Advice on Princeton ORFE

[Kimberly]

Does anyone here know how quant recruiters/Wall Street in general compare grads with a masters in ORFE from Princeton (which I hear can be tailored to be very similar to the Master of Finance degree) with grads from say, Columbia's MFE program?

 

[Cham]

I have a similar question. Does anybody have an answer?

 

[Abi Tran]

Similar question here.

 

[ygmwy]

I don't really get the question...

 

[New Trader]

Which one is the best? I assumed that was his question
"Masters in ORFE from Princeton" vs Columbia's MFE program

 

[Cham]

Personally my question is: What is the value of ORFE program of Princeton, compared to MFE programs that are in the ranking on quantnet (Columbi MFE, but also NYU, MIT, Baruch, etc ...)?
I think Kimberly had the same question.

 

[ygmwy]

Columbia MSFE
Pros
- Super wide course offering
- In NYC
- Great networking opportunities
- Grad focused school
- Parties
- Opportunities to work with students in other majors in engineering and business
- Columbia Business School
Cons
- Large class sizes
- Career services ok, but it is up to you to take it. Not everyone knows how to take charge of their own career.
- Too many Chinese students. (Boring if you're not Chinese)

Princeton ORFE/MFin
Pros
- Beautiful campus
- Small class sizes
- Broad required curriculum (too broad in my case. No chance to specialize)
- More individualized attention and career help
- Very interesting students from all over the world.
Cons
- Far from NYC
- Slow and bulky curriculum (bad for early interviewing)
- Too long (2 years)
- Undergrad focused school
- Teeny Weeny Department in comparison to columbia

That's what I can think of off the top of my head.

 

[Abi Tran]

Do employers look at one more favorably than the other?

 

[ygmwy]

Completely depends on biases of employer, and their needs. There is no one rule that applies to all employers. Maybe an employer is an alumnus. Maybe an employee has hired there before. Generally, the best indicator of whether an employer will look at you is if they have hired from your school and your program before. Most firms have their favorites.

Otherwise, both of these programs are excellent and will get you everything you need to get the job. You just need to meet them half way and grab it. I personally disagree with quantnet rankings a lot...

 

[Cham]

Thanks wayoung. And about Princeton MS&E in ORFE, which has a center of "financial mathematics"? (I think you have only talken about Mfin which is a really great program!!).

 

[ygmwy]

Thanks wayoung. And about Princeton MS&E in ORFE, which has a center of "financial mathematics"? (I think you have only talken about Mfin which is a really great program!!).

Don't know much about that, sorry. Someone else can enlighten us both.

 

[GoIllini]

Which program are you referring to? Princeton has both an MS ORFE and an MFin program. The ORFE program is a little more geared towards people going into academia or data science or logistics roles, and the MFin program is geared a little more towards preparing people for quant, banking, and PM roles. The ORFE guys are smarter; the MFin guys are a little more outgoing. I'm a second-year Princeton MFin.

Princeton's MFins have a reputation for being a little lighter on stochal and a bit stronger on statistics relative to other MFEs from the Northeast. Princeton has a reputation for being more selective in admits than Columbia; Columbia has a reputation for being a little more selective in graduates.

Princeton will have a stronger reputation among hiring managers if you're going for more of a Strat role (anything from Quant PM roles to research to IBD stuff); Columbia will have a stronger reputation if you're going for a pure pricing quant role.

Princeton sees itself as 2/3 MFE program, 1/3 MBA program. Our graduates often compete with HBS and Stanford MBAs for jobs, and often win. They're confident shaking hands with Nobel Laureates, bank CEOs, and hedge fund managers. We would like to think that there may be a little extra polish in the typical Princeton MFin that may not be in every quant, and a lot of that is a product of the two years on campus. A lot of our admits are great at sports, have a lot of leadership experience, and many would make excellent MBAs if they wanted to party for two years. Instead, we realized that we were also great at math, and that leadership is something you can learn outside of formal courses. However, stats, machine learning, and stochastic calculus are much harder to learn without a formal course.

 

[Cham]

I was referring to MS ORFE. I thought that there is the MFin which is a great well-known program, but that there is also the MS ORFE that can lead up to carrers as quants if I choose the good electives, ... Am I wrong?
And about the Mfin program (as you seem to know it well): is it always a 2-years program? Is it impossible to attend in one year?

 

[GoIllini]

I was referring to MS ORFE. I thought that there is the MFin which is a great well-known program, but that there is also the MS ORFE that can lead up to carrers as quants if I choose the good electives, ... Am I wrong?
And about the Mfin program (as you seem to know it well): is it always a 2-years program? Is it impossible to attend in one year?

Hmmm. Most of the ORFE guys I know and know of are PhD-track folks. According to the website at least, the MSE ORFE is designed for folks continuing into a PhD in ORFE.

ORFE is NOT an easy program at Princeton. It's harder than the CS program and might be as hard as the math program. The required stats and linear programming courses are pretty darned tough.

