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Grades in MFE program

RKG

C++ Certificate
Joined
6/4/14
Messages
122
Points
128
Hi,
Does being at the top of your class in MFE (academically) help when it comes to securing interviews, or do employers hiring MFEs do not care about your grad school GPA.

Essentially, how important are grades within the program especially if you feel less professionally qualified than your peers.
Thanks!
 
RKG said:
Hi,
Does being at the top of your class in MFE (academically) help when it comes to securing interviews, or do employers hiring MFEs do not care about your grad school GPA.

Essentially, how important are grades within the program especially if you feel less professionally qualified than your peers.
Thanks!
Click to expand...
If you have 4.0 GPA or something in that neighborhood, it will matter a lot when you apply for internships or perhaps your first entry level job. It's always good to show academic commitment to employers in early career states. If you have GPA between (my rough estimate) 3.2 - 3.8 you are still good to go, but you remain on the average pool. But also depends the interview process of the company. For example Bloomberg wants over 3.2 for the intern applicants I think.

However, after a couple years in the industry people care more about your experience, projects you have been working on lately, and what you are capable of. Thus, in time your resume should transform into something more project-oriented, than academic-oriented.
 
Pavlos Sakoglou said:
If you have 4.0 GPA or something in that neighborhood, it will matter a lot when you apply for internships or perhaps your first entry level job. It's always good to show academic commitment to employers in early career states. If you have GPA between (my rough estimate) 3.2 - 3.8 you are still good to go, but you remain on the average pool. But also depends the interview process of the company. For example Bloomberg wants over 3.2 for the intern applicants I think.

However, after a couple years in the industry people care more about your experience, projects you have been working on lately, and what you are capable of. Thus, in time your resume should transform into something more project-oriented, than academic-oriented.
Click to expand...

Thank you for your input, this is what I was hoping to hear because I think that academic performance is something that is definitely a personal responsibility so the return (job interviews) is proportional to the effort put in to learning the materials.

I would love to hear other people's input on this as well.
 
RKG said:
Hi,
Does being at the top of your class in MFE (academically) help when it comes to securing interviews, or do employers hiring MFEs do not care about your grad school GPA.

Essentially, how important are grades within the program especially if you feel less professionally qualified than your peers.
Thanks!
Click to expand...
not important at all. Some programs want you to keep certain GPA but employers don't give a ...
 
The question obviously is in terms of landing an interview as opposed to the role - in terms of getting the interview it makes some difference, particularly if your program has a good reputation. At least if there are useful recruiters in your area it can help, but networking can patch up any shortfalls. It helps to show a general discipline - it's more about 'not getting mediocre grades', not flaking out and dropping off etc than the specifics.

HOWEVER, with the hire itself the danger is learning the material but not getting the idea in general. I work in a non-finance field and this is important too - it's amazing how basic questions like 'what if those model assumptions break down' or basic changes to their pretty models or algorithms stump some top of the class graduates. The excuse 'they have no experience' isn't good enough as often the mistake they are making is common sense based to a comical degree and/or another graduate with less experience shows common sense and nails it. In the end giving the impression you will hit the ground running is the clincher - at that stage your grades won't matter a damn.

My advice would be to continue on with the studies, but once in a while get the head out of the books, away from the programming and talk to practitioners about what models they use. And talk to non-quants too. And network once in a while.
 
Hi,
Thanks for all the replies. I am getting the general consensus is that if you are at a good program then I should practice interviewing skills/ and develop a stronger skillset in general.

In my case, I want to transition from a quant risk (I don't use C++, only VBA, Matlab and sql) job in insurance to a trading role. I am going to a pretty highly ranked program, and I am thinking of starting to build my own simple trading strategies on Python/R (I don't expect to make anything groundbreaking), would that be helpful in terms of interviews or will I still be overlooked by someone in the program who lets say already has worked for a major prop shop?

In essence, I am trying to see what I can do before the program to maximize my chance of getting a FO trading role after the program.
 
Last edited:
RKG said:
Hi,
Thanks for all the replies. I am getting the general consensus is that if you are at a good program then I should practice interviewing skills/ and develop a stronger skillset in general.

In my case, I want to transition from a quant risk (I don't use C++, only VBA, Matlab and sql) job in insurance to a trading role. I am going to a pretty highly ranked program, and I am thinking of starting to build my own simple trading strategies on Python/R (I don't expect to make anything groundbreaking), would that be helpful in terms of interviews or will I still be overlooked by someone in the program who lets say already has worked for a major prop shop?

In essence, I am trying to see what I can do before the program to maximize my chance of getting a FO trading role after the program.
Click to expand...

Is the Rotman trading competition prestigious at all? I believe the Baruch guys who win it often end up going into trading roles. Perhaps that's a good thing to have to prove your interest and prowess in trading.
 
volmacro said:
Is the Rotman trading competition prestigious at all? I believe the Baruch guys who win it often end up going into trading roles. Perhaps that's a good thing to have to prove your interest and prowess in trading.
Click to expand...
I don't know about prestige but it sounds interesting and pretty fun, plus all the major grad schools participate in it, so if anything you might learn something/help with interviews and etc.
 
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