Atypical applicant question

[dhonch]

Hey all,
I'm a recent Cornell graduate who will be applying to FE programs this fall. Because my major in college was mostly non-quantitative (Labor Relations), I'm enrolling in 8 UC Berkeley extension courses in the following sequence:

Financial accounting
Intro corporate finance
Calc I
Calc II
Intro C++
Multivariable calc
Linear algebra
Prob and stats

I'm wondering whether anybody thinks that I'll be at a severe disadvantage because of my college major. My major GPA was a 3.61. I'm taking the GRE in a couple months and expecting an Q800 or close to it. Assuming I pull a 3.5+ in these eight courses, do you think I'll be a contender for any top schools? Note: Apart from an internship at a hedge fund several years ago, I have no financial services experience.

Any input would be appreciated! Thanks!

 

[DanM]

I want to pursue an MFE myself, so I've looked over numerous student profiles from top schools. Most have quantitative backgrounds, but there are some that don't. This is simply my opinion, but I'd say that it can be done - you just have to show strength in other areas. I'm not in an MFE program, so I don't have first hand experience - so take it for what it's worth.

The best thing to do is to search for MFE student profiles - you can find them on the websites of the programs that post them. I know Baruch and Stanford definitely have profiles up on their sites.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

I pretend to be reading your profile right now and I want to know why should I admit you instead of the other applicants who got 800 GRE, good programming skills, good math courses, high GPA from some well known technically superior universities in China, India.
If you can convince me in a few minutes that you have something special to bring to the program, I'll consider you. Otherwise, I'll pass.

 

[dhonch]

I see your point. Any advice on anything I can do (besides good scores, GPA, etc) to boost my chances of admission? In other words, other than work experience, what am I lacking?

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Every program wants to admit applicants that are marketable, team player and can contribute to the program besides the tuition. Most program teaches the same thing more of less so it's desirable to coming in with a set of skills that are attractive to employers.
I can't see anything better than a nice set of technical skills. You study the same Black-Scholes formula, boot trap, option pricing everywhere so if you can help employers with your SQL, C++, VBA, Excel, you are more attractive to them.

People don't hire MFE graduates to sit and think of the next version of Black Scholes. They are hired to make things work. And you can't make things work with a pencil.

So I'll say that you should get your hand dirty pickup up on practical skills instead of worrying about GPA. You would be surprised to see how many applicants who have similar credentials (800 GRE, 3.8+ GPA, extra curriculum) but little hand on skills that they can contribute.

 

[dhonch]

Can you (or anybody else) give me some examples of practical, hands-on experience? Does this mean improving my programming ability, for example? What can I do that I can actively place in my applications?

 

[Roger Trimble]

Can you (or anybody else) give me some examples of practical, hands-on experience? Does this mean improving my programming ability, for example? What can I do that I can actively place in my applications?

Although I think financial accounting is nice to know ( it teaches you the language of business ), it will provide marginal value towards an MFE track. I think you'll find corporate finance is a waste of money in this field - you really don't have to use monte carlo or finite difference methods to value an M&A deal. I recommend spending that time and energy learning two or three of the following ( including what Andy posted below ): C++, Java, SQL, perl, python, matlab, c#, VB, R.

Picking up a few of these in the time before you apply for MFE's will give you tangible skills.

 

[goodstudent]

Andy and Roger Trimble have pointed out the programming skills. On the math-side you might want to take differential equations and numerical analysis (if you have time).