| choudvik, when quagmire talks of MIT and Ross and NYU he talks of high end programs. Yes, Ohio State will be difficult to impossible, if you can transfer to Ivy do so. Yes, internship matters. For most of the quant masters program, a math background is essential, that is, PDEs, real analysis, etc. They all say that the main reason someone is rejected is inadeq math background.
Historically, there were no masters programs in Financial Engr or Computational Finance, hence quants came from PhD in astrophysics, etc. Since mid 1990s, starting with CMU quite a few have emerged, please note it is a ruthlessly competitive field. Go to Princeton's ORFE site, go to FAQ, there is a link to articles on quant finance and general finance education, I am not good at attaching links, if you fail to access I will ask my son to send it, you need to get into CMU, Columbia, NYU, Haas, Princeton, Stanford or Chicago, then PhD may be redundant.
tetris, the PhDs who work for masters work for the MBA types from HBS, etc. They don't work for quant masters typically. The PhD is a credential at this point, it is easier to believe a PhD in astrophysics is a grand modeler than an MA. The point is the capacity to do high end research is important. No, you don't waste 10 years on a PhD, beyond the MA it should take 3 years. I will urge my son to get a PHD, being asinine!!! |