2019 QuantNet Rankings of Financial Engineering (MFE) Programs

[Jose Cespedes]

The average MIT Mfin age is between 22-23yrs, straight out of undergrad with no experience (maybe 1-2 internships)... I'm not making a case to increase or decrease the program's ranking (caveat, I am currently enrolled in MIT's 12-month Mfin) but I am just stating that the conditions in which the graduating students enter the program may differ from program to program. For instance UCLA's MFE average age is 27 y/old (again, not suggesting anything... this was a top choice for me when I applied to diff schools) and avg work exp I think is 4+ years, so these have to be put in perspective.

 

[Michsund]

Important to keep in mind that experience is a major factor in salary level. MIT MFIN is targeted specifically as an "early career" program; Fordham (anecdotally- I have no evidence), has more experiecned graduates. It might be useful to normalize salary w/ years experience, but that might be too nerdy even for us. @Andy Nguyen - would it be useful to break out "early career programs" as a variable?

yeah I do agree, but in the case of Fordham they don’t have to much more work experience from a LinkedIn search and all I can find. Not being biased toward it , I have no ties with any programs, but just trying to be objective as possible. Also for MIT I saw that citizens and green card holders had significantly higher salaries, 107k. Which is good for me as a citizen, but this might be bad for non residents or citizens applying.

 

[Michsund]

The average MIT Mfin age is between 22-23yrs, straight out of undergrad with no experience (maybe 1-2 internships)... I'm not making a case to increase or decrease the program's ranking (caveat, I am currently enrolled in MIT's 12-month Mfin) but I am just stating that the conditions in which the graduating students enter the program may differ from program to program. For instance UCLA's MFE average age is 27 y/old (again, not suggesting anything... this was a top choice for me when I applied to diff schools) and avg work exp I think is 4+ years, so these have to be put in perspective.

I agree for sure, and I do like MIT as it’s a top choice for me, but I’ve seen that citizens and residents have higher salaries, something that benefits me, but is not shown. I’m saying it makes it seem as the program is worse then it is. It’s flexibility makes it a very good program that has good recruitments but I was making the point that some low ranked schools like Fordham are still good school and not necessarily a waste of money.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

I like to point out a finer thing in our 2019 rankings methodology is that in the survey we specifically request data for full-time admission and placement stats. This helps ensure better comparison between programs which may also explain some subtle changes from last year rankings.
We already planned to make next year rankings better.

 

[Michsund]

I like to point out a finer thing in our 2019 rankings methodology is that in the survey we specifically request data for full-time admission and placement stats. This helps ensure better comparison between programs which may also explain some subtle changes from last year rankings.
We already planned to make next year rankings better.

But will you be releasing the admissions rate for this year?

 

[Andy Nguyen]

But will you be releasing the admissions rate for this year?

There is a historical table of admission stats gathered over the years at Admission Statistics from MFE Programs
It may be updated in the future.

 

[scukid]

I think the score should decay on the number of students. No matter what you shouldn’t expect the employment abilities(salary level, employment number) grow linearly along with the size of class. This methodology is unfair to CMU and Columbia. And UCB is undoubtedly the first given its size of class.

 

[ApolloChariot]

37% employment rate at graduation for Columbia Mathematics in Finance? WOW that is atrocious.

Is that figure right?

Edit: Columbia Mathematics in Finance has 37% placement rate at graduation, but Columbia MFE has 83%

 

[Onegin]

Interesting Princeton's mean GRE is 169 on the survey, but they use median of 167 on their own site. Admission - it doesn't seem like 2 points is high enough on the top end for an outlier to pull the score to 169 if half participants are at or below 167.

 

[cge]

Looks right, but NYU Tandon 10th place - really?

I would like to ask Peter - NYU Tandon when the stats will be posted for 2017?

Career Resources and Employment Stats

engineering.nyu.edu

I have to say that for Class of 2016 "losing" 28 students after graduation is "interesting", was this the same case for Class of 2017?

Dear prospective applicants - it is not 5 or 10...is 28?!! Peter is there a typo in the number for 2016?
If not, how is that even possible?

So, Peter, when the stats will be posted for 2017? Let's be transparent for the sake of new applicants. (or if it's up - please post the link - it's a headache to find it...)

 

[umqfrm]

I have to say that for Class of 2016 "losing" 28 students after graduation is "interesting", was this the same case for Class of 2017?

