Misc Stuff
Couple things
1) Check out http://www.MSFHQ.com , This is the main site and the one I will be developing. I am working on an auto redirect for the site, but until then I will maintain both of the sites.
2) Join the Linkedin Group! Has over 40 members now and growing. The main drive and focus for me in creating this site is to get all of us MSF students and alumni together. There is power in numbers and hopefully we can all do our part in promoting the degree!
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?mostPopular=&gid=3222328
3) I will be doing an interview with someone at Villanova about their MSF program. Please let me know if there is anything specific you want asked. I will hopefully have something up soon.
Interview with Claremont McKenna Director of Graduate Admissions
I was privileged enough to speak with the Director of Graduate Admissions for the Robert Day School of Economics and Finance at Claremont McKenna. He was gracious enough to answer questions that I and other individuals had pertaining to his program. Below are his answers and his contact information for anyone interested in learning more about the great program they have at CMC. Thanks once again Kevin, both myself and the members of this site appreciate your time and effort!
Here is a link to the Claremont program for those interested in reading further:
http://www.claremontmckenna.edu/rdschool/academic/masters/
_______________________________________________________________________________
1) Future of the program. Our first class of 20 students matched our admission target and our second class of 17 reflects even greater selectivity than in the first year. While we intend to slowly grow the class size each year (Class of 2012 will be between 20 and 25), we very much value the small class experience and will manage the admission process accordingly. We are confident that the future success of the Master’s program in Finance rests with enrolling exceptionally qualified students and providing a great one-year experience that includes a first-class education and dedicated career management support.
MAF v MSF. The inclination to expect a Master of Arts degree to be less quantitative than an MSF degree is understandable. Our curriculum, however, is more quantitative than most and that is reflected in the admission process. Our standardized test (GMAT or GRE) quant scores are higher than most MSF programs and higher than many MFE programs. In addition to excellent quantitative test scores and course grades, we have, to date, required undergraduate courses in econometrics and advanced coursework in calculus for admission. Approximately one-quarter of the students in the first two classes have undergraduate degrees in math, engineering or physics. The successful decision-maker of the future must understand the tools that he/she will employ in order to be successful, and to understand many of those tools requires a solid quantitative skill set. With all that said, every successful person who has spoken to either our graduate or undergraduate students has emphasized the value of ‘people skills’ and leadership.
2) Relationship building and career service support. The decision to develop and offer this degree program was initiated by the landmark gift of $200 Million dollars by Claremont McKenna College (CMC) alumnus Robert Day. The undergraduate foundation on which it is built, however, includes the largest and arguably most productive economics faculty at any liberal arts college and a campus culture that reflects CMC’s motto of Crescit cum commercio civitas – “Civilization prospers with commerce”. CMC has only 10,000 alumni, but enjoys a reputation of success in and outside the financial industry with one out of every eight alum holding senior leadership positions in their organizations. Both the CMC Board of Trustees and Robert Day School of Economics and Finance Board of Advisors are active supporters of the master’s program while many serve in leadership positions throughout the financial industry. Even in today’s market, CMC undergraduates and graduate students enjoy access to all of the major U.S. financial firms as reflected by success in internship and full-time placement rates. 19 of the 20 students in the inaugural class had full-time positions (2 chose PhD programs) within 30 days of graduation and the 20th is employed but looking very selectively at this time. Graduate students are supported by a full-time, career management expert dedicated to career planning, skill development, networking and placement.
3) Leadership – is more easily said than done, but we think we know what we are doing. The admission process strives to answer the following two questions: 1) Is this program a good fit for you? and 2) are you a good fit for this program? Leadership features in the answers to both these questions. We seek applicants who have demonstrated leadership potential and confidently communicate the desire to be a decision maker and leader in the future. We share an expectation of future success in the ‘front office’ as opposed to the ‘back office’. Leadership potential can be evidenced through participation in undergraduate sports, clubs and student organizations or through leadership positions in community organizations. Internship and/or work experience should reflect an ambition to learn and succeed. References are expected to validate both academic and leadership potential. Leadership potential is also a major part of the face-to-face interview that successful applicants conduct with a CMC alum prior to any offer of admission. Academically, we require a course in organizational behavior/leadership be completed prior to attending the graduate program or as an overload in the spring. The Master’s program curriculum includes emphasis on case-based study and decision making, to include inherent ethical questions. With a small cohort of students in classes taught by experienced and committed faculty, there is no ‘back of the class’; students are challenged daily to step up to responsibility for both individual and group work. Our co-curricular activities are well resourced and planned with developmental workshops on a variety of communication skills, along with regular small group discussions with current leaders of industry. Networking trips (at no additional expense) introduce students to decision makers in leading organizations in and outside the United States.
Internships. Internships provide the opportunity to experience real-world working environments and to prove one’s ability to succeed in those environments. Successful internships can result in full-time job offers or a significant advantage in the pursuit of a future full-time position. For these reasons, we expect applicants to have pursued summer or semester internships where possible prior to applying to the Master’s program in Finance. This emphasis extends to those students offered admission to the program to intern, if possible, during the summer prior to starting classes in mid-August. The Director of External Relations, Michelle Chamberlain, engages admitted students as early as possible to discuss career goals and assist in obtaining such internships. Thus far, every student able to complete an internship during the summer prior to the start of classes was successful in doing so.
