What should my MFE targets be?

[styxlax]

I'm just finishing up my junior year so I want to get a scope of where I should be looking for MFE programs after school. I'm at a mid level ACC school where I am a D1 athlete. I'm studying Statistics and Computer Science and I'll also have minors in Econ and Math. I'll end up with about a 3.65 GPA, but about a 3.9 GPA in my major coursework. I decided to study and take the GRE a bit early but I got a 170Q / 166V. As far as experience, I had a sophomore year data science internship at a large manufacturing company and I'll be working as a SWE in FAANG this summer. I will also have completed 3 ML/QR research projects at the time of my application and worked as a research assistant with a math professor doing some QR at my school.

I know at the end of the day that I should choose a school that is the best fit for my situation, but as far as preparing for applications, I'm wondering what I should set my sights on for an MFE program as far as safeties, targets, and reaches.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

You have a good profile for a college junior. Stats and CS are great major to have. As evident by your SWE internship, this sets you up nicely for a career in FAANG or related industry.
To get into finance which is highly competitive, make sure your coding skills are really good. I had a CS/Math double major and the programming courses are very basic. You can take a look at the syllabus for QuantNet C++ courses to have an idea of what you should know by the time you interview for your quant internship.
It's imperative to learn your options theory which is a cornerstone course for all MFE programs as far as I can remember. We make an online options quiz to test your options knowledge. You can get books to learn it too. Hull's is a popular text.
To pick the right MFE program, it's easy to make a mistake without proper research. It does not help that there is a huge lack of important data out there.
There is a huge gulf between the top programs and the bottom.
Use QuantNet to do your research, there are lot of valuable information and contributors here that you won't find anywhere else.