Profile evaluation for european boy

[kobebry]

Hello folks, I am a senior out of Europe and planning to apply some schools listed below. Could you please discuss my weaknesses and evaluate my chances to get into those programs?

Overall GPA: Econ major 3.60 overall cgpa major gpa is 3.73
Calculus 1 A-
Calculus 2 A
Statistics and Probability A
Linear Algebra and Differential Equations B+
Econometrics B+
Introuduction to Computing with Matlab B+
Algorithms with Java A-
Corporate Finance A-
Applied Econometrics A-
GRE: 167 quant
Internship: 2 months internship at a london based insurance company at the investment department, mainly used STATA and SAS.
3 months internship at fintech startup where I used advanced python libraries and econometric analysis (such as pandas,seaborn,statsmodels,scipy and tensorflow). I also exposed myself to trading with cointegration,pairs trading and mean-reversion. I backtested simple trading strategies on forex market using python and visualized them.
2 months internship at the ministry of finance and treasury at the risk management department, again mainly used R and Python to calculate VaR. Worked mainly about interest rate swap. Had a presentation about LIBOR.
Certificates: Datacamp Data science with Python (88 hours)
LoR: I can get recommendation letters from proffs graduated from noteable universities such as Northwestern ,Oxford ,Hopkins or NYU. My school is known across europe and Usa even though it is not a western european country, my department sends students to top universities every year (including USA and Eu).
Target Schools: TU Wien
Zurich University
Imperial College London
Oxford
UChicago
NYU Tandon

Also I would like to ask how important internships are? For example, I had a relevant internship at the government and for me, at least, this seems pretty cool but is it also noticeable for the admission comm.? Does it really affect my application?

 

[kobebry]

does anyone have opinion?

 

[WorkofArt]

Looking good.
You have the necessary background and impressive internship experiences. It'll all come down to how you communicate your experiences in writing.
The only shortcomings I can see is a slightly lower GRE quant score. If you can retake the GRE and get a higher score ,you should. Otherwise,it shouldn't be a problem. Also, some background in Machine Learning would be a huge plus for the top programs. I would encourage you to apply a little more ambitiously to the US colleges, you have good chances of getting in.

 

[kobebry]

Looking good.
You have the necessary background and impressive internship experiences. It'll all come down to how you communicate your experiences in writing.
The only shortcomings I can see is a slightly lower GRE quant score. If you can retake the GRE and get a higher score ,you should. Otherwise,it shouldn't be a problem. Also, some background in Machine Learning would be a huge plus for the top programs. I would encourage you to apply a little more ambitiously to the US colleges, you have good chances of getting in.

Thanks for your opinion. Since I am an econ major it is not possible for me to take machine learning classes from my school, although I can try to learn ML by my own, how can I prove that to my school? Honestly, I did not even take a python class from the university, all I did was using Datacamp and it gave me some intituion about pandas and other libraries. So, based on what you say, my profile is above the Uchicago is that what you mean? As I said, since I did not take any Python classes, even though, I used python at my internships, is there a chance like they say "we dont believe that you know ıntermediate python because you did not take an official university course and hence we are not able to put you in our program" ?

 

[WorkofArt]

Thanks for your opinion. Since I am an econ major it is not possible for me to take machine learning classes from my school, although I can try to learn ML by my own, how can I prove that to my school? Honestly, I did not even take a python class from the university, all I did was using Datacamp and it gave me some intituion about pandas and other libraries. So, based on what you say, my profile is above the Uchicago is that what you mean? As I said, since I did not take any Python classes, even though, I used python at my internships, is there a chance like they say "we dont believe that you know ıntermediate python because you did not take an official university course and hence we are not able to put you in our program" ?

Online courses with a project component would a good way to prove that you've learnt it. Doing a project on your own also is a good idea. You can try to implement an improved version of your trading algorithms with some machine learning component (think sentiment analysis,etc).
Schools will give you the benefit of doubt. You should ask your recommenders from your internship to explicitly talk about your programming prowess. A lot of what we do is learnt outside the classroom so I'm certain they won't doubt it. Since you have a background in Java,I don't think they'll doubt your experience with Python. Programs that have a C++ heavy curriculum would probably prefer a C++ course but Java works as well.
Based on whatever I know about MFE programs,yes,you have a shot at the top 5 programs. You'll never know unless you apply and shouldn't dismiss them without trying.

 

[kobebry]

Online courses with a project component would a good way to prove that you've learnt it. Doing a project on your own also is a good idea. You can try to implement an improved version of your trading algorithms with some machine learning component (think sentiment analysis,etc).
Schools will give you the benefit of doubt. You should ask your recommenders from your internship to explicitly talk about your programming prowess. A lot of what we do is learnt outside the classroom so I'm certain they won't doubt it. Since you have a background in Java,I don't think they'll doubt your experience with Python. Programs that have a C++ heavy curriculum would probably prefer a C++ course but Java works as well.
Based on whatever I know about MFE programs,yes,you have a shot at the top 5 programs. You'll never know unless you apply and shouldn't dismiss them without trying.

The only way I can take intro to C++ or intro to machine learning course is to wait until spring semester because first I should meet the prerequisities. As far as I researched there are round 1 deadlines and round 2 deadlines. If I apply at the round 1 deadline for example my second Java class will not be shown at my transcript because the semester will not be finished by the time I apply. Is this a problem? Or I can wait for round 2 deadlines (middle of february) so that my second year Java class grade will be occuring at my transcript with a letter grade. Does that make a difference? Or even if there is no letter grade given, my transcript suggests that I am currently taking this course and this is still fine.

 

[WorkofArt]

The only way I can take intro to C++ or intro to machine learning course is to wait until spring semester because first I should meet the prerequisities. As far as I researched there are round 1 deadlines and round 2 deadlines. If I apply at the round 1 deadline for example my second Java class will not be shown at my transcript because the semester will not be finished by the time I apply. Is this a problem? Or I can wait for round 2 deadlines (middle of february) so that my second year Java class grade will be occuring at my transcript with a letter grade. Does that make a difference? Or even if there is no letter grade given, my transcript suggests that I am currently taking this course and this is still fine.

You can indicate courses you're taking and courses you will be taking in the future. That's not an issue. You'll be equipped with those skills before you enter a graduate program so schools will consider that.
Ideally,you would want all the potential courses you'll be completing on your transcripts but you have a good enough profile to apply without them. The C++ and Machine Learning course don't seem extremely necessary to be completed before applying. If you can apply when you're taking them (before the grades are out) that would be best. But a lot of schools have earlier deadlines and not all of them have a round 2 one. So I would apply accordingly