Hey everybody,Got a tough decision to make and wanted to solicit your opinions. I've got acceptances with Courant and UChicago and an interview with CMU. I don't put much weight on rankings but am interested in getting people's opinions. I'm interested in becoming a practitioner and not an academic, and plan on working in New York after completing my degree.Any suggestions on the reputation of the universities, the quality of the program and its faculty, and the importance of location?Thank you very much for your feedback. All of the programs seem very reputable and I don't think any one would be a wrong decision. I just want to make sure I find the program that is the best fit for myself.

In my mind the criteria by order of importance should be the following:1) Reputation of the uni 2) Does the program fullfill your needs (focus of the program, length, etc...) 3) Tuition cost 4) Cost of life where you will study 5) Location where you want to study.1) In term of reputation I would say that these uni are equivalent. In order to better asses that try asses the internship opportunities and look also at their placement. 2) CMU program is longer than the other and has an emphasis on computation while the two other seems more focused on theory. So you need to assess your strength and weakeness and see how the different programs might help you to improve your "weak" area.3) This should be easy to compare4) NY is dam expensive while Pittsburg and Chicago are cheaper5) You only know the answer.Bare in mind that I only mentioned the location as a personal factor. In my mind it doesn't matter where you are located in order to find a job (especially coming from a great uni such as CMU, Courant or Uchicago). Because in order to "network" what you need is a laptop and a phone. Of course if you are studying in NY it will be easier for you to go to the interview but if you are not studying in NY what you you will just need to do is book a trip to NY and gather as much as interview as you can (which is really easy to do). If you are lucky some banks will pay for your trip otherwise you will have to pay that by yourself but the cost of that is really small compared to the tuition you will pay for the program.Having graduated from UChicago (not from the finmath program but from a department close to it) I have a strong bias towards this uni. You will get what you will put in the program and beleive me if you are committed you will learn a lot (way more than what you might think at the moment).

from what i can see it's much easy to get a decent job offer after NYU, although there are some other factors like meteor mentioned may afffect you decision

The late Sam Kinneson had a great comdey routine. He spoke of the people living in the desert, constantly in search of food and water, a horrible existence. He then pointed out, as though speaking to these people, " look... this is sand.... you need to go where the food is..... awwww.. awwww... awwww...." . Well, I'm sure I haven't done this comedy routine any justice (I suggest you try to find a DVD that with some of his performances). The point is, if you want to work in NY.. go to NYU..."awwww.. awwww... awwww...."

Or the CMU NYC campus. A bigger portion of students from CMU got trading summer interns this year than that of Courant

QuoteOriginally posted by: rambo900Or the CMU NYC campus. A bigger portion of students from CMU got trading summer interns this year than that of CourantI didn't know that. Very interesting

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Or the CMU NYC campus. A bigger portion of students from CMU got trading summer interns this year than that of Courant Is this statement based on actual survey data, or is it just based on anecdotal evidence from people you've heard of?

rambo900 and the rest any info on how cornell placements r.....profs seem very good and the class size is very small.....any kind of data would be a grt help...

I'll comment quickly that quite a few of the CMU Pittsburgh students will be on trading floors this summer (I can think of 8 just off the top of my head). Many of those who seemingly would have been interested in research have pursued trading internships.-jf

I will not question that more CMU students landed trading internships, but after the last ranting thread on university spin, I just have to ask how many Courant students actually WANTED trading internships compared to the Carnegie-Mellon students. Not everyone is interested or motivated to be a trader. Frankly I fail to understand why a trader-wannabe waists their time in a computational finance program.... but this is just own humble bias.

oh yeah, more than 90% of the current Courant students want a trading job

QuoteOriginally posted by: LTrainI will not question that more CMU students landed trading internships, but after the last ranting thread on university spin, I just have to ask how many Courant students actually WANTED trading internships compared to the Carnegie-Mellon students. Not everyone is interested or motivated to be a trader. Frankly I fail to understand why a trader-wannabe waists their time in a computational finance program.... but this is just own humble bias.If a computational finance degree is a waste of time, then what should a trader-wannabe do instead?This way I'll know how to help out my trader-wannabe friends (which has been steadily increasing over the past year)....

I heard that sell-side quant will also work on trading floor... If we only talk about the placement rate, no matter the job is a trader of quant, which program is better, CMU or NYU?

QuoteOriginally posted by: QuantabeQuoteOriginally posted by: LTrainFrankly I fail to understand why a trader-wannabe waists their time in a computational finance program.... but this is just own humble bias.If a computational finance degree is a waste of time, then what should a trader-wannabe do instead?This way I'll know how to help out my trader-wannabe friends (which has been steadily increasing over the past year)....Trader-wannabe should go trade if he wants to do that. Graduate degree in comp finance is not a requirement to trade.

QuoteOriginally posted by: rambo900oh yeah, more than 90% of the current Courant students want a trading jobAgain, is this based on actual data, or you're just trying to guess? If it is not based on actual data, you might as well not mislead people with speculative guesses based on hearsay