So, it has been an extremely hectic last two weeks. I was part of the organizing group responsible for Attilio Meucci’s Advanced Risk and Portfolio Management bootcamp hosted at Baruch College. You can find out more about the program here

The bootcamp gave me the immense opportunity to not only get exposure to some of the advanced topics in risk management but also a chance to meet several people in the industry from all across the world. The event was attended by over 235 people from 30 countries and I do not mean people originally from 30 countries. I mean people flew from across to the world, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Tanzania, Denmark, etc etc etc, for this 6 day event. GARP, the CFA Institute and Quantnet were among the partners in the event. The event taught me quite a bit about organising conferences and how to optimize logistics when it comes to the deliverables.

I was lucky enough to sit in on a few topics that were being presented as I was quite busy with logistics through most of the event. Among the topics I sat in on that were being presented by Attilio Meucci, the factor modelling, non-parametric estimation, and asset allocation techniques were probably my favourite. Unfortunately from the list of topics covered it can be seen that there were numerous topics covered but unfortunately I could not sit in on all of them.

The event also had a major reception which was attended by some of the biggest heavy hitters on Wall-street. I had the great pleasure of meeting and conversing with Mark Carhart, previously the hedge fund manager at Goldman Sachs Global Alpha now running his new hedge fund with other heavy weights, Bob Litterman of Black Litterman Asset Allocation model, and so on. I also had the chance to ask Dr. Litterman some questions about his time at Goldman Sachs and his reasons behind leaving.

So what stood out primarily for me from this conference?

A)    The Networking opportunity – I met several people from the industry from several countries that were in positions of making hiring decisions. These companies included people at the major investment banks like Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley, Deutche Bank and Citigroup among some. There was a major reception which was the best place to mingle and network. There were several breaks during the workshop and lunch when people could significantly network.

B)    The Speaker – Attilio Meucci is definitely one of the best presenters I have seen. The consistency with which he teaches is almost unfathomable. Being able to teach for 8 hours every day is quite a feat. Attilio is currently the Chief Risk officer at Kepos Capital LP. He is also an adjunct professor in the Master’s in Financial Engineering program at Baruch College. Previously, Attilio was the head of research at ALPHA, Bloomberg LP’s portfolio analytics and risk platform. Attilio is the author of Risk and Asset Allocation (Springer Finance) and numerous other publications in practitioners and academic journals

C)    The Food: Every morning the attendees were served a continental breakfast and on the reception night there was an extravagant dinner. I looked forward to the continental breakfast every day. The chocolate croissants and peach danish’s from Organique were quite delicious. Food might seem like an amateurish point to review but it is very crucial when you have to go through 8 hours of intense mathematical concepts and no nutrients to energize you. EVERYTHING at the event was organic, which ranged from the coffee, milk to the bagels and spreads.

D)    The Material: Unfortunately since I did not sit in all the lectures it is not fair for me to properly review the material which is why it is at the end. The lectures on factor modeling and non-parametric optimization were really great. Find out more about the material taught here

E)     Donation: When a professional society organises a conference, majority of the proceeds go to directly funding the society. The conference might be the society’s main source of funding. This is not the case here. As part of Attilio’s “One More Reason” charity, almost FIFTY percent of the fees goes to Doctors Without Borders. Find out more about this here

As I am sure many of you have questions about ARPM, I decided to ask Attilio some questions of my own. Unfortunately I kept it short considering he is quite a busy person.

How do you believe this year’s ARPM workshop compared to last years and will we be seeing ARPM again next year?
ARPM has been growing in size and scope throughout the years. I expect the trend to continue.

What do you believe is the minimum background attendees should have if they want to take ARPM next year?
Attendees should master linear algebra and multivariate calculus and they should have studied uni-variate statistics. The former two requirements are crucial to effectively and speedily communicate deep concepts using a concise, rigorous mathematical language.

What do you believe will/might be some new additions to ARPM as we go forward?
There will be more emphasis on liquidity issues.

What is the secret behind being able to teach for 8 hours straight?
Actually, after each edition I am always amazed that I managed to survive.

For the curious ones, here are some reviews from attendees:

“Attilio Meucci’s ARPM boot-camp was a very challenging and worthwhile experience. The material he presented was relevant and interesting. I was most impressed by how he could explain complex ideas in easier-to-understand terms. I would recommend this course to any aspiring quants”. – Risk Department Quant – Morgan Stanley

“Thanks a lot for organizing wonderful ARPM 2010 boot camp!  It was very well organized. Prof. Attilio did excellent job, the material was presented in a highly valuable and it is very helpful for both students and practitioners.  Prof. Dan did excellent Jon organizing ARPM course in Baruch MFE campus. Incoming MFE students did excellent job by helping all ARPM 2010 guests like welcoming, registration, coffee, breakfast, etc..” – Front Office Pricing Quant – Fixed income – Citigroup

As I get more reviews I will put them here.

