Why no American students in financial math programs?

Parents Forum
1

<p>I’ve been looking at some MS programs in financial math. Stanford has only one Canadian – no US student at all. CMU seems to be dominated by the Chinese. Princeton has probably one or two US students… Same with other leading programs. Is it just too hard to get in or what? If you have any personal experience/insight into the admission process (for your children, obviously), please share.</p>

2

<p>Financial math is only for Master programs. I have not found any at the undergraduate level unless you mean financial engineering?</p>

3

<p>[Master</a> of Quantitative Finance](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_Mathematical_Finance]Master”>Master of Quantitative Finance - Wikipedia) seems to span a continuum of math/cs/finance. Perhaps a wider search would yield more programs of interest. See [International</a> Association of Financial Engineers - Academic Programs](<a href=“http://www.iafe.org/html/resources_acad.php]International”>http://www.iafe.org/html/resources_acad.php). </p>

<p>(I know that many MIT undergrads study courses 6 and 15 or courses 18 and 15 before going on to finance careers.)</p>

4

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<ol>
<li>He said MS programs</li>
<li>There are undergrad financial math programs. University of Michigan has one, and I’m sure there are several in several other schools.</li>
</ol>

5

<p>Why do you say that? I’m looking at student bios here and there are definitely Americans, and students from lots of interesting places in the world:</p>

<p>[Financial</a> Mathematics: Students - Stanford University](<a href=“http://finmath.stanford.edu/people/students.html]Financial”>http://finmath.stanford.edu/people/students.html)</p>

6

<p>perhaps op refers to ethnicity?</p>

7

<p>^ I don’t understand. Do you mean Americans that have anglo last names then? </p>

<p>I see a wide range Ariyathugun, Ash, Buron, Debbini, Estin, Goutagny, and so on. Sure lots of Chinese names but that just reflects most higher ed on the westcoast</p>

8

<p>I haven’t looked at the list of students in a selective financial math program, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it had a large percentage of foreign students for the following reasons:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Math majors from prestigious American universities can go straight into a quantitive finance career with no need for a Master’s degree.</p></li>
<li><p>American students as a group seem rather averse to the idea of spending $80K on a Master’s degree when they could be getting the same education for free in a PhD program (with the option to drop out after the Master’s if the thesis becomes too cumbersome).</p></li>
<li><p>Pure math has more prestige in the US than in many other countries. In the US, it seems that many of the brightest math students want to have an academic career. In many other countries, the brightest want to do applied stuff and earn lots of money.</p></li>
</ol>

9

<p>I learned financial math while on the job. D1 is doing financial modeling at work, not finding it particularly difficult, and she was a math major. People with MS in financial math generally become a quant guy or go into research if they want to work in IB, and research is no longer considered as part of front office.</p>

10

<p>ok, my bad. One American at Stanford, from the profile, <a href=“http://finmath.stanford.edu/admissions/studentprofile.html:[/url]”>http://finmath.stanford.edu/admissions/studentprofile.html:&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>U.S.: 1 student</p>

<p>International: 12 students
Asia: 9 (China: 7; Hong Kong 1; Singapore: 1)
Europe: 2 (France: 1; Germany: 1)
North America: 1 (Canada)</p>

<p>I guess the number above excludes the co-terms.</p>

11

<p>[Mathematical</a> finance - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_finance]Mathematical”>Mathematical finance - Wikipedia)</p>

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<p>

[Master</a> of Quantitative Finance - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_Mathematical_Finance]Master”>Master of Quantitative Finance - Wikipedia)</p>

<p>more universities that offer Master Programs
[International</a> Association of Financial Engineers - Academic Programs](<a href=“http://www.iafe.org/html/resources_acad.php]International”>http://www.iafe.org/html/resources_acad.php)</p>

12

<p>Because the department is a cash cow for the university?</p>

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<p>is it generally the case then that the student would not have to pay for the ph D programs? do they receive a stipend and work as grad assistants? </p>

<p>from what i’ve seen, the undergrad is math does usually allow students to go right into a job in the business field, etc. some are actuaries, etc. there are colleges that offer actuarial science programs (4 year undergrad).</p>

14

<p>Actuarial Science is not part of a math department- it is in a business school. Those majors take some advanced math but math majors don’t typically do the business school courses. The advanced math course was routine for math majors at son’s flagship but considered difficult by those from the business school. Getting a masters in such a limited field as financial math doesn’t seem as practical as doing a more comprehensive applied math degree. I suspect most US students will be elegible for programs with a broader range of opportunities and ignore this narrow option. Perhaps those students have jobs waiting for them with these added courses.</p>