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For PE, you need either Top 10 MBA or else you need serious connections. Maybe his uncle is a partner.

No, I just checked with some people. This is the way it used to be done UNTIL 2008. Then, they used to give the $180K loan to ALL the international students even with no credit history in USA. Now it has changed. They still give the loan to international students. But the person must have 3...

All the universities give the $180K loan to ALL international students, even though they have no credit history in USA. No cosigner is required and no collateral is required. It is based on trust.

Does anyone know what percentage of the international students will take the $180K loan, and then go home immediately after they get the degree? This seems to be a very high risk which these universities are taking by giving out these loans to the international students with no co-signer and no...

University of Chicago changed the name of the Business School to Booth Business School when David Booth, an alumni, gave them $300 million. I don't think Stanford will agree to change the name of the Business School because the entire university is named after the Stanford family. So if Harvard...

Fordham Business School received a $25 million gift from one of their alumni two weeks ago and they renamed the Fordham Business School to Gabelli Business School. Only the Business Schools at Harvard and Stanford are still available for renaming, so if someone has $500 million in spare cash...

You will have to check the web pages of each of the Top 25 MBA programs to find out which of them is still offering the no-cosigner, no-collateral loans to the MBA students. Previously all the Top 25 Business Schools used to offer this loan to the international students. Now, to due the...

This is on MIT Sloan web page. This $100K loan is for ALL the MBA/ MS(Finance) / any other Masters students at Sloan School of Management at MIT. For MBA students the loan amount is $180K. It is guaranteed to be offered immediately after the person is admitted to ALL the DOMESTIC and ALL the...

Dude, MIT is providing a $100 K loan to ALL the DOMESTIC and INTERNATIONAL students with NO CO-SIGNER and NO COLLATERAL REQUIRED. Therefore your risk is basically zero. If you do not get a job, you can just get on an airplane and fly back home. They are 100% confident that they will get you a...

Yeah, it would surely be helpful if the universities could provide this detailed placement information. Until now, UCLA has released detailed placement stats that 47% found jobs in USA, 40% in Hongkong/Singapore/China and 13% unemployed. They also provided the salaries. It would surely be...

That may be true. But it is necessary to find out what separated the 8 who got jobs and visa sponsorships from the 3 who could not get jobs. You would think that Stanford Math Fin degree and 3.9 GPA would almost guarantee a job. I am just trying to figure out exactly what went wrong.

Heck, if a super-hot Russian chick gets married to a fat dude, they should give her hundred Green Cards. She has earned them.

I got the Green Card in six month when I was teaching at a large university. Many of my friends who work in IT field receive their Green Cards in average 10 years time. In Finance field very few people ever gets the Green card because everyone gets laid off within 10 years. All my friends who...

They issue the Green Card in six months if a person has a PhD degree and is teaching in a university. Otherwise, for people from India and China, it takes about ten years to get the Green Card if they are getting it through employer sponsoship.

BansalMohit: Your profile looks good for almost all the top MFE programs. If you want to be competitive for UC-Berkeley, you should do CFA Level 1. You will also find the courses Numerical Analysis 1 and 2 useful to learn Matlab. How did you manage a 4.0 GPA at SUNY-Buffalo. That school is a GPA...

Take Joshi's book and work through the exercises. That is enough to get a job. Your main learning will occur during the first five years on the job.

I wonder why they put in so much time and effort into recruiting a couple of interns. I have seen GS make 40 full-time offers to the BBA students at UT-Austin in one day. They rely on GPA more than anything else. The MBA recruitment takes more time, but then the stakes are a lot higher in MBA...

A bit harsh, perhaps. Almost all the MSF students from Buffalo find good jobs in New York City.

SUNY-Buffalo has got a superb MFin program with $10K tuition (less than one-fourth of what the other schools charge). For that quality, I don't think that you will find a better bargain in USA.

Be careful with your planning. You can do all the studies you want and upgrade your knowledge, but it is important to have good job performance. It will take 10 years to get the Green Card and until then you will have to keep your job. You can keep your head in the clouds so long as both feet...

You can try for Baruch part-time MFE or Columbia part-time MFE or online MFE program. They are the best. You may not have the Math background to be successful as a quant. It is not easy to switch fields. In IT field you can make $200K salary. After a few years experience, you can try to switch...

