Hey James:
Thanks for reaching out to me. To be honest, I am not as familiar with MFE programs (As opposed to MBA programs).What I can tell you, is that you may have a little bit of an uphill battle with your grades. Truth be told, they are not just poor for an Indian applicant, they would also be poor for an applicant from anywhere in the world. Now I know that you have a legitimate "excuse." This will definitely have to be fully explained in an optional essay. Of course you can have your recommenders address this, but here is the thing – why are you using college professors as your recommenders? Do you not have professional experience – experiences that your current bosses (if any) will vouch for in a recommendation? If not, that is going to be a problem. If you only plan on using one recommendation for your college professor, that might be okay. But here is another thing – all your bad grades came when you were a freshman (first year) in college. That is a long time ago. So in my opinion, that is a very stale recommendation. It really would not be the best recommendation have, but perhaps I am missing something with respect to chronology.
With respect to how you could have improved your candidacy by building an alternate transcript, I think you have done a very good job with that. What I would do is actually call up the admissions office for these individual programs and discuss your situation for a few minutes. The power picking up the phone and actually calling cannot be underestimated. They will speak with you quite frankly in a one-on-one situation such as a phone call. You should ask them what else can you do to improve your candidacy. Ask them if they want to see some type of documentation regarding your medical condition that you had, or still have. Make sure you are prepared to answer why you only had a problem with asthma during your freshman year.
Moving along, when I also see that you only scored a 710 on your GMAT, I am not really getting a robust sense for your academic abilities and potential. Any plans to take it again? I would consider it if I were you.
With respect to school selection, I really cannot tell you which schools to target because of two things. The first is that I am not completely familiar with all these MFE programs. The second is that I have no idea what your goals are, the nature of your work experience, or even how much work experience you have. so I do not know where you are going, I cannot begin to assess what the best path (program) actually is.
Respectfully,
Paul Lanzillotti
jamesvarghese wrote:
Hi,
I am using this opportunity to discuss a small point regarding my candidature and I do know that assessing a candidate success in admission application is subjective and depends on the pool as well. However I just require a small feedback.
I am an Engineering graduate from one of the top 20 colleges of India majoring in production engineering.( NITs which come below the prestigious IITs). Currently I work with an American bulge bracket bank in their fixed income division as an analyst.
I have a GMAT of 710 but a GPA of only 6.96 / 10.
My poor GPA is a result of my poor performance during my first year of college due to my extreme health conditions. ( I HAD 6-7 F GRADES IN MY FIRST YEAR). I wasn't able to attend majority of classes apart from being able to deliver good performance due to my extremely poor mindset all because of my health condition as stated above. My college uses our first year performance to put across our final GPA in its heuristics hence the poor Final GPA.( MATHS ARE ONLY C & D GRADES).
My class topper had a GPA of 8.5 hence my class standing will be around 16/45.
I know that I am in a bad position to apply to MFE since they state a minimum of 8.5 ( and F grades are heavily shunned too!!) for Indian students.Actually in my class only the topper received a GA of 8.5/10 and this has been the tradition in my department for quite some years.
Now this is my only demerit as far as academics are concerned.
MY Advantages are :
1. My professors kinda knew my situation( Bad health-->read asthma attacks --> absenteeism) but since they had to follow protocol of the college board they gave me lower grades despite my performance during my 2nd,3rd & 4th year. However they are willing to write a good Recommendation letter of a high level note including citings from the dean and HOD highlighting my special case. My professors include a current IIM ( top B school India) Asst Professor & my faculty advisor who is a NUS post grad ( Australian and Singaporean government scholarship holder)can vehemently state my cause and condition in my LORs apart from giving a stellar recommendation, plus I can give in a medical certificate as well)
2. I have taken EXTENSION COURSES(3 MATH & 3 FIN) from UC Berkeley in maths and finance ( total 6) straight A's.
3. Have a good score in GRE SUBJECT MATHS( different from the General GRE)
4. 2 Thesis on Mathematical modelling of financial models using Linear Programming and Advanced Genetic Algorithm( modeled in R) respectively that is to be immediately published in an international journal. I am further planning to present this in a conference.
5. I am a CFA level 3 candidate and a FRM charter holder
6. Good Extracurricular ( Elected Campus ambassador(Micro Finance), Lead Fundraiser(Green Peace), appreciation certificates etc)
I sincerely request you to look into my case and candidature and give a suggestion from your side regarding this. I would be highly obliged if you could advise me on the probable schools i can target.
Carnegie Mellon University LSE Financial Mathematics
Computational Finance
Columbia University Oxford MFE
New York, NY Financial Engineering
Princeton University Imperial MFE
Princeton, NJ Master in Finance
Baruch College, City University of New York
New York, NY Financial Engineering
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, CA Financial Engineering
New York University
New York, NY Mathematics in Finance
Columbia University
New York, NY Mathematics of Finance
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, MA Master of Finance
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY MEng, FE concentration
Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, GA Quantitative and Computational Finance
University of California, Los Angeles
Los Angeles, CA Financial Engineering
Rutgers University
New Brunswick, NJ Mathematical Finance
University of Toronto
Toronto, Canada Mathematical Finance
Boston University
Boston, MA Mathematical Finance
University of Chicago
Chicago, IL Financial Mathematics
NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering
Brooklyn, NY Financial Engineering
Rutgers University
Newark, NJ Quantitative Finance
Fordham University
New York, NY Quantitative Finance
Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, MD Financial Mathematics
University of Illinois
Urbana, IL Financial Engineering
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI Financial Engineering
University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, MN Financial Mathematics
University of Washington
Seattle, WA Computational Finance & Risk Management
Claremont Graduate University
Claremont, CA Financial Engineering
Illinois Institute of Technology
Chicago, IL
James