This must be a record year for MFE applications

[AlexandreH]

Seeing what happened with Columbia, plus the article posted on Quantnet and finally the email I received yesterday from Cornel (see below) I guess this could be a record year for MFE applications. It would be interesting to see the total number of applications once published later this year.

Email from Cornell:
"Thank you for applying to Cornell's Master of Engineering program in Operations Research and Information Engineering. We realize that many of you have not yet received a decision regarding admission to our program, and we ask for your continued patience. This year, the volume of applications we received was extremely high, and as a result the admissions process is taking longer than usual...."

 

[Tsotne]

I have seen exactly the same kind of e-mail for various people applying for the MSE.

 

[Lin]

I wonder what prompted so many people to apply this year..
this could mean that a lot of good students going to tier 2 schools..whether that will raise the quality of these programs..thats debatable..
It would be great if someone could paint a realistic picture of the current demand of quants..or are all of us entering an already saturated market?

 

[ThinkDifferent]

this trend is going to end in a rather disappointing way for most MFE graduates. the world needs less financial engineers, not more...

 

[AlexandreH]

this trend is going to end in a rather disappointing way for most MFE graduates. the world needs less financial engineers, not more...

I think so.

 

[Sherlock]

Still I believe if you are really good at what you do (in this case quant stuff) they you will be wanted no matter what. So I believe you should concentrate on being the best in what you do, not on how many people are going to do it as well.

 

[bigbadwolf]

I wonder what prompted so many people to apply this year..
this could mean that a lot of good students going to tier 2 schools..whether that will raise the quality of these programs..thats debatable..
It would be great if someone could paint a realistic picture of the current demand of quants..or are all of us entering an already saturated market?

Assuming there are many more people applying to first-tier programs, does that mean unsuccessful applicants will settle for second-tier programs? Or will many of them realise it's first-tier or nothing, since second-tier means no job? This is a real question, not a rhetorical one. It seems there's more sense in splurging $50,000 on a program in Columbia or Carnegie-Mellon than $35,000 for some horsesh!t program in Hawaii or Minnesota. With the former at least you have some chance of getting a job.

 

[Tsotne]

Still I believe if you are really good at what you do (in this case quant stuff) they you will be wanted no matter what. So I believe you should concentrate on being the best in what you do, not on how many people are going to do it as well.

Initial investment in education comes out to be one of the main determinant of the profession of people - especially international students. If we look at this forum and also consider the opinions of other applicants, their main concern is whether the initial investment will be recovered soon so they are mainly seeking the career opportunity after completing the studies. This dispels the misconception that we should seek what we want to do and try to be best in our industries rather than worry about the number of competitors. (Which is not surprisingly true)

 

[roni]

Better economy, approx 1 billion Chinese and 1.2 billion Indians , enough said ?
As far as I understand, all the companies in Asia care about is the name of the school, you can get a MS in Social Nonsense from Princeton and get a job in S&T or something.... that's sad, IMO....

 

[Andy Nguyen]

I was talking to the Director of a top 5 Quantnet ranked quant program the other day and he mentioned that they possibly see up to a 50% increase this year.
This reflects a growing sense of optimism among applicants, in my opinion. This is good news for universities but also would put much more pressure on their resources and the ability to place their graduates.
Competition among top programs will increase significantly in the near future and I would not be surprised to see another Ivy school offering something in this niche.
We haven't seen anything from Harvard, Yale, Brown, UPenn, Dartmouth yet.

 

[Lin]

I was talking to the Director of a top 5 Quantnet ranked quant program the other day and he mentioned that they possibly see up to a 50% increase this year.
This reflects a growing sense of optimism among applicants, in my opinion. This is good news for universities but also would put much more pressure on their resources and the ability to place their graduates.
Competition among top programs will increase significantly in the near future and I would not be surprised to see another Ivy school offering something in this niche.
We haven't seen anything from Harvard, Yale, Brown, UPenn, Dartmouth yet.

wow!..so i would definetely be wrong in assuming that this was a one off year and maybe the no of applications would come down in the future.

So If I am an an applicant who cannot significantly improve on his profile till next year I guess there is no point reapplying to colleges like Columbia.. its only gonna get tougher

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Baruch MFE just announced that they have 651 applications this year, their all time high. Previous high was 514 in 2008. Last year was 467. This year is 39% increase from 2010.

NYU MSFM is going to break the 1,000 mark this year.

Every program seems to have a record breaking number this year.

 

[SYau]

Holy cow, 1 vs 650.... I like my odds. :D

 

[lonely]

I think another factor could be that many people stay put for last couple of year so did not take chance as in many cases they had to take lot of loan(Indian & Chinese)and saw their saw of getting a job very bleak due to terrible economic environment or in some cases they did not want to leave their job for school out of fear that they might not get a job.

@roni

Managers here in Asia tends to be very conservative in selecting people, no way(or almost next to nil) social science harvard grad getting trading job in Asia. That can , I guess only happen in America, plus Asians who wants these kinds of career tends to prefer sciences or engineering program by overwhelming majority.
No Asian from Asia will be doling out 40k USD per annum for social studies at harvard(unless he is very very rich).
I on the other hand like American approach, and believe that this openness is good thing as you might be good trader but did not really know when you were 16 so ended up in social sciences or maybe just took social sciences as you might have liked it, and knowing that its America so you can be given chance in other areas as well if you think you want that. Well just an outsider's perspective

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Quick question:
Which MFE/MathFin program you think will have the most number applications this year?

 

[rishab dhar]

NYU MSMF in my opinion.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

We haven't received numbers from CMU MSCF and Columbia MAFN yet, both of which have a very late deadline.
And more importantly, both of these programs had more applications than NYU last year.

So all bets are up.