Post Baccalaureate programs for quant/ programming classes?

[halamadrid]

I was wondering if anyone knows much about the post baccalaurete programs?

I have heard of Columbia's post bacc in Quant Finance where students who have graduated undergrad but are hoping to get into a grad school or one of the financial engineering programs can take math/programming requirements they didn't get done in undergrad.

Does anyone know of any more of these types of programs? (CUNY apparently has one for much cheaper)

My goal is to get into a top masters institution whether a Masters in Finance or a Masters in financial Mathematics/Engineering. I am also thinking of getting a phd later on. However, I took mostly business classes in undergrad and thus at most can only satisfy requirements up to Calc 3/Linear Algebra.

My track is either:

1.) Stay at my current undergrad for an extra semester even though I will already have enough credits to graduate. Then I would perhaps be able to atleast fulfill a math and economics minor onto my Finance degree. Perhaps I can get a bigger scholarship for the remaining time as well.

2.) Go to one of these post-bacc programs and get some of the math/ programming requirements out of the way. I would like to take higher level math classes and some basic programming courses done. I do wonder though whether doing well in these courses would boost my chance for getting into a top masters program?


Also not sure if I can take many of the math courses online and then really get it cheap by staying at home back in California for the year.<!-- google_ad_section_end -->

 

[Andy Nguyen]

My goal is to get into a top masters institution whether a Masters in Finance or a Masters in financial Mathematics/Engineering. I am also thinking of getting a phd later on.
It's a big red flag. You either do MFE or PhD but not both.
You can take selective courses from local college, online, nobody cares. As long as you meet the requirements, you can apply to any program.

 

[joel_b]

don't both with anything post-baccalaureate if you are already in undergrad. Post-bac will cost more as they cater to 'continuing education' type students. Better off doing it at your current school. Like Andy said, if you meet the pre-requisite requirements you can go apply, doing some specialized post-bacc doesn't mean anything to MFE admissions as far as I know, just the courses.

I looked at those types of programs, and instead I went to CUNY as a second degree student to get my pre-requisites. No effing way I was going to pay $15k semester at columbia when I could do it for $5k at CUNY.

 

[Connor]

I also agree that it makes more sense to stay at your current undergrad.

A very few MFE students go on to PhD, but if you want a PhD you can go into a program straight from your undergrad. And in some cases you will be able to take MFE classes as electives for your PhD (or I remember there was one program, Berkeley I think, that allowed current PhD students to also enroll in the MFE).

Also, based on what you want to do should influence what classes you take. For example, for a PhD in finance you would need to take more math and some economics would also help you (especially intermediate micro/macro and econometrics) but for MFE math and computer science (programming) would be the things to take. Obviously the common thing is more math but whether economics or computer science depends on the program. (Programming surprisingly is less critical for a PhD)