Best Internships to Get to Get Admitted to a Good MFE Program?

[MikeTheQuant]

Hi everyone,

I'm a sophomore undergrad double major in Applied Math with a quant finance specialization and an Economics 2nd major. I want to get my Master's in Financial Engineering or a similar degree to become a quant. Last summer, I interned at a private equity firm doing some analyst work on Excel and making presentations. Right now, I am a TA for intermediate macro. This summer, I will be a research assistant to my intermediate macro prof when he leaves my uni to work at the Federal Reserve.

What kind of an internship should I get for my last summer as an undergrad to maximize my chances of getting admitted to a prestigious MFE program like Baruch/CMU/Princeton/Columbia/NYU/Cornell? If there's anyone who is currently in an MFE program that has any insight, I'd be incredibly grateful. Thanks!

 

[MikeLawrence]

You are on a pretty ideal track so far.

It really isn't that complicated, the bigger and brighter the company and the more relevant the work experience the better odds you have at a top program.

So... just start googling and applying. Anything from a well known company that starts with 'quant' is gold. Plenty of people come from Strats, macro research, and other areas too. Just go for modeling/quant/trading positions and see what you can scrape up.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Quant Internship and Graduate recruitment - A Firms List

The following is a non-exhaustive list of investment banks, quant funds, and financial firms that offer internship and graduate/entry-level opportunities for students in Financial Engineering (MFE) programs. We will extend the list over time as we receive comments and feedback from our members...

quantnet.com

Big List of Quant Employers

I revamped this list. Feel free to add more! List of Companies hiring interns/full-time quants a) INVESTMENT BANKS i. Bank of America Merrill Lynch ii. Barclays Capital iii. BNP Paribas iv. Citigroup v. Credit Suisse vi. Deutsche Bank vii. Goldman Sachs viii. J.P. Morgan ix. Lazard x. Morgan...

quantnet.com

 

[GWeitz]

Take everything with a grain of salt. While I think it’s safe to say that there is positive correlation between relevant work experiences and MFE admit chances, I don’t think that you need to have an internship like listed above to be admitted to the top MFE programs. I mean, I was recently admitted to Baruch and never had internships like these…
You are definitely way ahead of where I was as a sophomore. I was an applied math and physics major at a non-target school, and back then, I thought I wanted to pursue a PhD in physics. During school, my only internship experinces were in in quantum computing and the problems I was solving were in combinatorial optimization (maybe will be relevant in finance in ~20 years ).
Since graduating in May 2022, I’ve been working in a fintech as an NLP engineer.
I would say that as long as you have a top notch mathematical background from your undergrad (with subpar grades obviously), and keep on doing internships that involve a lot of programming, your applicant profile would be very competitive.

 

[sweet]

Take everything with a grain of salt. While I think it’s safe to say that there is positive correlation between relevant work experiences and MFE admit chances, I don’t think that you need to have an internship like listed above to be admitted to the top MFE programs. I mean, I was recently admitted to Baruch and never had internships like these…
You are definitely way ahead of where I was as a sophomore. I was an applied math and physics major at a non-target school, and back then, I thought I wanted to pursue a PhD in physics. During school, my only internship experinces were in in quantum computing and the problems I was solving were in combinatorial optimization (maybe will be relevant in finance in ~20 years ).
Since graduating in May 2022, I’ve been working in a fintech as an NLP engineer.
I would say that as long as you have a top notch mathematical background from your undergrad (with subpar grades obviously), and keep on doing internships that involve a lot of programming, your applicant profile would be very competitive.

Agreed. I was just admitted into CMU and have zero relevant work experience. At the end of the day, if you are able to display you are strong mathematically, are capable of programming, and have an interest in finance you put yourself in a solid position (assuming you have a good GPA, strong GRE Q, and solid rec letters).

 

[MikeLawrence]

@GWeitz @sweetyezus
That is all well and good (and better, it's true), but OP asked for the best internships to improve OP's chances of being admitted, not whether internship experience is strictly needed.

 

[GWeitz]

He asked for insight from someone in an MFE so just giving my two cents…

 

[sweet]

@GWeitz @sweetyezus
That is all well and good (and better, it's true), but OP asked for the best internships to improve OP's chances of being admitted, not whether internship experience is strictly needed.

my bad then

 

[MikeLawrence]

my bad then

He asked for insight from someone in an MFE so just giving my two cents…

Sorry, y'all are good, I was just pointing that out. A lot of what y'all said was good stuff just not answering the question. Although some of what you said was relevant. I'm sure it still helped him. I probably should've just not said anything.

 

[QuantCoach]

Like others have said, you don’t need an internship to get a MFE. However, a good internship will definitely help since the main criteria of MFE admission is your perceived employability. But then most people with great domestic internships won’t do a MFE in the first place. In terms of what kind of internships, typically the harder the internship is to get, the more it’ll help your profile. Any front office role in big banks or buy side, even good internships in other industries will help such as FAANG, databricks, stripe