some info about the MFE (分享)

**** from UC- Berkeley MFE:
My class had an average experience of 5 years, but if you take three or four outliers with significant experience (10+ years) the average experience may go down to 3 to 4 years. That's the experience of the current class and what most students bring to the program. I entered the program with a GRE taken in 1999, 790Q and 780A. My undergraduate GPA (electrical engineering) was 3.3 and had graduate degrees in business administration and financial economics. I also had 3 years of work experience.

Q:how many fresh undergrads got accepted for the current year?

A:well, from personal experience i can tell you that if you are a very industrious student and have a strong relationship with a professor, it MAY be possible to get accepted into a masters level program, directly after college graduates IF and only IF you are attending that same school as an undergrad.

i have heard of favorite/promising students being ushered into masters at some of the mediocre schools, but it is simply not done at the top schools. frankly, undergraduates have almost nothing to bring to the table in comparison to a EE or math/stat phd who wants training in finance. work experience is probably what you should be thinking about as a recent college grad, unless you get near perfect quant on gre, and math subject test. in that case you prolly have a shot at chicago, rutgers, polytechnique, baruch. ask others on this forum what they think.


**** from cornell MFE: (email)
Hi ***,

From what I can see, you have an excellent GPA score(>3.9/4) which will stand u in good stead. Your Toefl is normal(266/6). I would advise you to try as much as possible to do well in ur GRE especially in the Quantitative part. The top schools put more weightage on ur quantitative part than ur verbal part.

Next, you will need about 3 recommendation letters. These letters play an important part in selling you to ur prospective university. Since you are still an undergrad, you should start building a strong rapport with a few professors so that they will know you better and when 2008 comes, you can enlist their help in helping you write a solid recommendation letter.

Not to forget, the Statement of Purpose (SOP) I feel is extremely important to the Americans! As you should know, MFE is now highly sought after but the class size is still very small (about 35-40). Hence, you really need to write an excellent SOP to distinguish yourself from the rest of the ppl seeking to enrol in MFE as well. You should not try to sell urself in the SOP but rather focus on why u tink MFE is so critical to ur career advancement. In other words, you must tell the uni clearly why they should award u the place and not the others.

Finally, the only blemish that I can see is that you do not have any working experience. If you have done ur homework, you will see some of the top schools like UC Berkeley, their students' average working experience is 5 yrs. This will surely put u in a very unfavourable position.

However, do not be discouraged! I am a living example that you can get into a good program without prior working experience as well. In fact, I would consider myself to be very lucky. I graduated only in May this yr. I was initally rejected by Cornell but after appealling, they put me on the waitlist. 3 weeks before sch starts, they informed me that they are accpeting me. However, the time given to me to prepare myself and go over is too short hence I asked for a deferment to start the course only in Jan 07.

My background is:

-Second upper honours in Mechanical Eng from Nanyang Technological University.
-Toefl: 293/300
-GRE: 800/800 Quantitative
420/800 Verbal
4.5/6 Writing

Hope the above information helps!
Cheers

reagarding the working exp

Hey ....

Of whatever I have seen, a lack of work experience should not hinder your chances of being accepted by a top MFE program.... If you have a strong GPA (and your math grades are exceptionally good) along with a perfect QUANT score on the GRE (the subject GRE is not a must to be honest)... you have a great chance of being accepted by NYU,CMU,Columbia,UChicago,UMich and Cornell.... I know of many guys from India who have managed to get admits from these schools straight out of undergrad....

Let me elaborate a bit on this.....

Carnegie Mellon University:

CMU does publish on its website that the average age of the class is 28 to 29 years... But that is after taking the part timers into consideration.... Obviously these guys have a lot of work exp and are already in the Financial Services Industry and are using the MSCF only as a means to leverage their career prospects.... Plus there are a few outliers with say 10 to 12 years of work exp which highly skew these kind of statistics....

There are quite a few ppl who have had between 2 to 6 years of work exp in IT who come to CMU... Most of them are career switchers.....Now 6 years of work exp in IT may count for a lot on the face of it but for the recruiter these guys are still considered to be freshers to financial services.... If u have an academic record somewhat similar to someone with six years of IT work exp I would say u have an equal chance of being admitted to CMU... I have seen this among many students this year....

New York University:

NYU has admitted quite a few freshers this year. But I would like to add that these are students with strong academic credentials and very strong math grades at the undergraduate level. NYU is one of the most math-centric programs(it is housed in the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences) ... So the incoming class does have to show a good record at the pre requisites.... But I would still say you have a chance at NYU even without work exp

Columbia,Stanford,UChicago,UMich and Cornell also admit students with strong academic credentials and no work experience....

That said, an internship at a Top I Bank or any other Financial Services firm will REALLY boost your application and push you high up on the pecking order....

Stanford does mention that prior exposure to the Finance industry in the form of a full time job or an internship will be preferred and that it may help compensate for a slightly less impressive mathematical background..... UC Berkeley accepts just 5 students out of its class of 60 who have no work experience whatsoever... So the chances there are slim too....

The application process to Polytech and IIT is a joke.... I hope the students headed to these schools dont get offended by my comments... But I have not seen even a single student being rejected by these schools... They admit almost everyone....

My advice to you would be to get a perfect score on the GRE quant... a decent enough score on the GRE Verbal.... and if possible try to secure an internship at one of the I Banks.....

In addition write a good personal statement and try to ensure that u get strong recommendations from your professors...(get them to speak about your mathematical abilities)....

If u do this and provided ure academic record is brilliant, I dont see any reason why you dont stand a chance of getting admitted from everywhere except UCB and Princeton.....

if you have money constraints on applying to more than three schools then how do u plan to fund your MFE... Very few schools offer any kind of financial assistance or scholarship.... I suggest you apply to atleast 8 schools.. Do not worry too much about the cost of making the application.... It may set you back by a maximum of 1000 USD but compared to the fees you will be paying for ure MFE this is a miniscule amount....

You should mention the fact you have learnt trading currency in your personal statement... AND I WOULD STRONGLY RECOMMEND TAKING THE CFA LEVEL 1 ... it shows the adcoms that you have the motivation to enter the field of finance.... And since ure major is in math I dont think you really need the subject GRE.... Once again i would like to stress the importance of getting a good quant score on ure GRE... IMHO anything other than a perfect score is poor for a math undergrad.... U shudnt go below a 790 under any circumstances if u want a shot at the big univs given ure lack of work experience....

As for univs I think you should choose from the following : I am giving the cost of application for your reference.....

NYU 80 $
Columbia Financial Engineering 45 $
CMU 100 $
Stanford 105 $
UChicago 55 $
Cornell 70 $
UMichigan 75 $
Georgia Tech (They offer good financial assistance) 50 $
Baruch 135 $
IIT(This is a mere safety)

I honestly feel you should not apply to UCB or Princeton because it will be difficult for you to get in there with your profile... Also since you have cost restraints while applying... UCB application fee is 225 $ ... In that amount u could apply to Columbia FE (45$) NYU (80$) Georgia Tech (50$) UChicago (55 $)....

What I mean to say is that for the same amount you could apply to three universities atleast instead of UCB where your chances of getting in are quite slim to be honest....

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