most posters on this forum don't want to acknowledge that MSOR can be superior to a lot of MFE programs, but practically speaking when it comes to getting hired in NY for most of the jobs MFE students pursue, it definitely is
This is definitely true. Especially many people here who feel that MSOR students from Columbia are competing for the same jobs and in many cases, trumping them, primarily due to the initial advantage of having a Columbia name on the resume.
you are forever branded as "the guy that got rejected from the good program"
This is utter ..... Nowhere have I been made to feel as 'the guy who got rejected from the good program' and the places I have interviewed includes top banks,quant/hedge funds and top analytics consulting firms. Secondly, salary in any program is commensurate to your prior experience. Hence if you believe that everybody from MSFE gets offered a salary of 120k and everybody from MSOR has to contend with 60k, you are mistaken. There are MSOR students who were offered around 93k (with no prior experience) and another small group which was offered around 100-110k. However, usually around 70-90k is the norm.
Thirdly, let me come to this much maligned business of re-directing to MSOR. I was one among them. In our application essays, many candidates like me try to express our enthusiasm for quant finance, our clairvoyant gift of trading etc. and often end up quoting Iraj Kani or Emmanuel Derman (lets accept it!). The admission committee is very quick to recognize this amateur behavior and puts us in a category which shows potential, certainly has the mathematical skills to succeed in a quantitative program, but does not have the understanding or experience of financial markets which could convince the committee that the candidate really wants to be a Financial Engineer. (However, this is not to suggest that there are no students without prior experience admitted in FE. A person I know well, now working in quantitative strategies at Goldman, was a fresh undergrad to MSFE but had relevant research experiences etc.). Now, the redirection to MSOR is an offer to applicants to explore yourself and find a fit in a quantitative career, not necessarily confined to finance. I was admitted to other FE programs too but I asked myself the question if I was really so sure of being a quant/financial engineer that I should go ahead and get a master's degree in a very niche field like Financial Engineering/Financial Mathematics. As a 22 year old straight from undergrad, the anwer was NO. I would probably like to go with something where I could diversity and explore other career options too.
You would be surprised how many people who got redirected end up not pursuing finance at all. Many of them, as in my class, have found a fit in Big Data Analytics/ Machine Learning stuffs and they have obtained great positions for the summer. At the same time, there are few who have not done substantially enough to increase their experience/domain expertise in quantitative finance and still aspire for quant trading/research roles and end up complaining about moving nowhere.