COMPARE Columbia MAFN vs NYU Poly MFE

[john k]

I have recently been accepted FT to both of these programs and although I am leaning towards Columbia, I was hoping to get some input before making a decision. I have been working as an actuary for over 3 years and am looking to eventually make the jump to a trading role after finishing my degree and getting some experience under my belt. As I understand it, the MAFN program is more theory focused while the NYU Poly program places a greater emphasis on practical implementation. NYU Poly's program is also significantly cheaper.

Anyone have any thoughts on which might be a better fit?

 

[Jedison]

Columbia by a long shot. Brand name, quality of courses/teaching, recruiting, alumni network...the list goes on

 

[CasanovaJ]

"NYU Poly places greater emphasis on practical application, and NYU Poly's program is significantly cheaper"

Where are you getting either of those?

 

[Jedison]

I wouldn't disagree with either of those purely on the basis that the MathFin curriculum is highly theoretical and Columbia's tuition is stupidly high. That being said, having a good practical skill set and saving some money on your education isn't worth much if you can't get a job. I think your background as an actuary will definitely help but breaking into Wall Street, particularly in those front office roles that pretty much everybody getting an MFE are looking for, is extremely difficult. The major IB's resume drops online are basically black holes. You might get some interviews from smaller firms or prop houses that way but the positions that most aspiring quants are looking for are hard to get if you're not going through campus recruiting. That's why I think it's worth overlooking the theoretical nature and the price tag that comes with the MathFin program.

 

[CasanovaJ]

OK, I looked this one up... looks like NYU Poly is about $45k, and Columbia is $57k-- point taken.

As far as "practical" goes, looking at the NYU Poly core curriculum--

"Financial Accounting--
This course provides a solid foundation in the construction and interpretation of financial statements. Topics include accounting terminology; financial statement preparation and analysis; liquidity and credit risk ratios; depreciation calculations; revenue recognition; and accrued liabilities and asset valuation. Also covered are the effects of equity transactions; cash flows; and various accounting methods on financial statements.

Economic Foundations in Finance--
This course studies the interactions between money, the financial system and the economy. Topics include supply and demand; consumer theory; theory of the firm; production costs and other subject areas such as interest rates and asset returns. This course summarizes key insights from financial economics as the methodological and conceptual basis of financial engineering.

Corporate Finance--
The modern corporation, as issuer of financial securities and end-user of financial risk-management products, is a major participant in financial markets and the economic counterpart to investors and financial intermediaries. The mechanism of financial markets and the valuation of instruments are studied in further detail in other courses. However, this course applies the tools of the trade of financial economics and corporate finance to the financial decision-making process of firms. Upon successful completion of this course, students know how to contribute to optimal financial decisions in a corporation: valuation; capital budgeting; risk; capital structure; dividend policy; long-term financing; risk management; and mergers and acquisitions. Increasingly important international factors that affect corporate finance are stressed throughout."

You won't learn this stuff at Columbia, but if it's what you're looking for, I'd suggest just saving $40k and taking CFA Level 1... If the other argument is that "NYU Poly is heavier on programming," this may just be me but while I don't personally see it as an absolute deal-killer to be charged insane tuition to be taught graduate-level math (which I'm actually expecting to be legitimately tough), there's something that massively irks me about the idea of paying $5k/course to be taught something that I think any sharp ten year old could probably learn by downloading a copy of Visual Studio and googling "learn C++"... I'm not trying to trivialize the difficulty of programming, but plenty of people pull it off without paying an arm and a leg for it... MAFN focuses on the tough math, they do it well, and then they call it day.

 

[john k]

Thanks for the input. Seems like Columbia is the better choice given that I will have the option to take some electives outside of the math dept if I feel like I need to develop my programming/technical skills (I've picked up enough VBA, R and SQL to be effective at my last two jobs but I feel like some formal coursework would be nice as the competition in this area seems like it will be much tougher when I move to finance).

 

[ADT]

The major IB's resume drops online are basically black holes.

That was what I initially thought and believed, until I started work and saw otherwise. From anecdotal experience, resumes do get picked out from online resume dumps under two scenarios.

A) You have specific experience that they were looking for (e.g. a first year full-time analyst at a BB NYC in credit risk with no prior IBD experience got pulled into another BB in NYC for an IBD front-office role via online resume dump - why? Because this person had prior internship experience in equity research AND he was in credit risk covering Corporates, and that was useful for their FIG IBD group.)

B) Another situation but this time in Securities (i.e. S&T/Research) at another BB in NYC - summer analyst class was full of your target school/type-A/networking ninjas type candidates who probably networked like crazy and aced their interviews with ~3.5 and above GPAs. But there were a handful from non-target schools who got pulled from online resumes - why? Because of SKYHIGH GPAs, and by that I mean >3.95, basically acing every single class for ~5 semesters despite taking difficult/technical classes in math/econ/etc.

I guess the takeaway is, always try. You never know.