CMU Undergrad for Trading?
Just wondering if anybody had any thoughts about Carnegie Mellon undergrad for trading afterwards. I think they have a pretty strong computational finance curriculum. Anybody have any light to shed on this issue? Work with other CMU grads and where they land? Is it a respectable school for prospective traders? Recruiting? Thanks
I've known about a dozen guys who got placed in S&T/ER/IB from Tepper. A good amount are at JPM and Citi or "were" anyway.
Not sure about computational finance.
Where is Tepper in the league tables for BB/elite boutique recruiting?
We're about to enter a Great Depression. Don't you want a president who's already dressed for it?
I I have seen exact placement numbers for all grads from all colleges at CMU and know way too much about this school. to make a long story short: dont go if you have other options.
for a bit more detail: in terms of pure recruiting, the school is decent. the reason for this is because it has a few top notch programs, with everything else being completely terrible and laughed at. do NOT go to Tepper. Previous poster doesnt know whats up with CMU. Tepper is a very shitty business school and ignored by everybody on the street. You will have a ton of corp finance jobs at fortune 500s or back office bulge bracket jobs lined up, but I can almost guarantee you will not get a front office job at a bulge bracket coming out of tepper. all the wall st recruiting done at tepper is for back office. add to the fact that the tepper mba program is even worse makes for a very weak degree.
the school of humanities and the school of science are complete jokes and equivalent to state schools.
now the only reason to go to CMU would be for computer science. anyone who can graduate with an average GPA with a comp sci degree from this school will get a trading job anywhere they want provided they are not huge fucking nerds. this is almost a guarantee. think places like goldman, deutsche (huge placement), Jane Street, etc. getting an average gpa with this degree is easier said than done and probably entails a lot of ritalin and no social life.
the engineering school is probably a semi-target for trading jobs. maybe along the lines of nyu or uva. also requires a lot of ritalin and no social life.
the computational finance program is right up there with the school of computer science placement. all these grads go to top trading jobs wherever they want. CMU basically has almost no placement at places like consulting of banking. this place is only a possibility if you are deadset on trading.
With that being said, under no circumstance would I suggest that anyone go to this school. If you can get accepted into the school of computer science at CMU, you can easily get into a more well rounded pedigree school like a mid level ivy. an ivy would give you the same trading options if you study something hard plus banking and consulting options.
you can only apply to the comp finance program end of sophomore year. they cap the program to 10 kids max. every fucking asian engineering/comp sci/hard science major applies to this program either as primary major or doulbe major. you basically need like a 3.8 with straight As in all quant courses and ace the interview by department head to get in. the odds of this happening are basically 0 given the environment of nonstop studying math nerds. international koreans do not fuck around. think 120 hours/week of studying math for four years. if you are not accepted into this program you are fucked because they have a large strict set of classes you need to apply and you will be left with some shitty econ or biz degree.
on top of this all, the social life is miserable, the girls are hideous, pittsburgh sucks. no good.
LOL, funniest summary of a school so far.
Agreed...funny line >> "international koreans do not fuck around"
frickin' international koreans are hardcore
Just out of curiosity, how accurate is this?
To corroborate the above somewhat, it's heavily dependent on which school are were accepted to. I am currently a junior at CMU in the comp fi program. I had internship offers from, among others, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, UBS, Nomura, and Deutsche Bank. I also had interviews with SIG, Jane Street and a few other prop firms, but I didn't continue through the interview process with them once I got my BB offers. Consequently, I think I can speak to the possibility of going from CMU to Wall Street, especially if you come to campus with that goal (like I did).
If your option is HSS then I would not go to CMU if your goal is to be a trader unless you then transfer to Tepper, the Comp Sci Program, MCS or the Comp Finance. Frankly, if you are choosing among CMU's peer schools (Northwestern, Georgetown, Emory) then this might not be a bad idea. If you do go this route, the Stat program is very strong.
I think it goes without saying that getting an average GPA in the comp sci program does NOT guarantee you a job at Goldman, but you will be a very strong candidate. The CMU computer science program is probably the best CS program in the world, and at worst their tied with MIT for #1. It's an EXTREMELY difficult program though, and you're going to have to push to make sure you're not put in the back office.
I do not know much about making the transition from engineering to trading, so I will not comment except to say that most of their programs are top 10 programs.
Unless you are going into the Math Program in MCS, I wouldn't go to MCS. I know a large number of people in MCS, and there are very, very few interested in trading or finance outside of the math program. The hard science programs are very much designed for people going to grad school, and everyone in these programs in focused on that, so I wouldn't say that the culture is conducive for going into trading. You can go to trading from math, and I know about 6 people (out of a class of ~30) who have trading summer internships. A lot of people transition from math to comp finance.
Tepper has ok but not amazing placement, but I think this is a function of the fact that Tepper is a rather small program. The entering class is ~90 people, and I lot of these people of course don't apply to finance. Despite what the previous comments are saying, the upper level Tepper Finance courses are good, but there's a lot of tedious bs you have to deal with at the lower levels (though I think this is more my dislike of undergraduate business schools and students speaking).
Anyway, here's the list of job undergraduate employees out of Tepper Deloitte Consulting Deutsche Bank AG UBS JPMorgan Chase & Co. Goldman Sachs Group IBM Consulting Citigroup Credit Suisse Group
I would take any of those. A number of those are back office, but the majority are front office.
Finally, the crown jewel the the computational finance program. It's a very small, very competitive program (they take about 10 ppl per semester), you get to take master level comp fi classes and it's the closest thing you can get to a guaranteed trading job. I turned down two Ivies for this program (and the scholarship helped...). That being said, you are taking a BIG gamble with this program. Per above, you apply at the end of sophomore year (but you can reapply up to 4 times), it's very competitive, and it's a lot of work. That being said, I'm not one of the not-fucking-around international Koreans, I had good (but not great) grades, and I got into the program.
I think the ultimate thing you can say about CMU is that it's a top 20 school that wants to be a top 10 school, and their approach has been to focus on depth over breadth. They've chosen areas where they want to be good (often these areas are VERY specific, like analytic philosophy) and they are all top 5 or top 10 programs in those areas, but outside of those areas then you don't want to be here. My opinion is that if you come to CMU KNOWING what you want to do, then, assuming it corresponds to a CMU strength, you can do very, very well. That's certainly what I did, and it's worked for me. Obviously, things vary from year to year and person to person, but CMU has worked out spectacularly for me, and, if you know what you want to do, it can work out for you as well.
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