MS Finance vs MS Statistics

I'm about to go for a Masters in Finance degree but am currently at a crossroads between an MSF and going for a Masters in Stats/Applied Stats instead. I have a bachelors in Economics with economic consulting experience. In the future I'm interested in getting into equity research or at least position myself to be able to apply quant skills to solve real world problems. With that said, I am also interested in data science-related positions. Basically, I'm not quite sure what exactly I want to do yet, but I know that I need to make a career-change.

I'm having doubts about getting an MSF since my career goals aren't well-defined, but I want to be able to have a wide range of options given my background currently. I was thinking that a Masters in Stats would open more doors for me in the future (including in finance), but wanted to know if I'm completely off base here. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

depends on the school. the career setup is very different.

[quote="M7 MBA, iBanking. Top MSF grad. AntiTNA. Truth is hard to hear! But... "] [/quote] [quote="DickFuld: Yeah....most of these people give terrible advice."] [/quote]
 
Best Response
wsorookie789:
depends on the school. the career setup is very different.

Agreed, recruiting out of an MS in stats will be wholly up to you, whereas good MSF programs usually provide access to OCR, recruiting trips, etc. Plenty of people land great jobs out of stats programs; I don't want to discourage you from attending one. Just be aware that there is much less career support.

A few other thoughts, mostly regarding MS degrees in stats cause I researched those heavily before ultimately ending up in an econ program:

  • Strictly from a recruiting point of view, if you want to go part-time, stats makes more sense because you probably won't be attending for the OCR support

  • Base tuition is almost guaranteed to be lower for stats, and plenty of programs offer TA/RA-ships and possibly, tuition waivers

  • AFAIK, most MSFs and many applied stats programs are one year, which can make interning difficult

  • A quant-y skill set is fungible, though finance skills should not be underrated in this regard, either

  • An MS in stats will obviously push you in a quant/analytics/data science direction, so keep that in mind in case you think you might want to recruit for IB/corp fin/etc.

  • Though more specialized on paper than either an MS in stats or finance, you might split the difference and go for an MFE - this would make getting a quant role very straightforward, but out of the right program (e.g. Haas), I don't think you'd have too many issues moving into data science, either

  • Alternatively, if you already have a few years of experience, an MBA is the most flexible route and will probably provide the highest initial salary - true data science might be tough to get into, though

Of course if you have a really amazing background, the correct answer is to do Princeton's MFIN.

 

get admitted first. it doesn't help too much - it's a phenomenal brand no doubt, but just too far for any companies to go get you from UK with U.S. talents readily available

[quote="M7 MBA, iBanking. Top MSF grad. AntiTNA. Truth is hard to hear! But... "] [/quote] [quote="DickFuld: Yeah....most of these people give terrible advice."] [/quote]
 

ya and it doesnt always get you the jobs you want. see my signature.

[quote="M7 MBA, iBanking. Top MSF grad. AntiTNA. Truth is hard to hear! But... "] [/quote] [quote="DickFuld: Yeah....most of these people give terrible advice."] [/quote]
 

Not sure about ER careers but Stats grads are in high demand in tech and trading. Google, Citadel, etc. all recruit very heavily out of top stats programs. Also stats is a good foundation for machine learning which has people's panties dropping real fast these days. So I would say if you aren't set on finance, stats would give you more options.

 

get your ass together and ask yourself this question. seems like you're laying in bed and asking all these fifth grade questions

[quote="M7 MBA, iBanking. Top MSF grad. AntiTNA. Truth is hard to hear! But... "] [/quote] [quote="DickFuld: Yeah....most of these people give terrible advice."] [/quote]
 

Do the MSF. The applied stats might be something of interest if you wanted to be a quant, but if your background is accounting and finance and you want to work in a traditional finance role, MSF all the way.

 

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