Grad School Interviews

[GoIllini]

A number of grad schools require an interview before they make an admissions decision, and I wanted to hit the ground running to prepare for them if necessary.

Has anyone had any experience with them? Are these hard, technical interviews with a whiteboard and marker or are they more about soft-skills and clearing up questions about your application? Also, is it typically a quick 1/2 hour session with one interviewer or are there several interviews to go through?

As a developer, I think I know what to expect for technology and quant/markets interviews, but my last school interviews were for undergrad where people asked me about myself, my hobbies, and what I wanted to do when I graduated.

 

[chaoticrambler]

What degree are you applying for ? PhD interviews are mostly fit (and also rare) but MFE interviews from what I have heard from my friends are a mix of soft skill questions as well as very basic math/stat questions.

 

[GoIllini]

What degree are you applying for ? PhD interviews are mostly fit (and also rare) but MFE interviews from what I have heard from my friends are a mix of soft skill questions as well as very basic math/stat questions.

MFE and/or MSCF. Thanks for the heads-up. Any word on whether programmers get quizzed on algorithms and/or programming languages? I'm especially concerned about what might happen if I go into a CMU interview.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Don't worry about too technical interview questions. Most of the time, the interview is conducted by the director, faculty, staff and at UCB, sometimes by the current students.
Most would be to gauge English skill, reaffirm what you wrote in SOP.
Common questions:
Why this program? Why MFE? What other programs you apply to? What is your career goal?
Finance and math questions depend on your background.

There won't be any board and pen questions as interviews are done via phone, or Skype with most programs. I know Baruch has in person interviews for those in the area.

 

[PatternSeeker]

Stevens

How is Stevens MFE program? Understand its not in the big 10, but considering it a hop, skip and jump from NYC and has one of the highest rated career placement, it seems pretty decent.

Any comments on Stevens?

I'm about to do a mid-life career change, from Electrical Engineering over to Quant.

 

[GoIllini]

How is Stevens MFE program? Understand its not in the big 10, but considering it a hop, skip and jump from NYC and has one of the highest rated career placement, it seems pretty decent.

Any comments on Stevens?

I'm about to do a mid-life career change, from Electrical Engineering over to Quant.

I've met a number of smart engineers from Stevens (they have a strong nautical engineering program, IIRC), but I haven't met many MFE grads from Stevens at the banks.

One would think that your average Stevens grad would get a job in risk management or finance pretty easy, but my very limited insight is that they may not get the more competitive positions you find at investment banks and hedge funds.