Princeton is more prestigious. 2-year program. Based in Benheim (Math dept.) CMU is better for job placement, career in Finance field, alumni network. 18 month program. Heavy on programming. Based in Tepper business school. Seriously dude, with PhD from UCLA and 770 GMAT and 3 years...

This is very strange. Did your friends need visa sponsorship for the work permits? Maybe that would explain why they are not able to get jobs. There are some people in my office who are doing Executive MBA at Columbia. The tuition for 2 years is $160 K, but they love the program. I have never...

The MBA requires minimum 2 years full-time work experience. Average is 5 years. If you want quant job, the PhD in EE from Caltech is much better than MFE and zero debt.

Until 2008, the Columbia brand name would automatically get you the interview at almost all the firms on Wall Street. The Columbia Business School has got an awesome alumni network on Wall Street. Unfortunately, it is not connected with the MFE program. If you got the MBA from Columbia you could...

This is an awesome post. It should be required reading for all the people who want to apply to MFE programs.

This is true. Many of the government officials and businessmen in India sleep on mattresses stuffed with cash. Maybe these MFE / MBA guys are from there. In that case, $100K debt will be loose change for them.

Actually, over 90% of the Indian students who come for MFE take loans through banks like Global Student Loan Corporation (GSLC) (see Baruch MFE website, it is the only lender for no-cosigner loans). Less than 10% of the students have the cash to pay the tuition without taking a loan. The Indian...

Well the students from India put up their family homes as collateral for the $100K loan to get the MFE degree. If they can't get a job or no US company is willing to sponsor their work permit, the bank WILL take their home and leave their family homeless. The bank doesn't care about US recession...

Depends on whether you need visa sponsorship. For USA citizens, they are only 20% of the MFE class and the companies will prefer to hire them first before sponsoring the work permit for the international students. Some schools like CMU, Berkeley, and Baruch are having success in getting the...

Your profile seems to be ideal for CMU (high programming experience) and UC-Berkeley (Finance work experience). These programs are based in the Business schools. You will probably not have much success if you apply to the MFE programs which are based in the Math departments. However, with MFE...

If your goal is to work in Fundamental Research Group or Quant Trading Strategy Group, then Stochastic PDE is more useful. But you MUST get the PhD degree. The job description will require the PhD degree.

We aim to select those applicants who will do well in our courses, many of which are at the PhD level, and who upon graduation will be most desirable either as employees in quantitative finance, or in a related PhD program. http://finmath.stanford.edu/admissions/faq.html

You should contact the Director of MIS in the Business School at The University of Notre Dame, USA. He is orginally from Lebanon and has helped a large number of students from Lebanon get admission into top USA universities. By some coincidence, you are studying at University of Notre Dame...

What they are looking for in Finance PhD admissions is to see that you have done really well among a really smart group of students. For example, if you did MFE at Princeton, Chicago, UC-Berkeley, Stanford (all of which are feeder schools for Finance PhD programs), then they know that you were...

Admission rate to Finance PhD is aroung 2%. http://a-academy.net/tag/admission-statistics/ If you are really smart you can get in with a B.S. degree. If you are not so smart, having 20 masters degrees will not help you get admission.

http://hbsguru.com/

Well, FRM and PRM will probably not help you in getting admission, but if you want to write these exams out of your own interest, it is fine. GRE Math Subject Test is too tough for you and contains a lot of material which is not required for MFE. You will have to spend a lot of time in...

For a very large percentage of MBA applicants, the reference letters are written by the admissions consultants, signed by their managers / supervisors, and then forwarded to the schools. The essays are also written to a very large extent by the admissions consultants. The adcoms are fully aware...

Why is everyone debating USA vs. Europe? Anyone who has done MBA knows fully well that USA and European economies are all screwed up. The only country which matters is China. China is the only hope of saving the world from a global recession. In another 10 years, the economies of USA and Europe...

I am sure that you are aware that PhD is 70 hours a week of pure research for 6-7 years. If you tell them that you want to be a TEACHER, there is not even the slightest hope that they will admit you and waste their time in training you in research.

I say, TraderJoe got his PhD from one of the Top 20 Business Schools in USA.

For example, a single low-income mom with two kids gets the following subsidies: Apartment: $50 per month. Normally $800 per month. Healthcare: FREE. Normally $1100 per month. Food Stamps: $700 per month. Day care: $52 per month per child. Normally $1200 per month per child. This comes to...

