COMPARE UCLA MFE, NYU Courant, or Cornell MFE

[Shawn_Xu]

So I was admitted to all three above, and I'm doing interview at another one I'd definitely rank above all three. The issue is, NYU tell me to response before March 10th (said 4 week upon receive offer), when I might not have heard back from other programs.

Therefore, assuming the worst scenario, I'll need to make decision from these three programs: UCLA, NYU Courant, or Cornell. I found them on par with each other and hard to discern which one is advantageous. My main concern is career service and networks.

Background about me:
International, Family applied Green Card but will take at least 1-2 years.
Top 10 Undergrad, Applied Math + Econ.
Two full-time RA experience in undergrad, upcoming 1 internship in my home nation, financial related but not quantitative.
Did quite some Statistics courses (Markov Chains, Time-Dependent Data etc.) and some math in undergrad.

I believe my main weakness is career advancement (landing on first proper internship/job). I'm inclined to NYU for its placement and reputation in math, but saw that their career advancement is not good from QuantNet program comment section. I'm not sure about the other two.

Any help and suggestion is greatly appreciated.

 

[MichaelLewis]

Have you seen the latest rankings?

2024 QuantNet Ranking of Best Financial Engineering Programs

The 2024 QuantNet MFE ranking is the most authoritative and comprehensive ranking of best Financial Engineering (MFE), Mathematical Finance programs in the continental USA.

quantnet.com

 

[kitkat]

Cornell MFE
from reading previous COMPARE threads and by doing some cross-comparison, I feel Cornell is above the other two .

 

[kitkat]

Can you throw a poll - curious to see what response you will get.
Folks here don't leave comments that often, but they appear to be more willing to vote in a poll !

 

[OoozeDonatin]

lets do a poll!

 

[Shawn_Xu]

Have you seen the latest rankings?

2024 QuantNet Ranking of Best Financial Engineering Programs

The 2024 QuantNet MFE ranking is the most authoritative and comprehensive ranking of best Financial Engineering (MFE), Mathematical Finance programs in the continental USA.

quantnet.com

Yeah, I saw they are basically of similar level, that's why I'm asking.

 

[Shawn_Xu]

I have made a poll, thanks for the suggestion!

 

[the_tyler]

@Shawn_Xu May I ask when you made your application to NYU Courant? I am also waiting to hear from them.

 

[Shawn_Xu]

@the_tyler I finished my application (paid the fee) on January 5th.

 

[the_tyler]

@the_tyler I finished my application (paid the fee) on January 5th.

Thanks for the reply. It is quite earlier than the deadline. Probably, the admissions committee is releasing the decisions on a rolling basis.

 

[simaroberoi]

Thanks for the reply. It is quite earlier than the deadline. Probably, the admissions committee is releasing the decisions on a rolling basis.

I think you are right. I submitted my application on 3 Feb and got the official offer yesterday on 23 Feb. You should email the admissions committee if you have an offer from another school with the offer attached. I did that and received my decision soon after that.

 

[Shawn_Xu]

@simaroberoi Yeah, I can't quite recall why I applied that early.