As for the MFin program, if you went to Polytechnique, hold a PhD, or maybe if you have a return offer from your bank and can convince them, it's a 1-year program. Otherwise, the MFin program is generally two years. There's a little bit of room (not a whole lot) for negotiation at a small program like this if you get an admit.

If cost is an issue, there's a $10,000 scholarship for the first year that's available to some admits. Many students also work as TAs their second year and get a partial or full tuition break; we are grad students after all. Finally, Princeton charges the same tuition whether you are taking five courses per semester or four courses per semester, but you get a tuition break if you are only taking two courses. So you can take 5-4-5-2 and save about 50% on your last semester's tuition.

If you are currently working in finance in the US, and you have a 401K (retirement account) that you can make extra contributions to, you can withdraw tax-free for tuition and on top of that get a tax write off through a business tax deduction for tuition. So you can *basically* pay your tuition bill with pre-tax money.

So the $86K tuition figure isn't really $86K. It's $86K in pre-tax money if you have a 401K and prior work experience, and really more like $70-75K in pre-tax money if you go part-time your last semester or land a TA position.

 

[Cham]

So if I understand, MS ORFE in Princeton is for people who want to take a Phd after it (that's not my case).

And if I understand this sentence: "As for the MFin program, if you went to Polytechnique, hold a PhD, or maybe if you have a return offer from your bank and can convince them, it's a 1-year program", if I am from Polytechnique, Mfin and MS ORFE can both be a 1-year program (after negotiation).

Did I good understand?

Thank you for your help.

 

[GoIllini]

Yes. If you studied at the French engineering school Polytechnique, those students are often admitted as 1-year students here. If you receive a 2-year admit and you want a 1-year, and you fall into one of those broad categories where a 1-year admit may be negotiable, that is something you would want to discuss with Wendell or Prof. Carmona before you accept.

 

[moretodo]

Princeton sees itself as 2/3 MFE program, 1/3 MBA program. Our graduates often compete with HBS and Stanford MBAs for jobs, and often win. They're confident shaking hands with Nobel Laureates, bank CEOs, and hedge fund managers. We would like to think that there may be a little extra polish in the typical Princeton MFin that may not be in every quant, and a lot of that is a product of the two years on campus. A lot of our admits are great at sports, have a lot of leadership experience, and many would make excellent MBAs if they wanted to party for two years. Instead, we realized that we were also great at math, and that leadership is something you can learn outside of formal courses. However, stats, machine learning, and stochastic calculus are much harder to learn without a formal course.

The placements at Princeton MFin in the last couple of years have lagged. Most of the prestigious roles are outside the US and the ones in US that are highly sought after are 1-2. I don't think the ORFE department places a lot of its students at Wall Street or in Quant in general. They do place a few put the relative % of placements aren't significantly greater than say, a Stanford PhD Engineering or a Gatech IE PhD.

Having said that, the Princeton MFin still can boast of accepting the best talent out there interested in an education in Quantitative Finance.

Princeton is not even close to a Harvard or a Stanford MBA and most of the full time placements posted on the MFin website do not recruit MBAs specifically so it would be hard to believe that a HSW MBA graduate lost out to one of you guys. Moreover, big firms like BBs have some sort of a policy of employing graduates from a diverse set of institutions so accepting a student from a massively undersized (as compared to a HSW MBA) MFin program may seem as an option to them and that would be a huge advantage to you since the competition within your program should be lower due its smaller size.

Moreover, your argument that a person who "realized" (ideally believed) that he was "great at math" decided to pursue an MFin instead of an MBA is vacuous in the sense that if a person is indeed good at Math, that in no way is obligatory on his part to pursue a career in Math heavy roles. There are lots of students who end up at HSW for their MBA who are really good at Math but just happen to be interested in the strategic, managerial or non-esoteric finance roles.

An MBA is not about learning leadership personally. Its about building a strong professional network, learning basic managerial frameworks and theories and most importantly signalling to the employers that you are really serious about a career in a managerial role and are willing to bear a huge cost in the process (skin in the game analogy from Economics) to avoid moral hazard issues.

 

[GoIllini]

The placements at Princeton MFin in the last couple of years have lagged. Most of the prestigious roles are outside the US and the ones in US that are highly sought after are 1-2. I don't think the ORFE department places a lot of its students at Wall Street or in Quant in general. They do place a few put the relative % of placements aren't significantly greater than say, a Stanford PhD Engineering or a Gatech IE PhD.

Most of our candidates this year are already placed. By my recollection we have in my class placed at 5 at GS, 3 at Citadel, at least one, maybe 2 at AQR out of a class of 25 2nd year students, all in front office roles. One student took a year off for a ~$500-600K/year opportunity after his internship. There are other great programs out there, but it's hard to look down on those stats.

