing bespoke statistical arbitrage strategies of my own design.
Spent a year as a statistician at a company building medical diagnostic devices.
Spent 5 years in environmental risk assessment where I would quantify environmental impacts, then estimate present- and future-day concentrations using mathematical models, and then estimate future-day risk from these results.

Recommenders:
Two glowing letters from professors from my grad school days, and a solid letter from my last boss (medical diagnostic device).

My strengths have to be my demonstrated creative capabilities evidenced by my publication record as well as my proven ability to apply quantitative approaches in multiple fields. My major weakness is that I have no experience in finance. Also, it have been quite a while since I've taken a course in mathematics. While I can model, as well as run packages like Matlab, R and Excel, I may be a little rusty in deriving equations, solving differential equations or integrating formulas.

 

[Moumou]

Hey Michaelbevan, thanks for the encouragement. To be fair, I haven't actually received the interview yet, so there's a lot that can go wrong still.

I have an unusual profile for someone applying to an MFE program -- by training I am a scientist.

Education:
McGill University: BSc in Physiology, minor in Mathematics; MSc in Physiology,
University of Calgary: PhD in Medical Sciences.

I've co-authored 17 peer-reviewed academic publications. The majority of these publications utilized novel statistical analysis, novel time-series analyses and/or novel mathematical models.

GRE:
Quantitative - 780, Verbal - 680, AWA - 5.5
I am a CFA Level II candidate

Work Experience:
Presently running a small investment fund employing bespoke statistical arbitrage strategies of my own design.
Spent a year as a statistician at a company building medical diagnostic devices.
Spent 5 years in environmental risk assessment where I would quantify environmental impacts, then estimate present- and future-day concentrations using mathematical models, and then estimate future-day risk from these results.

Recommenders:
Two glowing letters from professors from my grad school days, and a solid letter from my last boss (medical diagnostic device).

My strengths have to be my demonstrated creative capabilities evidenced by my publication record as well as my proven ability to apply quantitative approaches in multiple fields. My major weakness is that I have no experience in finance. Also, it have been quite a while since I've taken a course in mathematics. While I can model, as well as run packages like Matlab, R and Excel, I may be a little rusty in deriving equations, solving differential equations or integrating formulas.

Your background seems excellent for UCB : Phd, relevant work experience (statistics + investment fund), research, etc.
I guess the applicants pool is really strong this year.

 

[Michaelbevan]

Thanks Kosta for sharing your profile. Your profile looks great to me. Where else have you applied ?

 

[Kosta]

Thanks for the encouragement Moumou and Michaelbevan. But to be fair, I must really downplay my investment experience. My present position is with a very small private issue, and only started a few months ago. So while I applied to many schools this past year, I did not place that job experience on my CV in the majority of my applications.

I applied to Princeton, Stanford, Columbia, CMU, NYU, University of Chicago, University of Toronto, Berkeley and USC (MF). I haven't heard back from USC, I've been accepted to the University of Chicago, and I am waiting for a second interview from UCB.

About Berkeley, I applied to their school in R4 of last year. I received an interview, which I did poorly in.

 

[Kosta]

Speaking of second interviews, I heard from a UCB alumnus requesting a date for that very interview.

 

[Jun]

Sorry to say, a "HOLD" is UCBs way of saying reject(well almost). The idea behind hold, according to them, is that they keep your file for consideration later on. They go on to offer admits to some students and also draw up an unranked WL towards R3/R4. Most of the guys who get late admits(towards Feb) are the ones who move off the WL to Admit. They keep the HOLD as the last buffer, in case the WL empties without UCB filling out their class. Sadly, this rarely happens. Most of the times, people are left stranded on WLs.
I would say, it will be a good idea to make sure all your other applications are sent out in time.

Hi Kittu, where did you hear this from?
Based on what I've read so far it seems like those on HOLD are not very much different from those on WL.
By the way I just joined the HOLD club in R3.

 

[Kittu]

I would say that from personal experience, I can say that. This year things might have changed as many ppl have started reporting getting converted from HOLD. But, in my opinion, WLs come before Holds. Good luck to you.

 

[Jun]

Thanks Kittu!

 

[MrPrices]

Hi, I'm applying for the MFE Prrogram round 3, which has a deadline this friday.

Could you tell me who has a response from Berkeley?

I'm still under review, 1 technical interview 3 weeks ago.

Cheers!

 

[Jun]

I've been put on hold.

 

[MrPrices]

When did you have your interview? how much time did past to receive a response?
Thanks!

 

[Jun]

16 July. Less than a month.

 

[MrPrices]

Thanks for your response June. Could you tell me if in your case was recommended to take some course? the pre-program? or another ?

 

[Jun]

Yes the pre-program courses. I think they send that to everyone even if you have had some experience/background.

 

[MrPrices]

Ok, I supposed, but I don't know why they put you Hold and at the same time recommend you to take that program

Why? because the preprogram begins on January (until March), a few weeks before start the program. So, you must wait until the last time for a response??

In my case I had the same situation, put Hold and take de preprogram course, but if the situation is like I described before, I think to leave the application process. I know a lot people who were accepted together to suggestion to take the preprogram course.

 

[Jun]

Well we can do the pre-program courses online. The lectures are recorded and we will be able to watch them anytime we want.