Cornell 60k vs UT Austin 20k for CS

neela1
Tue, 23 May 2023 10:53:42 +0000

Of course Turing is good, but I am not sure you can move into it after the fact. You should reach out to the guy that runs the program and ask him what the odds are. A lot of the UT kids that go into quant start their journey at Virtu, which is local. Cornell may make it slightly easier to get an interview than non-Turing UT, but it is a very difficult decision to pay 40k a year more for that slight benefit. If you get into Virtu sophomore summer, then getting into other firms junior summer becomes easier, even from UT. And getting attention for your resume is partly a function of how much serious math you have on your resume by sophomore fall (including for that semester) wherever you are, to get started with sophomore summer. Alternate paths to big quant in junior summer include a sophomore FAANG or unicorn swe internship. But the math on the resume should be more pronounced by junior fall when you are applying for the summer. Trading jobs are hard to get if you don’t get into the summer.

Coops are an irrelevant consideration.

By the way, this is the guy that is responsible for making Turing decisions: https://hornraiser.utexas.edu/project/10880
I am sure you can find his email on his university page. Just tell him you are interested in research, and you are considering Cornell because it is easier to do research from non Turing at a small school. You already have admission into regular UT, can he please let you into Turing upfront etc. very politely.

Don’t tell the guy you want to go into quant. Tell him you want to do a PhD