Does anyone have any feedback, positive or negative, on the Phd in Quantitative Finance at the Centre for Quantitative Finance at Imperial College ? Is this really a serious place to do quantitative finance or not ? What troubles me is that I have not seen any relevant quantitative finance research produced by this centre. Anyone knows of some desk quants who graduated from this Phd ? I don't mean softer areas like asset management, sales or research etc. , I mean real quants. Feedback appreciated.

Mark Davis and Claudio Albanese are well-known quant finances guy at Imperial whom I respect-- are they associated with this program

I usually try to avoid answering questions about where to take degrees. One exception to my rule is Imperial. I cannot recommend the Centre for Quantitative Finance there. I think you have already reached the same conclusion, just by looking at the ratio of published work to number of students. At Imperial I would recommend the mathematics department, which is obviously very strong. P

Precisely.People in Institute of Mathematical Science are very strong, Mark Davis,David Hand etc. Fantastic.

ppauper & mam3xs : Mark Davis, C. Albanese are all in the department of mathematics. However, the Center for Quantitative Finance is in the Tanaka Business School at Imperial and does not have any affiliation with the math department. That's why I was asking if anyone knows anything about this center.Paul is right that there is basically almost no published work coming from the centre; i wonder, why don't they hire some new researchers to revive their research ? It would only take 1 or 2 new people to change the status quo...Anyway, so apparently noone has nything good to say about the Centre ? Any more feedback, good or bad ?

Let's say some positive,most of their PhDs will have opportunities to work in the industry as an intern.Good for future career....perhaps.

There is quite some politics at Imperial due to this. The centre is not as bad as Paul mentions, while it is true that work is not pubblished in academic papers on Quant Finance a lot of the work students do is of the same quality as most student of the Math department. The best Math department thesis though do get pubblished and have been very good, that is for sure. The same can be said of some students at the Centre. Desk quants: there are plenty of them from CQF. To mention one an ex student is now the Global Head of Quantitative Research at Morgan Stanley and several are at Merril Lynch. Most do move into trading, as the mentality is tremendously commercial, and that is where the politics gets in. CQF is by no means a place for people who want to be academics, the type of research of the main personnel is optimizational applications to statistical arbitrage/automated trading, calibration, some pricing but mainly using advanced OR techniques rather than fancy levy process theories. So that's how you should look at it: a place where people have no intention to stay in academia and thus do a Phd because it teaches them a lot of useful things for the industry and beacues the title matters in front of clients of banks. You need to view the Centre as mainly spanning from the OR department and it is founded by one of the world's most respected OR person, but as far as fancy pricing theories then the mathematics department is the place to look at. Papers are pubblished every year by students but it is rather in OR journals than Finance ones.....it is still Imperial, and Tanaka itself has some of the very best people in pricing too, I think Touzi for instance deserves far more respect than Albanese. In time series analysis Abadir is there, and he is also the man of the field. So...it is not really a black and white picture, you need to place it in the right light and look at it in the correct manner. Finally, I would like to communicate my experience in that a Phd program under Davis or CQF or whoever else is exactly the same experience, it is entirely all up to the student. Davis gives just as much supervision as Christofides. Albanese gives far more, but then you need to pay him a big multpiple of what you would be paying for anyone else. Also there is now politics within the Math department too now between Albanese and others, of which I do not know much and wouldn't like to comment because I still respect everyone. Some of Davis students are ashamed of their PhDs just as many CQFs are ashamed of their theses but most CQFs work nearly full time (although some of Davis too) remember that, what you read as sponsorship in most (not in all)cases should be read as full time worker, and that is in itself a big challenge.

What you get out of the PhD in the CQF is entirely up to you. Some people have gone on to be academics in top uni and top positions in banks...others have drifted away to teh scrap heap.....The point is that support is less than you'd get on average elsewhere..and hence you tend to have to work harder than other PhD's..plus you're working at the same time.....As for published work....depends on you measure it..on absolute or relative scale...Absolute it is okay but on average per student its not that great....If you're not comfortable with having little support (ie supervision) go elsewhere. But if you're highly committed and are prepared towork your bollocks off for the next 3/4 years and prepared for little supervision along the way, having to fight tooth and nail to get help than go for the CQF. The advantage of the CQF is that you are in effect you own boss on your PhD + get work expereince on the way as oppsoed to a more traditional PhD where you end up being a gofer for the supervisor with little exposure to industry....(on average)

Great way of putting it. That is definitely true....QGenius if all that matters to you is whether you will be able to become a desk quant once you finish, then CQF has a far better track record at producing such people. If what you want is a PhD program that can open to you all sorts of doors to academia and may be the industry then it may not be the best.