4) What makes CMC’s program distinctive? While we are new to the graduate community, CMC is not new to success in the financial industry. The unprecedented $200M gift that supports this one-year program ensures first-class faculty, staff and resources. Each of the students in the first two classes of the program received at least half-tuition, merit-based scholarships with awards averaging nearly three-quarters of the cost of tuition. Expectations are very high from the completion of the application through graduation. The co-curricular activities are an integral part of the overall educational experience. Dedicated career management support has already enabled short term success with placement and will support long-term success of all of our graduates. That this all takes place in southern California, less than an hour from beaches, mountains and deserts makes CMC a great place to live and learn.
I welcome further questions or thoughts:
Kevin Arnold
Director of Graduate Admission
Robert Day School of Economics and Finance
Claremont McKenna College
(909) 607-3347
Rochester MSF Review
A good friend and very helpful individual has provided me with her opinion of the University of Rochester program. I hope this helps anyone looking at the school!
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Q) Why did you pick the U of R MSF program:
A) The executive director of admission flew to Beijing to meet with me. I really liked the personal attention smaller school like Simon can put into their students and the bond between current students and alumni. Beyond that, it’s its reputation in the academic world of finance. I fully believe it gave me the technical skills I need for a career in finance.
Q) Who would you recommend an MSF to in general and a Rochester MSF to specifically?
A) I think I would recommend an MSF to some groups of people. For international students like me who wants to come to the States and get career exposure to the finance world in New York, getting an MSF is a good choice as long as they are mentally prepared to jump into an unfamiliar professional world. As for Simon MSF, one needs to be even more active in job search and networking because of the location of the school and lack of traffic in terms of attracting recruiters.
Q) How was recruiting, job placement, on campus, etc?
A) The job placement is picking up. International students have always been able to locate themselves great positions back in their home countries because of the soft skills and technical skills they’ve got from the school. But in terms of finding a job in the States, basically it’s every man for himself. Fortunately, most of the alum are willing to help out if they can because they went through the same process while looking for jobs themselves. Campus recruiting is more helpful for MBAs.
Q) Any comments in general about the program. Feel free to talk about Rochester, the school, things you liked and disliked.
A) In general, I’ve got what I was looking for from the school and had a great time there. Life is really easy in Rochester. It’s really nice to have a relaxed neighborhood when you are struggling between school work and job search. Travel is easy too. We are three hours drive away from Toronto and one hour flight away from NYC. Dean Zupan of the Simon School is probably the most dedicated person I’ve met. He will always be a role model for many years after my school life.
Busy
Quick little post. I am setting up a conversation with a Claremont adcom. That should happen in the next couple days. I will be in Philadelphia on the 12th, NYC on the 13th and back to Philly for the weekend. Pretty busy next couple of days.
Hope to have a handful of school reviews for everyone this week. I am toying with a couple of ideas to enhance this site also. We will see.
Anthony
MSF Head Quarters
Well ladies and gentlemen, here is the new domain name. MS in Finance is a popular name apparently so I tried to find something both short and conveying of the sites main goal. I think Masters in Finance Head Quarters pretty much sums up my goal of the site.
This site will be the main site for the immediate future. You can follow my tweaking and modification if you like. Any suggestions for the new site are always welcome.
Update 8/7/2010
Ok, here is a quick update.
1) I updated the MSF program costs. About 60 schools represented. Not everyone, but I think it will give you a quick idea of what different schools cost
2) The LinkedIn group is now over 30 members. I think that is pretty good considering the relatively newness of this site. Please join if you have not already done so. Here is the link:
http://www.linkedin.com/groups?mostPopular=&gid=3222328
3) A comment on some programs I have been finding. I just found 3 MSF programs that I decided against posting. I could not find any accreditation and some of them looked like scams. I only want to post reputable programs. Hence my lack of online programs as well as my omission of some programs. I take time and look at each of these sites. The last thing I want to do is promote or provide web traffic for any program looking to scam someone.
4) Reviews. I have a couple out and I am waiting for them to be returned. I have been contacting adcoms to get more information on the various programs. This is going to be a long term project, but I hope as the site grows I will eventually draw the attention of these various schools who will want to provide more information. If anyone would like to talk about their school or why they chose to go to XYZ please feel free to contact me>
MSinFinance@Gmail.com
I will be getting a real deal web address for this site in the next week. Currently finalizing the domain name I want. Once that is done I will get some hosting and really make this site something work visiting. More to come.
Anthony
London Business School Chat Transcript
Bloomberg Business week did a chat with an adcom at LBS. It includes a range of topics, but there is some information on the MSF and placement/recruiting.
http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content/jul2010/bs20100722_193408.htm
FYI – LBS wants work experience for their MSF. Those without work experience are encouraged to apply to the Masters in Management.
European Business School London MSF
Here is another MSF in London offered by Regents College. They offer a MSc in Global Banking & Finance. Looks like there is a lot of flexibility in the program.
Here is a link to the European Business School MSF program:
http://www.ebslondon.ac.uk/courses/postgraduate/msc_global_banking__finance.aspx
Reykjavik University MSF
If you want to study in Iceland here is your chance. The program is set up for future doctoral students, but I think you still might be able to just get your masters. They have two tracks: A quant track and a corporate finance track.
Here is a link to the Reykjavik University MSF program:
http://www.reykjavikuniversity.is/departments/school-of-business/graduate-studies/msc-finance/
Masters in Finance 