UCB MFE UCB MFE Admission Results Discussion

[MrPrices]

Talking with office admission, thet told me that online and in-class preprogram courses are held at the same time. So, it's true that we must wait until the last day to get a final response...

In my case I declined

 

[Jun]

Really? I was told that the classes will be recorded and left online for some time so that overseas students don't have to lose sleep over them. Anyway, good luck for your interview with other schools!

 

[Yann]

Has anyone been asked to re take the GRE to improve the verbal - writting part to 70% percentile minimum?
Do you think they could decide not to take you anymore if you retake it and do not reach this level?

 

[Jun]

For me, I was told to either improve the essay score for GMAT or retake the GRE. I just took my GRE and I got a killer essay question so I think I'm not going to do well. Anyway, the GMAT/GRE is just a part of your application. UCB looks at you overall application when they decide on whether to admit you or not.

 

[Sky]

Has anybody who has applied for UCB MFE during round 4 (i.e., I believe the application deadline was September 1, 2011) for the 2012-2013 school year received any acceptance letters? If so, did you have a phone interview during the past couple of months? I have been told that the last letters should be mailed out by November 1st, which is approaching quickly.

 

[Sky]

I will be interviewing this Friday.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Sky
Can you add your timelines to the Tracker?

 

[Sky]

Yes, you may. What info do you need for that?

 

[RAWMUSCLE]

I submitted my application 31st Aug. I will be doing the second round interview on Monday.

 

[ICQuant]

RAWMUSCLE
hey raw! Did you good in the first one? I understood that sometimes they do only 1 interview and sometimes 2! have you heard about anybody who got accepted?

 

[Andy Nguyen]

RAWMUSCLE, ICQuant
Tracker would be a nice way to keep track of the timelines and progress.

 

[RAWMUSCLE]

I had a total of two interviews. The first interview was a bit technical and i think i did well, while the second one was very brief. I was told that I would be given an offer at the end of the second one.

 

[KnowledgeSeeker]

so did anyone hear back on the results for the R4?

 

[ICQuant]

so did anyone hear back on the results for the R4?

Well. I didn't yet and it is quite annoying because they specify a date for decisions announcement and they don't stick to it! How many interviews did you do?
Shall we contact the admission office or just wait?

 

[KnowledgeSeeker]

I had only one interview and that was fairly recently - much later than others (going by the tracker where the average interview date is scheduled around 50-52 days after the date of submission and going by the posts above) . Don't know what that could mean.

Was waiting so eagerly for the results yesterday all day. :/ I am also contemplating contacting them today. It says on the site to refrain from contacting the admissions office till the results deadline. Thats already up. What about you?

 

[ICQuant]

Well, I submitted 2 days before the deadline and did the interview on the 19th of October (exactly 51 days)!
I also waited yesterday. Maybe we have the same status! Do you believe that this signifies a probable denial? What are your other options?

 

[KnowledgeSeeker]

I have no clue what it could mean. Though, as you may have, I too have thought of many plausible scenarios to explain this. One very plausible explanation could be that they are running late with their selection process.

Anyways, let me know if you hear anything. Or in case you decide to call up MFE. I will inform you too.

Best of luck (to us both)!!!

 

[Sky]

I just got my pseudo-reject (application being held for further review) letter today. It reads:

We would like to inform you that your application for spring 2012 admission to the Master of Financial Engineering Program at the Haas School of Business is being held for further consideration. If you have any questions, please call Christina Henri at (510) 642-4417.

We advise you to complete the following:

• Successfully complete 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
• Retake the GRE/GMAT and raise your analytical writing score to a 5 or higher and quantitative score to 90th percentile or higher.
• Successfully complete coursework in Corporate Finance and Macroeconomics.

There is no guarantee that you will be recommended for admission if you fulfill these requirements. The admissions committee will review your file regularly and make a final decision before the close of the admissions cycle in March 2012.

Our preprogram courses, which are offered by our department in January, are available online for students who cannot be in Berkeley until March. If you have any questions, please call Christina Henri at (510) 642-4417.

We would like to continue to consider your candidacy. We appreciate your interest in Haas and the MFE Program at Berkeley.

This really sucks. I thought my phone interview went really well, so this comes as a shock. I'm concerned how thoroughly they looked at my application, because (1) I have a BS degree in applied mathematics (it has only been 2 years since I graduated, and I -- like many other fairly recent grads -- have been struggling to find a job, so I took whatever came my way, which didn't happen to use any of my degrees at all) and (2) I already took a macroeconomics course in my economics minor, as well as having corporate finance knowledge from other courses.

I guess I'm just not good enough for Berkeley (I wonder if I'm good enough for Carnegie Mellon or Baruch...). It's like you have to have all of the knowledge that comes out of an MFE degree before you even start the degree itself.

Does anybody know what the acceptance rate is for somebody who has been put on hold status (that is, assuming he / she completes all of the required stuff in between)?

 

[bansalmohit]

seems like you got below 90 percentile in your GRE or GMAT. That must would have been the biggest putoff

 

[Sky]

I understand that my GRE wasn't as good as it could be (it's funny -- on the verbal section, none of the words I studied for 3 months straight were on the GRE -- but that is a whole other story), but I thought that the fact of having 4 BS degrees would compensate for that. (By the way, I got a 770 on the GRE -- so, I wasn't too far off. I just freaked out toward the end of the quantitative section with absolute value equations that required double the time to solve, which, by the way, weren't on any of the study materials / books that I used.) I'm just pretty bummed out right now.