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An MFE will serve you better as far as course content, but you will have zero access to recruiting. So the MBA would be much better in that you would have banks coming to you with jobs and a formalized recruiting program, whereas you would not have that at an MFE program. Some schools might let you participate in MBA recruiting as a student at another graduate school at the university, but it's not the same thing.

Before you knock sales, keep in mind that on many desks the structuring groups are a part of sales, and structuring is, in general, the most quant groups on the trading floor.

 

Ahh I see. But schools like Columbia, Stanford, Princeton, Berkeley, NYU seem to have 95-100% placements in thier MFE programs. I know its really competitive to get into these, but is it better to go for MFE or the MBA programs of these universities to become a trader ?

 
A lot of the banks do not have organized recruiting programs for PhD or Master's programs outside of the <abbr title="Masters in Business Administration graduates

">MBAs, so if you pursue the MFE you'll have to do a lot of leg work on your own . So while you can definitely land jobs in S&T, it will require much more work on your part for the same number of offers. In contrast, all the banks have organized recruiting at MBA programs, so they are expecting to hire a set amount of people each year from a handful of schools. That said, an MFE program will definitely be more quant and therefore be very helpful for a career in S&T. You might want to consider an MFE program at a school with a top MBA program, because you might be able to leverage the MBA recruiting (i.e. not Princeton).

 

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