I'm looking to go for a PhD in Fin Math / FE, and I am somewhat concerned about my age. I will be 20 when I graduate from my current program with a BA in math & econ and a MA in econ. For this kind of program, would I be much younger than average?

Many people go into the PhD thing straight after undergradIf you're worried about being too young, you could always take a year out and go round the world...Should you get guilt about being a bum while abroad, write a paper about mathematical modelling of bungee jumping and submit it to a journal

From what I know, being too old may be a problem but I have never heard of being too young as a hurdle in Ph.D. admissions. Many Ph.D. students do enter programs straight from undergrad. Then, they have plenty of years in the future to contribute to the field (which is a desirable characteristic).

No, that's not a problem.

As a pimp, I'd say that if I'd got someone who's smart enough to finish a hard PhD younger, then I think I've got someone who can be sold more easily.I see the point about some managers not liking it, and to me that's not a big deal.At any moment there's more 1,000 entry level quant roles somewhere in the process of being filled.Every type of preference function is to be found in those making decisions on hiring you, and trust me no-one gets anywhere near getting a majority wanting him.Certainly it is better to be really liked by 25% of managers and despised by 75% than for 100% to think you are "sort of OK".The trick will be to pick a good PhD subject, and tyhat will affect your career more than your age.It's not like you're going to have the PhD as a teenager, I guess you'll be 24 ish when you finish your PhD, hardly a kid.You will lose out occasionally because some learning experiences are things that happen to you, not chosen by study, but that will come.

QuoteOriginally posted by: DCFCAs a pimp, I'd say that if I'd got someone who's smart enough to finish a hard PhD younger, then I think I've got someone who can be sold more easily.I see the point about some managers not liking it, and to me that's not a big deal.At any moment there's more 1,000 entry level quant roles somewhere in the process of being filled.Every type of preference function is to be found in those making decisions on hiring you, and trust me no-one gets anywhere near getting a majority wanting him.Certainly it is better to be really liked by 25% of managers and despised by 75% than for 100% to think you are "sort of OK".The trick will be to pick a good PhD subject, and tyhat will affect your career more than your age.It's not like you're going to have the PhD as a teenager, I guess you'll be 24 ish when you finish your PhD, hardly a kid.You will lose out occasionally because some learning experiences are things that happen to you, not chosen by study, but that will come.Thnx for the encouraging post. My research interests are Bayesian updating, model risk, and numerical methods; hope that these are relevant.

Numerical methods sound great, if you can choose to do them in C++ all the better.Bayesian updating has some very specific uses, and in general that sort of study is useful in a range of things, but be wary of anything like neural networks.Model risk is a bit trendy at the moment, but not the biggest and best market for your skills, but in 3-4 years time could be much better or much worse.That's a key point.Anything I tell you about the market for your skills is bullshit.At least a bit...You will enter the job market in 2011-2013, and I'm not smart enough to state with great confidence exactly what the hot skill will be from 2011 when you start and 2040 when you are either rich or serving in WalMart.You need to construct a portfolio, not just pick the "hottest stock" area.Whilst talking to candidates about job offers, I have developed an intuition partly based upon real option theory. Part of maximising your value is to increase the number of choices you can make later on.

Interesting. So the best way to go is probably to focus on more general tools & methods in the taught portion of the degree and apply those to an interesting problem in the research portion vs. focusing on one or two more applied areas throughout.Instead of going into a program thinking “I’m going to work on model risk etc.”, I should go in more with the mindset “I’m going to learn how to work with advanced stochastic models, algorithms, etc. in a financial context & apply them to problems like model risk (& such) down the road.”Thanks for the guidance.

Age can be a big problem for hiring in finance, but in the exact opposite sense. If you're too old, you can't get in. A 24-year-old with a PhD is in a great spot.It's quite dangerous, though, to enter graduate school straight out of undergrad: the risk of burnout is high. You should only go into graduate school straight-out if you're sure it's what you want. In addition to the increased workload and more competent competition, you'll have to deal with a lot of "real life stress" you don't have during undergrad... it's easier to deal with this if you have a couple years of work experience. In essence, I'd say that with regard to age, you have more to worry about with regard to your own risk of burnout and possible immaturity than with regard to hiring into finance. Of course, only you can assess whether or not you're mature and dedicated enough for graduate school, since it has very little to do with actual chronological age.