7.8 Strata & Modeling - Morgan Stanley 1st round exam

[NormanYu]

Hey, long time lurker here and guess it's about time I contribute!

I'm taking the 1st round written test this Monday and am wondering if anyone has taken this before or will be taking it. If so, what types of questions will they ask? The information they gave was that it would be 90 minutes testing math, programming, and finance.

I have a general idea of what they might ask for math and finance but don't know what to expect for the programming aspect. Any specific languages to write the program in like C++ or just pseudo code?

 

[Joy Pathak]

it seems like they have changed things now... It used to be first round phone interview which consisted mostly of financial and math brain teasers..the 2nd round used to be programming, stats, math, finance questions...third round "fit" interviews with senior management. Or atleast that was the format last year when I went through the rounds.

 

[Sandip]

Can anybody guide us on what the difficulty level was? I don't know much programming except Matlab - will that be an issue?

 

[qujs]

can someone comment on their experience with the exam?

 

[farlorie]

There were 100 multiple-choice questions to work out in 90 minutes. Different forms were given to us in order to avoid cheating. For my part, most of the questions were about finance and mathematics, only a few about programming. For what I know only 5 or 6 questions implied to know a programming language, I think it was C++ but I'm not sure, anyway it was not Java nor Matlab. Other questions about programming concerned for example complexity for any sorting algorithms... For the math part, most of the questions were about probabilities and statistics, little or no question on algebra or calculus. For the finance part, I am not keen on it so I can't tell.

 

[shortie]

falorie, where did you take your exam?

 

[farlorie]

It was in a Morgan Stanley conference room on 1221 Ave of the Americas in NYC.

 

[Li Cai]

I will be taking the test next week as well. Can people who took the test recently share some information about it? I am still in undergraduate, so I am wondering if they ask math questions you learn in MFE programs? Furthermore, since I have only taken corporate finance, would my finance knowledge be enough? Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[Joy Pathak]

Wow they have really changed things this year.

 

[Li Cai]

Wow they have really changed things this year.

Yeah I tried to find some information in the past, and they were all phones interviews for the first round. But I think this change would give people in non-target schools a chance.

 

[elitelinning]

I will be taking the test next week as well. Can people who took the test recently share some information about it? I am still in undergraduate, so I am wondering if they ask math questions you learn in MFE programs? Furthermore, since I have only taken corporate finance, would my finance knowledge be enough? Thanks in advance for your help!

It depends on your math and CS skills basicly.

 

[VDesai]

I'm taking the exam this week. Does anyone, who took the exam, remember what type of topics the exam consisted of?

 

[mfe_jobseeker]

I took the exam last september. Questions include fixed income (basic bond math), option theory (bs pde, bs eqn, greeks), probability, stats, stochastic calculus(ito's lemma, martingales, stopping times etc) and some C++ and general CS questions.
The qs are tough and you get 90 mins to solve 100 qs.