Actually, USA is the second-greatest country to live in (after Canada). But China's economy WILL overtake the economy of USA in 10 years time and China's economy WILL overtake the combined economies of USA and European Union in 20 years time. There's really nothing that can stop this from occuring.

FRM is more quant, but it is more for Risk Management. At least UC-Berkeley has very strong preference if you take CFA Level 1. If you are able to get a job in Finance you should take that job. They normally only hire from IIT / IIM / Top 20 USA university. They pay quite well. You have to...

Well, it is unfortunate that they have raised the CAT bar so high that you need 99.6 percentile just to get the interview. Anyway, your profile is good and you will be competitive at the top schools for MFE. GRE: Your GRE score is good. 800Q is all they need. 610 V is okay. Nobody cares about...

hey this is not such a bad idea. If you can convince the smart students to go to NYU-Poly or to IIT-Chicago, this would free up a lot of seats at Berkeley, Princeton, Stanford, and MIT. I sure hope this strategy works.

Were you able to get any interviews with 99.45 percentile in CAT? I thought that the cut-off for the interviews at IIM-A,B,C was 99.6 percentile and for admissions it was around 99.8 percentile.

It is an interesting issue none the less. The universities are producing hundreds of MFEs each year. I am sure that the majority of them do not get jobs in Finance. It would be interesting to learn what jobs they ended up doing and how they managed to pay off those huge student loans. I thought...

CMU estimates the total cost of the MFE (including living expenses) at $120K. I would be genuinely puzzled if someone spent $120K on an MFE and 18 months study and then decided that they wanted to be a poet. Of course it is a different issue if the person cannot get a job in Finance or cannot...

Why is that so? Buffalo is the Flagship State university in New York State and is the number 1 ranked research public university in New York State. Why should Binghampton and Stony Brook have better reputation? Also, the tuition is so low, it is a real bargain. Maybe CUNY has slightly lower...

Why don' you go to SUNY-Buffalo. It is probably the most prestigious and cheapest university in USA. If you look at university reputation, the tuition which they charge is just way too low. Also, it is 90 minutes drive from Toronto which is probably the greatest city in the universe.

Dude, LBS is a partner institute of CFA which means that they cover at least 70% of the CFA syllabus if you take the Finance courses at LBS. But they cannot award the CFA. Anyway, if you get the MBA degree from LBS, all the other qualifications like CFA, PhD, etc are all meaningless and will all...

Dude, your pontification and whining is all read with a great deal of sympathy. Unfortunately, you borrowed taxpayer money to pay for your education and Uncle Sam will come after you to get the money back. Sooner or later you will get a job and Uncle Sam will take 25% of your paycheck. You still...

Time to pay up bud. $70K is not too high. Probably just $1,000 per month to Uncle Sam. Once the interest rate goes up and the penalties start and the collection agency comes after you, your life will become a real nightmare. Ask your college to help you get a job. They owe you that much at least.

If they call you for an interview and ask you in-depth questions related to this particular position you should have the knowledge to answer. I doubt they want to hire someone and pay the person a salary for the privilege of training the person.

You will probably be able to get admission in Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago.

These students don't know what will happen after they default on their student loans. The interest rate increases from 6.8% to 11%. All kinds of penalties are added. It goes to a collection agency. Within seven year the amount owed increases from $100,000 to $200,000, and it just keeps...

It is a bit sad though. These colleges are making a lot of money which comes directly from the Federal Government in the form of student loans. 85% of their revenue comes from the Federal Government. The students get a worthless piece of paper and then get a $12 an hour job and they have...

I can tell you from personal experience that it is really difficult to move into quant finance if you get the MFE degree from a low-ranked school. Most probably you will end up doing the same work which you are currently doing, maybe at a slightly higher salary. If you want to get a front-office...

The top schools give a free-ride full scholarship to many students who are from poor families but are extremely smart. They specifically look for people who are from poor backgrounds but have worked hard throughout school and got good grades and SAT scores. They also build up their endowments...

It is not just for USA. Japan has been living with a Debt / GDP ratio of around 2. But the debt servicing has crippled their economy. The Nikkei is BELOW the value for 1987. Once Debt / GDP goes over 0.9, economy gets crippled. Once Debt / GDP goes over 1.5, you are looking at a default. USA...

