MS in finance in NY

Financial Engineering programs are a LOT more competitive than MS in Finance programs.

Columbia/Berkeley/Princeton and Stanford's MS in Financial Mathematics IMO are the top programs with 100% placement for its grads. You gotta be wicked smart to get in though...

Elie, I would ask yourself very seriously why you are looking at MS in Finance instead of an MBA in Finance. I have a lot of friends who did MS Fin/MFin/MFE, and their experiences have been mixed. These programs are young and a lot of employers don't know what to do with them. You might get a job out of the program, but if you're laid off or decide to quit/move, will you have a network and a reputation to get you a job elsewhere?



My BIL is a graduate of one of the programs you named -- he was laid off and has essentially no network, no safety net for getting a new job. MBAs are taking a lot of the remaining finance jobs, and finance MBAs who can't stay in finance can at least retool and do something else. Not really an option for MFE/MFin/MS Finance.

Caveat emptor for sure when it comes to these degrees. Ask yourself why you shouldn't work for a few years and get an MBA instead.

Really? I find that surprising but I guess with the market the way it is...

If you are sure you want to go into quantitative finance, I think a MS in Fin Engineering is WAY better than an MBA. You have access to specific jobs that MBAs get shut out from. An MBA isn't the most quantitative of degrees...

Getting a job in any facet of business is as much about perception, network, and expectations as it is about being prepared for the job. You need to have both the skills and the brand or perception to get in the door. That's why everyone encourages applicants to look at the employment reports for schools. A great education doesn't do much good if you have to fight to get interviewed by the company you want to work for.

I know there are some hardcore quant jobs you can't get with just an MBA, but for most stuff, an MBA is fine.

The thing to keep in mind is that most MFE/MFin programs graduate a truly tiny number of people a year. Whereas the recruiter you're talking to has probably hired dozens of Columbia or Chicago MBAs, they have hired maybe one or two students from past years in your program. If they have a spot open, who will they hire? The product of a tried and true program, or the product of a program that's been around 5-10 years and graduated 5-10 students a year? If you're head and shoulders above the other candidates, you'll hopefully get the job. But if you're all equally qualified, good luck.

Take the CFA designation rather than MS in Finance. The later is more expensive and still brand conscious while the former is an internationally recognized designation especially in investment management.

Curious, why not an MBA instead?

I can't comment on MS in New York, which is the original topic, but I can comment on MS and CFA which this thread is becomming about.

I have a coleague who graduated from MS in Financial Engineering from certain European university. That programme is notoriously hard and well known among professors. In business however, it got almost no recognition at all. He strugled to get interviewed and in the end he had to return to the former employer. While professors were congratulating him and glorified the programme, nobody in the business world, both in East and West Europe wasn't familiar with the hell he passed through to earn that designation. Now he is working in the same company as before, asking himself why he needed the MS in the first place.

There is no doubt that he acquired enviable level of knowledge on the subject, but now he needs to "verify" that through something more recognizable, so he entered the CFA program and has Level 1 exam this week. Of course, it will be much easier for him to pass L1 since he is more than proficient in almost all concepts covered in that curriculum.

From his experience, and my own with the CFA, I can conclude nothing but - everything in this game is in branding. MBA programs have much more established recruiting routes and are generally much more recognizable. CFA is the story on its own but in some aspects very similar to MS. Since CFA is self study program, you gain the knowledge but no network and soft skills. While you gain some limited network and soft skills in MS, the point of MS is in academic rigor. That is the main difference betwen the two and people tend to forget it often: MS is an academic designation - MBA is professional designation.