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MIT MFin Why so many people apply MIT MS Finance this year?

Joined
11/20/09
Messages
5
Points
11
Hi everyone, I heard that MIT master of finance has received more than 900 applications. Last year, they only receive 175+ applications. As you know, it is a new, expensive program without any internship. Even NYU, Princeton, Berkeley cannot have so many appliants.

Can someone explain why? Is it only MIT or every school that has such a terrible increase in applicants?
 
Both numbers come from the emails with MIT master of finance program.
 
I got an email from MIT fin program saying my application is complete but I dont think it says anything about the number of applicants. 900 is quite ridiculous. Where did u get this from?
 
I think probably it's a substitute for the MBA program to some applicants because its curriculum isn't really quantitative. The applicants pool must include more prospective MBA students who want to finish the degree soon.
 
Is this program quantitative as any Financial Engineering program ?
Should it be categorized in the same group with all those MFin/MFE programs ?
 
Is this program quantitative as any Financial Engineering program ?
Should it be categorized in the same group with all those MFin/MFE programs ?

Good question. From the curriculum, it seems a Masters in Finance.
Most MFE I've seen will have a large portion of Math and at least 3, 4 classes explicitly core requirements in this area (e.g. PDE, probability, stochastic calculus)
 
andy, so is it true that there are ~900 apps this year? what did the director say?
 
Hi Andy:

I work in the MIT Sloan admissions office and handle admissions and marketing. We do not talk about the applicant pool of our programs until decisions are released and we have wrapped up the admissions cycle. We will make numbers available in the spring.

Regards,
Julie Strong
There you have it. If they do not release the number until Spring then the 900+ number is just a rumor because nobody outside of their admission office knows the number.
 
As Andy posted below, last year they admitted 175 people, and admittance rate was 21%, which means they had around 850 applicants. So 900 appl sounds absolutely reasonable
 
No, they had 175 applicants last year of which they admit 21% which means 36 people. The first class has 20-ish students with a plan to expand to 60 this year. This is directly from the director's email.

That said, I do not expect 900 people to apply for an 100K/year program. That's kind of number is reserved for long established programs with proven placement track record in good year, not a first year program, even if it's MIT.
 
As Andy posted below, last year they admitted 175 people, and admittance rate was 21%, which means they had around 850 applicants. So 900 appl sounds absolutely reasonable
I'm afraid that statistics was misunderstood.

From the following article on WSJ.com

Alternatives to the M.B.A. Becoming More Popular - WSJ.com

"Many of these programs are still small—including MIT's new finance program, which is in its first year. The current class is just 27 students, although the school plans to eventually expand that number to 60."

In that case, if the admitted students is around 36 and 27 of them enrolled, 36/21% = 172. That's approximately the number of applications last year.
 
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