On Asia, we had three people go back to work for the Government of Singapore's Sovereign Wealth Fund last year, but that is part of the deal if Singapore is paying your tuition. We have a dating couple going to Hong Kong, but that's by choice and with two nice offers- one to MS and one to GS (both with no prior sellside experience.) One turned down an NYC Portfolio Strategy offer to be with the other; the other was initially pursuing roles in Hong Kong to be closer to his family. (Both are from HK and have family there)

A last note on Asia is that the intern recruiting season starts and ends about a month earlier there. At least from what I've seen, it's hard to categorize the people who took Asian offers as being unable to find work in the US. You might be able to argue they were uncertain about their ability to get a better offer in NYC, but given the schedule of the recruiting process, it's impossible to claim they failed in NYC/US recruiting and had to go to Asia. One might even make the other point that people who get front-office offers from Asia with similar pay that might be closer to their families or culture don't really need to recruit in the US.

An MBA is not about learning leadership personally. Its about building a strong professional network, learning basic managerial frameworks and theories and most importantly signalling to the employers that you are really serious about a career in a managerial role and are willing to bear a huge cost in the process (skin in the game analogy from Economics) to avoid moral hazard issues.

Of course. But what better place to do that than a small program filled with finance people? Princeton offers just enough free time and stuff to do and just a small enough program to make connections with a lot of people going into finance- and not necessarily going into hardcore quant roles.

I really don't think you need event after event after event to do that, and courses filled with case studies are a waste of a structured learning environment if you're just trying to get smart accomplished people to collaborate. You just need a lot of homework, a *reasonable* homework collaboration policy or a grouped project in at least a couple classes, and a lot of students living in the same building. Why teach business cases when you can teach something like GARCH models or noise trader models- they are just as practical but are difficult to teach outside of a classroom.

There are lots of students who end up at HSW for their MBA who are really good at Math but just happen to be interested in the strategic, managerial or non-esoteric finance roles.

I really do think that the situation you describe is a bit of a lost opportunity. At the very least, it's a negative signal for a great deal of quant roles and arguably many technology roles. Meanwhile, a technical master's degree is hardly a negative signal for managerial roles.

From what I've seen from my time in banking, it's better to be a rank-and-file employee earning $X than a manager earning $X, and if you are a manager, it's better to be someone managing employees who earn $X than to be a manager earning $X. Finally, it's better to be working in a group where your manager needs to be as smart as you and have similar credentials. Rank and file employees have options and a great deal of freedom, but managers don't.

Unfortunately, not everyone can pursue this strategy of trying to move into a role where the rank-and-file employees need a lot of technical expertise and earn a lot of money. Fortunately, most people who are reading this forum probably can pursue this strategy.

So why sell that call so cheaply with an MBA? I would argue that an MFin gives you the same kind of a network- but for hedge funds, asset management, and quant research. And it's 40% less expensive.

We wind up having students place into PE roles and IBD associate roles, often having HBS and Stanford MBAs at the same level as them at some pretty tough to land firms. Whether or not you claim we compete against them directly or not, we have prima facie evidence that HBS students and Stanford GSB students apply for and take these same roles. It seems to be a reasonable assumption that if over a period of 10 years enough seats get filled by Princeton MFins, and Harvard MBAs could have also filled those roles, the Princeton MFins beat out the Harvard MBAs for that job.

 

[moretodo]

Most of our candidates this year are already placed. By my recollection we have in my class placed at 5 at GS, 3 at Citadel, at least one, maybe 2 at AQR out of a class of 25 2nd year students, all in front office roles. One student took a year off for a ~$500-600K/year opportunity after his internship.

Why would he have to take a one year off for the job ? And what sort of job is it ? Does he have significant prior work experience ? Also Citadel does pay well in the early stages of one's career but on the downside the salaries do not appreciate at the same pace as they do at a BB and they have more of a revolving door policy making it a bit of an unsafe bet for int'l students. Do let me know your views on this.

 

[GoIllini]

Why would he have to take a one year off for the job ? And what sort of job is it ? Does he have significant prior work experience ? Also Citadel does pay well in the early stages of one's career but on the downside the salaries do not appreciate at the same pace as they do at a BB and they have more of a revolving door policy making it a bit of an unsafe bet for int'l students. Do let me know your views on this.

Well, the program allows you to go in-absentia for a year. I am not sure what he is going to do after that; he has 10 courses of 16 done and may continue part-time after that. Or he may drop out. If I had a $600k opportunity, I'd defer for a year, too.

Of the Citadel hires, one is married to a US Citizen, another is Canadian, and another is a US Citizen.

Here is my take on H1B visas and layoffs:

1.) I've survived six rounds of layoffs between 2007 and the start of my master's program. (I started my career at Lehman Brothers. I won't say where else I've worked.) Layoffs are gut-wrenching, regardless of whether you are here on a Visa or not.
2.) Layoffs are a bit more gut-wrenching for people on H1B visas.
3.) Most people who work at banks and hedge funds in quantitative or technical roles tend to find another job in 30 days.
4.) If you don't, there are ways to house a visa without really having a job. My roommate was on an H1B visa after getting laid off, and became intimately familiar with his options within a few days. After that, he was more concerned with his finances and the effect long-term unemployment might have on his career than on his immigration status. (That said, he found a new job in two weeks.)