I agree. These figures like 1.6 and 40 seem to be a lot more reasonable than 1.5. It would be helpful if you wrote a paper on it. The top economics and finance journals would surely be interested to publish your paper because you would be proving a lot of academic theory to be faulty.

My understanding is that all the US citizens and PR will get a job even from the second-tier schools, since 80% of the MFE students are international and will require h1-b sponsorship. If you have already used up your OPT, you should think carefully before going in for full-time program because...

You can go into energy trading if you are willing to relocate to Houston. You can also go into commodities trading.

Already 40% of the population of Florida is over the age of 65 years. The Baby Boomers are starting to retire and will all be retired in the next 10-15 years. They will need Social Security and Medicare. The national debt is $14 Trillion and is increasing at the rate of $1.5 Trillion per year...

Yeah, if you have trouble dealing with rejection from a university hen you are half-expecting the rejection, how are you going to deal with the situation when HR walks to your desk and informs you that you no longer have a job. This happens all the time on Wall Street.

UC-Berkeley MFE grads all join as Asociates, mostly in Front-Office poitions. The average sign-on bonus is $25K.

I think that you will certainly get admission in all three schools - UC-Berkeley, CMU, and Chicago. Your best option would be UC-Berkeley and your second-best option would be CMU. The Chicago MSFM program is based in the Math department and not in the Booth Business School where all the Finance...

Why can't you get recommendations from your previous employer? What nis your current employment status? What is your current visa status? Is your H1-B still valid? Have you applied for Green Card? Have you used up your OPT? UC-Berkeley likes to take students like you with 3 years work ex in...

All I can say is that Business Week is ABSOLUTELY CLEAR in their categorization of students. "Asian-Americans" are US Citizens of Asian Ethnicity. The other Asian students who come to study on F-1 student visas are classified as "International - Asian" students. According to Business Week...

If you see the data on Business Week, the percentage of ASIAN students in the following schools: http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/rankings/ MIT: BBA - 56% Asian-American, MBA 48% Asian + Asian American UC-Berkeley: BBA - 52% Asian-American, MBA 46% Asian + Asian American U-Penn...

If you already have five years experience, the only degrees you should be targeting is the MFin program at London Business School or the MBA at LBS or INSEAD.

So long as you perform okay, you should be fine. After you get a few years experience, you will find many companies are quite happy to let IT employees work from home. So you only need to go to office for a couple of hours on Friday.

It is a bit strange to see so many people attacking a prestigious school like UCB and questioning its integrity. Are these guys from H/S/W or are they from some low-ranked state school?

Okay, NYU, CMU, and Princeton are at the same level as the UCB MFE. But NYU and Princeton are extremely selective in admissions and the quality of their student body is extremely high. It is like applying for Finance PhD in the top Business Schools. Columbia and Chicago and Baruch (and UCLA and...

Well, I did my PhD at a Business School in USA which is ranked in the same level as UC-Berkeley by US-News and Business Week. I can tell you for sure that UC-Berkeley is the best MFE program in USA regardless of the quantnet rankings. The do not need people on various forums to defend the...

I did MFE but not from UC-Berkeley. I am not affiliated in any way with UC-Berkeley.

It is because you are naive and a complete idiot. You have absolutely no idea of the value of the Berkeley brand name on Wall Street.

Seems to me that you have enough Math for the Finance PhD in the Business Schools. You will be taking 12 courses in Economics department (Micro I, II, Macro I, II, Econometrics I, II, III, Game Theory I, II, and a couple more). You only need Calculus and Statistics for these courses. For...

Well, it is all very well to criticize the system and criticize the admissions consultants and say that the students who use these admissions consultants are pathetic. But in the end it all comes down to results. This guy hbsguru.com gets 200 students admitted to Harvard MBA program every year...

Well that is the strange thing about it. These admissions consultants like hbsguru.com give the prospective applicants the points which the admission committees are looking for. The applicants then draft the essays. The admissions consultants then edit the essays and fine tune the entire...

This practice is actually fairly common for MBA admissions. About 40% of the people who apply to the Top 20 MBA programs use admissions consultants like hbsguru.com and pay them about $2,000 to prepare the MBA application package with the essays, etc. The practice is so common that the schools...

The Financial Management Track is quite good. You will not have to take the two courses in Numerical Analysis and the two courses in Math Finance which are taught in the Math Department. Instead you will take four more Finance courses which are taught in the Business School. You should try to...