Hi, I have the choice of attending either Canrnegie Mellon, NYU or Columbias program. Which is the better program?thanks

Have you already got admission or are you prospecting?In any case. The pros and cons are discussed in several other threads. A

I don't know that much about NYU, but as of right now CMU probably has the best job-placement and CU is probably strongest in the theoretical areas. (Karatzas vs. Shreve, who takes it?)

I am attending the program at CMU right now. I cannot tell you about the other programs, but I decided to come to CMU because I thought it was the best program out there. NYU program was housed in the department of mathematics, which I did not like. Columbia has two programs, one in mathematics department and the other in engineering department. These two programs in Columbia compete with each other, which I thought was not constructive. Since CMU's program is housed in the business school, you can take advantage of the recruiting services provided by the business school's career office. They have not posted the placement statistics for the most recent graduates yet. But, I believe that CMU's placement rate is at least as good as any other school's.

I'd be willing to battle it out regarding which program has the best placement (well, theoretically at least), but it's generally fairly tough to find specific placement information.People think CMU is the strongest theoretically? I thought that they probably had the best overall coverage of multiple areas, but I didn't think they necessarily went as deep as others into some of the specifics. Shreve is the man for stochastic caluculus (well, I guess one-half of the man with Karatzas being the other half), but for example Chicago has two full terms (not mini-terms) of stochastic calculus. But you'd need to define what the "best" in theoretical areas means...Karatzas is teaching both the 2 term PhD probability sequence next year, as well as a new stochastic differential equations course which requires that complete probability sequence as a pre-req. Maybe 10 people at the school are qualified to take it. Even though the course titles don't suggest it, he does most of the stuff within the context of financial applications.We should set up an advising service for applicants to these programs. Don't people charge a fortune these days to advise people on undergraduate admissions?

Hi.I am Munish Gupta,presently doing MS at University of cincinnati,OH in electrical engg.I need your help regarding the MS in financial Mathematics program at Stanford.My profile is: Masters:University of Cincinnati:overall GPA:3.7/4.0(might increase to 3.85 after adding thesis)SCholarship(2 years)+Teaching assistantship(1 year) Undergrad:Thapar Institute of ENgineering and technology,IndiaBranch:Electronics and communication71% marks Intern:six months at C-DOT,New delhi ,developing ISDN protocolGRE(VQA):380,770,770Apart from undergrad mathematics I have taken "random processes"(A grade) and "PDE"(A grade) courses in my masters.Further I will be studying "stat methodology" ,"computational finance-1" and "Probabilty theory".I am keen to apply in all the top unis .I was not having good grades in maths in undergrad.I am hoping to get all A in my next 3 math courses.I am keen to apply for this program and it will be very kind of you if you can please reply to my queries:1)how important is verbal scores for getting into this program2)what are my chances in getting into this program.Please suggest which unis will be easy for me.Hoping to hear from you. Thanks

munishg,I got in NYU for 2003/04,I suppose that verbal score around 400 is OK, but anything less than 800 on quantitative part is not enough for these top programs.

Hi,Congrats on getting admit.Could you please let me know more about ur profile.Also I am having almost A in my grad courses,but I was not having good grades in my UG.Will it be very bad impact on admission committee or all A's in maths and finance courses in grad studies will nullify it.Hoping to hear from you.Regards,MG

Yes, of course staight A's in a good grad school nullify bad undergrad grades.The reason a schools cares about you previous grades is as an indicatorthat you can and will do well in their school.Of course the admissions office may have clowns that can't grasp thisconcept. So if you get reject from a school ask them why, if it's only becauseof your undergrad grades then write to the departmant's assistant chair.

Hi,I've got in both NYU and CU MathFinance programs for 2003/04I still can't make the choice. Below is the summary of what I sawon the forum. NYU - advantages:- mathematically bent (this is good for me, I'm PhD in Physics and itwouldn't be a problem for me to get through, I hope)- well known MATH gyus (Varadhan (good match to CU's Karatzas), Newman, Kohn - after all Courant is highly ranked worldwide)- somewhat broader coverage- program seems better organized and has a lot more integrityCU - advantages:- more guys with Wall Street experience (Greyserman, Derman (isn't his site http://www.ederman.com/ a little phony? Anyone's taken his course?))- flexibility in taking B-courses (Any particular suggestions?)BIG questions for me:- which school is recognized better by professionals (I'm NOT talking "Columbia is better on resume cause its ivy league")- assistance (including one from professors) in finding jobs. I mayor may not need it (already work for GS, may get some internal help)- how great (useful) are the courses from these W.St. professionals?Thanks,telleumPhi

Hi telleumPhiCongrats on getting admits.I am keen in applying for year 2004.Could you please let me know regaridng ur gpa and what maths courses u took.What was ur GRE.Thanks.Munishg

I suspect that they are about the same. The director of NYU's program said that they are equivalent in terms of rigor. I've read many of the threads in this forum, and noone has been able to give a definitive answer on this.

****************************************************************************My profile is:Masters:University of Cincinnati:overall GPA:3.7/4.0(might increase to 3.85 after adding thesis)SCholarship(2 years)+Teaching assistantship(1 year)Undergrad:Thapar Institute of ENgineering and technology,IndiaBranch:Electronics and communication71% marksIntern:six months at C-DOT,New delhi ,developing ISDN protocolGRE(VQA):380,770,770BAD GRADES in UNDERGRAD MATHSApart from undergrad mathematics I have taken "random processes"(A grade) and "PDE"(A grade) courses in my masters**************************************************************************************************In my present quarter I am studying Computational Finance by Dr.Stojanovic(wrote a book ) and statistical methodology.I was looking at the sample math subject test and it seemed to be very elementary and was wondering is it more impressive to perform excellent in computational finance course and ask the prof to write in LOR regarding mathematic abilites (as this course needs lot of stochastic calculus,which has quite high difficult level then maths GRE) or instead of putting extra efforts on the course i should go for maths GRE.ThanksMunish

depends what your goal is. if it is to maximize your likelihood of getting a a quant job, CU hands down