For a large program, that actually doesn't surprise me. You can't force people to report their employment, and with 160+ students I think it's less likely that every student is going to feel a strong connect to the program and its faculty and staff. Just guessing here, but I'd bet most of these 28 are international students who weren't seeking U.S. jobs, immediately returned home after graduation, and never checked their NYU email account again.

The note at the bottom of the page you linked lends further explanation:

"Please note that the NYU Tandon MSFE program did not have a dedicated student placement director until 2017. As such, the employment stats for Class of 2016 (and prior classes) is limited as this information is based off of a general NYU survey. More detailed MSFE employment stats will be available for the class of 2017 and beyond. "


I probably wouldn't respond to a mass message from my university alumni center, either. 83% reporting is actually impressive!

 

[ApolloChariot]

Looks right, but NYU Tandon 10th place - really?

I would like to ask Peter - NYU Tandon when the stats will be posted for 2017?

https://engineering.nyu.edu/academics/departments/finance-and-risk-engineering/employment-outcome

I have to say that for Class of 2016 "losing" 28 students after graduation is "interesting", was this the same case for Class of 2017?

Dear prospective applicants - it is not 5 or 10...is 28?!! Peter is there a typo in the number for 2016?
If not, how is that even possible?

So, Peter, when the stats will be posted for 2017? Let's be transparent for the sake of new applicants. (or if it's up - please post the link - it's a headache to find it...)

Yes, not even having 2017 stats available is pretty egregious. If information is not released, it either means they don't care enough to meticulously collect them (which is horrible) or that the stats are so bad they don't want to release them (even worse).

Tbh, I'm very surprised that the program was apparently able to achieve 75% employment at graduation, assuming the numbers in the rankings are verifiable and accurate. NYU Tandon having 75% and Columbia Mathematics in Finance 37% is insane, and I would be inclined to believe there are some irregularities or methodology differences among the two schools to arrive at those numbers.

Edit: Columbia Mathematics in Finance has 37% placement, Columbia MFE has 83%

 

[cge]

For a large program, that actually doesn't surprise me. You can't force people to report their employment, and with 160+ students I think it's less likely that every student is going to feel a strong connect to the program and its faculty and staff. Just guessing here, but I'd bet most of these 28 are international students who weren't seeking U.S. jobs, immediately returned home after graduation, and never checked their NYU email account again.

The note at the bottom of the page you linked lends further explanation:

"Please note that the NYU Tandon MSFE program did not have a dedicated student placement director until 2017. As such, the employment stats for Class of 2016 (and prior classes) is limited as this information is based off of a general NYU survey. More detailed MSFE employment stats will be available for the class of 2017 and beyond. "


I probably wouldn't respond to a mass message from my university alumni center, either. 83% reporting is actually impressive!

nice email, however last time I checked you were not Peter.
Everybody will appreciate full transparency, this should come from the program administrator/director...

 

[cge]

Yes, not even having 2017 stats available is pretty egregious. If information is not released, it either means they don't care enough to meticulously collect them (which is horrible) or that the stats are so bad they don't want to release them (even worse).

Tbh, I'm very surprised that the program was apparently able to achieve 75% employment at graduation, assuming the numbers in the rankings are verifiable and accurate. NYU Tandon having 75% and Columbia MFE 37% is insane, and I would be inclined to believe there are some irregularities or methodology differences among the two schools to arrive at those numbers.

Agreed.

Stats for class 2017 should been up by now (now they have a career placement person right? - so, data for 2017 should be easy to be posted )...
Only Peter could answer to this (or another administrator?), let's see. It may take a while but we will wait

 

[AarVee]

Why is there a drastic 1 point drop in the peer assessment score of ucla? The program appears to have improved on every other parameter. 20% weightage to peer perception seems a bit high no?

 

[P. Carr]

Looks right, but NYU Tandon 10th place - really?
__
We agree with you that we should have been ranked higher in the top ten, but at least we are moving in the right direction.
Thanks for paying attention to the many positive changes that we have made in the past two years.
Positive posts like yours have caused the number of applicants to NYU Tandon to jump from 1300 to over 1900 over the past two years.
It's clear that you have been following our website and program very closely so you must have observed that the Tandon school of engineering recently underwent a website transformation. Until recently, that transformation prevented us from updating our employment stats on our website. However, as of a few hours ago, our website employment data has been updated to reflect the class of 2018.

