I was admitted to several graduate programs including Finmath at Uchicago, MFE at Berkeley,MFE at Columbia.I cannot decide which school is best for me.I am international and I hope to get a job after my Master's degree.Please advise which school could offer the best job placement.

Hshoon - Congrats on the acceptances, certainly a rich man's dilemma. Could you offer me some insight into your background even test scores - Im trying to gauge whether or not I have a shot at any of the big name schools. Thanks,Ty

In the past, all these 3 schools are excellent in terms of reputation. But nowadays I think in terms of job-hunting, better take Columbiabecause it is close to WS. ANd I know that some of those big-names prefer to hire first from Columbia and NYU. ALso one of them is willing to reimburse the whole tuition fee to students who study these two programs part-time.But that doesn't guaratee a job. When I heard from my friend in either of the above two mentioned (name withhold), he told me because of this downturn, only 5 person out of 40 can find a full-time job !!! For the another, situation is not much better.As for the other two schools you mentioned, I am sure to tell you situation is more or less correlated. What is important for you to know is that the field is getting too much competition. Everybody thinks with his engineering background plus the MFE can open him to lot of great jobs ! In reality, that was sth. past. Also you have to realize this field has a lot of leverage. When the economy is good, YES, congratulation, you may get five offers from the big-names. But when economy sucks, you are even out of the Street ! (i.e. you can't even find a single job there , like this year when over 40K+ people are kicked out of WS)What I try to disseminate here is that you have to understand the pros and cons of this field. If you are 100% sure you have the motivation to succeed, nobody can stop you and you will succeed somehow and get your dream job. However, you have to be preparedto sacrifice a lot of time in job-hunting and networking ...Just my 2 centsJobseeker

HshoonCongratulations!I was admitt to these programs and also for the Princetron and Stanford one. I will attend UofC program, and I am also an international student. Last week i was in US and visited the department in Chicago. Please, if you want send me a priovate e-mail we can talk about it.

Are these master's degrees considered at all useful for getting into PhD programs? Can you go straight out of undergrad, or even with some work experience? I am trying to plan out my educational route and it seems like the Master's programs might offer some insight into finance/financial math phd life as well as be a leg up in admissions. Any thoughts on this?Thanks,Ty

Are these master's degrees considered at all useful for getting into PhD programs? Can you go straight out of undergrad, or even with some work experience? I am trying to plan out my educational route and it seems like the Master's programs might offer some insight into finance/financial math phd life as well as be a leg up in admissions. Any thoughts on this? >>Yes, you can definitely go to a PhD program (in the US at least) without a masters degree.I can speak only for my own experience, which was to apply to PhD programs after an undergraduate degree in Mathematics and some years of work as a quant software developer (65% coding, 5% research, 30% explaining what I was doing to non-tech people). My experience is probably not typical, but I had a pretty successful round of applications to PhD programs. I applied to 8 programs in North America that I would consider top-notch and was accepted to 5 of them. I'll be starting this Fall studying in the OR Department at Cornell.But your grades, recommendations, and boards have to be really really good of course to get in to top programs. Although come to think of it, my Math subject test was rather mediocre, but I think the admissions committees gave me some slack for being out of school for so long. Now, I don't know whether it makes sense from a purely financial perspective to do a PhD or a Masters. The considerations are 1) a PhD takes at least 4 years if you don't already have a masters, maybe more 2) but you have to pay tuition for a masters, whereas for a PhD you'll get a stipend of some sort. And of course if you think you'll have different earning potential depending on which degree you get, that's a factor too.But of course, the real question is: do you want to spend 4, 5, 6...+(?) years of your life immersed in studies? Because if you're not happy with your life in grad school, you'll probably fail. I know this first hand - I dropped out of a PhD Mathematics program in a previous life. But these days I am looking forward to the return to academic life. My brain has completely atrophied due to software rot.

There are a bunch of other schools to consider here

Why did you decide on Chicago? I know I can definitely get into Columbia. Do you think this is a sperior/inferior program? Why? Thanks

If you're not sure 'bout which school you want to go to, read this article http://www.fenews.com/fen26/education.htmlits a survey for all the financial engineering/mathematical finance programmes out there