Do I stand a realistic chance? (Fall 2024)

[shaky_possum]

Hey guys,
Long time lurker here. First time posting.

Education

• 4 year undergrad in Computer Science and Engineering from a tier-3 school in India (8.99/10 - CGPA) (Coursework: Vector Calculus, Ordinary and Partial Differential Equations, Linear Algebra, Data Analytics, Foundations in C++, Discrete Mathematical Structures)
• GMAT - 740 (97th percentile) (no idea why I didn't take the GRE)

Work experience:

• 6-month data science internship in the UK(remote, company unheard of) - Used Python and SQL to reduce operations costs. Used various data analysis libraries in Python to achieve the same, employing statistical methods.
• 3-month internship as a financial analyst in India - internship involved backtesting trading strategies on Quantconnect.com. Collaborated with PhD candidates, testing their research papers on historical datasets.

Academic Projects:

• Designed an algorithmic trading strategy that used RandomForestClassfier to predict factors that increase alpha while minimising risk. I achieved a profit of 13% over the past year, managing a fund of $28,800 raised from 3 clients.
• Designed an ML model that optimally balanced portfolio weights based on real-time market data.
• Natural language processing model that predicts the degree of similarity between answer scripts, reducing plagiarism(this model is currently being used by my college)
• Created derivative pricing tools using C++ (Monte-Carlo pricing of Derivatives)

Books:

• Financial Calculus, an Intro to Derivative Pricing by Martin Baxter and Andrew Rennie
• Stochastic Differential Equations: An Introduction with Applications by Bernt Oksendal

Certifications:

• Executive Education course in Data Analytics from Imperial College Business School
• Udacity's AI for Trading nanodegree

Extra-curriculars:

• Founded the first Finance club in my college, mobilising over 40 members in a year
• Led a conference on Financial technology with over 1,000 participants
• Drums, Volunteering and other standard stuff that has little to do with FE.

My ideal programs are CMU MSCF and Oxford's MSc MCF.
However, I am applying to Boston University's Mathematical Finance, Warwick's Mathematical Finance program, and Imeprial RMFE.

• Realistically, is there a program I can get into with this profile?
• Is there any point in applying to the first 2 colleges? My undergrad college is a huge red flag, and as far as I can work out, every Indian applying to CMU seems to be from an IIT.
• In general, is there anything I could improve about my application? Or should I just take the L and work a couple of years before applying?

Cheers