As you know, we have a large cohort size relative to the average cohort size across other programs.
This allows us to offer the widest variety of courses, for example we have 12 sections of machine learning this year, including an online offering.
We nonetheless keep class sizes small with an average of 15 students per class.
This is accomplished by leveraging our location to bring in many industry leading experts.
As we have a large cohort size, we have a subset of students that do not seek employment while in school. These individuals are given many opportunities to access the recruitment opportunities made available by our dedicated career placement office. Those who do not seek jobs are contacted, multiple times in writing, and are given multiple chances to opt-in to our career process. At a certain point – in their final year – if they still do not take action to partake in recruitment, those non-active job students are considered to be “opting out”. At that time, they are once again notified about this in writing. Their access to apply to jobs and attend recruitment events in our career portal fre-net is removed, & are not included in the resume book. This subset of individuals is well aware of this, and they are also allowed to opt-in to recruitment at any point if their plan has changed and they choose to do so (if, say, they planned to get a PhD but did not get into the program of their choice). So – yes, that subset of individuals is not included in the employment outcome. The stats that we provide are in line with all of the quantnet guidelines, which we work tirelessly to ensure are as accurate and complete as we are able to provide.

You seem to be implying that we take the few students who do not have jobs
at graduation and simply remove them from the statistics to make our placement rate appear higher. This is simply untrue. In fact, it’s quite likely that many of the “non-seeking” individuals are seeking PhD's or already have jobs lined up. That is why they refuse to respond to career requests and participate. The fact is that we can only help those who are willing to work with and talk to our dedicated career placement office. Once again, I'd like to thank you for your help over the past two years.

 

[cge]

Thank you for the well - worded reply

P- As you know, we have a large cohort size relative to the average cohort size across other programs.

Me- Indeed, the other program - NYU Math Finance is smaller and I guess the students may use all the resources in full not only a percentage and they are located in Manhattan instead of Brooklyn.

You seem to be implying that we take the few students who do not have jobs
at graduation and simply remove them from the statistics to make our placement rate appear higher. This is simply untrue. In fact, it’s quite likely that many of the “non-seeking” individuals are seeking PhD's or already have jobs lined up. That is why they refuse to respond to career requests and participate. The fact is that we can only help those who are willing to work with and talk to our dedicated career placement office. Once again, I'd like to thank you for your help over the past two years.

There is a question mark …not implying anything, you should see that, maybe that was something you were thinking?...
Not sure through why it took so long to update the website... I noticed that after my post, was updated shortly, good to have it up....finally

 

[P. Carr]

Thank you for the well - worded reply

P- As you know, we have a large cohort size relative to the average cohort size across other programs.

Me- Indeed, the other program - NYU Math Finance is smaller and I guess the students may use all the resources in full not only a percentage and they are located in Manhattan instead of Brooklyn.

You seem to be implying that we take the few students who do not have jobs
at graduation and simply remove them from the statistics to make our placement rate appear higher. This is simply untrue. In fact, it’s quite likely that many of the “non-seeking” individuals are seeking PhD's or already have jobs lined up. That is why they refuse to respond to career requests and participate. The fact is that we can only help those who are willing to work with and talk to our dedicated career placement office. Once again, I'd like to thank you for your help over the past two years.

There is a question mark …not implying anything, you should see that, maybe that was something you were thinking?...
Not sure through why it took so long to update the website... I noticed that after my post, was updated shortly, good to have it up....finally

____
From Peter Carr: I'm not seeing a question mark in my post but if there is one, it wasnt intended. Thanks for pointing out that our website placement stats were not updated. Your post was indeed the reason we updated the stats yesterday. NYU Tandon students currently have access to all of NYU services. If you know of a service that they do not have access to, please let me know and I'll get it fixed. You are correct
that NYU Courant is in Manhattan not Brooklyn, but I don't think its right to pick on them for that.

 

[Michsund]

From Peter Carr: I'm not seeing a question mark in my post but if there is one, it wasnt intended. Thanks for pointing out that our website placement stats were not updated. Your post was indeed the reason we updated the stats yesterday. NYU Tandon students currently have access to all of NYU services. If you know of a service that they do not have access to, please let me know and I'll get it fixed. You are correct
that NYU Courant is in Manhattan not Brooklyn, but I don't think its right to pick on them for that.

Hello Peter,
I’m a prospect looking to apply and was wondering if students at the tandom school can take classes at NYU courant?

 

[P. Carr]

Yes Masters students at the Tandon school can take one or two Masters or PhD level classes at Courant and Stern with our permission and if they are not offered at Tandon. Likewise, well-prepared
Masters or PhD students from Courant and Stern can take one or two classes at Tandon, with instructor permission and provided there is room.