See you all at ARPM next year!

I am a student at Baruch-CUNY in the Master of Science in Financial Engineering program (http://mfe.baruch.cuny.edu/) and a Quantitative Strategist at AQC ( http://www.alphaquantclub.com/ ) .

Download my research papers for free :http://ssrn.com/author=1414122

Follow me on Twitter: @joypathak

Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIN: http://www.linkedin.com/in/joypathak

Read other posts in my Blog here: http://www.quantnet.com/tag/joy-pathak

As the global financial crisis worsened by the day, the future of modern financial industry seems pretty much in doubt. From Shanghai to Mumbai, recent college graduates aspired to a job on Wall Street began to second guess their thinking. Concerned applicants flooded discussion boards to seek comfort and justification for their hard earned investment. When words spread that many graduates of top programs returned to home countries after months of unfruitful job searches, many prospective students decided to wait out the financial storm or join another line of work.

As a result, application numbers fell across many established and competitive MFE programs. Carnegie Mellon University reported a 20% drop in 2009 number of applicants to its venerable Master of Computational Finance (MSCF) program after reaching an all-time high a year before. The relative new kid on the block, Baruch MFE program saw its numbers dropping a stunning 32% after receiving more than 500 applicants in 2008. Elsewhere, the story was similar. From west coast’s Berkeley MFE to east coast’s Princeton MFin, the message was clear: brace for hard time ahead.

As students across this great nation started a new school year this week, we have a chance to look at the numbers gathered from various MFE programs. What we saw was telling. Like the new financial system emerged from the greatest crisis in decades, many programs are heading back to their pre-2009 level while some appear to level off. At least one program is declining in popularity.

From first glance, it’s clear that not all is rosy. No program has regained the level of 2008 in term of admission number. While CMU MSCF, Baruch MFE, Columbia MFE have the biggest recovery with triple digit increase in the total number, the biggest surprise comes from the MFin program at MIT’s Sloan which has 950 applicants in its second year from 175 a year earlier. Of equally shocking is the UCB MFE program from Haas which sees its numbers slipping for two years in a row. In 2010, it received 333 applicants, a far 30% cry from its peak in 2008. In 2009, it received 401 applicants, only 15% down from a year earlier.

The following chart displays the official admission numbers only from programs that post the data for at least the past five years. Big kudos to all of them for being transparent.

NOTE: Using official admission numbers from the website of UCB MFE, Baruch MFE, Princeton MFin, Stanford FinMath as well as from numerous conversations and email exchanges with officials at other programs, the data bellow represents the most extensive effort to date to gather all available admission numbers in one place.

Table 1: Admitted/Enrolled/Applied numbers

While extra care has been taken in the preparation of the material presented in this article, there is no warranty or guarantee as to the data, calculation or content accuracy.

• - numbers unavailable or programs declined to provide
• * numbers calculated using partial data gleaned from archived webpages.
• Stanford FinMath only provides detailed admitted/enrolled/total numbers since 2009. Prior to that, it only provides the admit numbers as percentage.
• The UCLA MFE and MIT MFin programs enrolled its first class in 2009.
• The numbers for NYU program do not take into account part-time/non degree/certificate numbers

After a noticeable drop in 2009, the number of applications to quant master programs this year is returning to level close to the record high in 2008 before the global financial crisis caused massive layoff in the financial services sector. With more people discovering the “quant” profession and the education required to get their foot in the door, this year’s group of applicants is finding that rejection may be something that they’ll have to learn how to handle.

For the 2010 incoming class, Princeton only accepts 5% of applicants to its Masters in Finance program (compared to 4% in 2009). Stanford’s Financial Math program only accepts 7% of its 2010 applicants compared to 6% a year earlier. Baruch MFE admits 7% of those who apply this year, down from 8% last year. NYU’s Mathematics in Finance program denies admission to more than eight of every ten applicants. We have been tracking the admission stats of the top programs over the last few years and if this trend continues, it will become increasingly fierce to get a seat in a sought-after program.

So if you get dinged from your dream programs, you are not alone. It is understandable that you are devastated after all the hard work you invested in the application process. But it’s important to keep in mind that admission to the best MFE programs is very competitive where the pool of applicants consists of many smart students who have 800Q GRE, PhD in a hard science, impressive background from elite universities.

So you will ask yourself, “Where do I go from here?”. Getting rejected from a top program is not the end of the world for you. Many applicants have successfully reapplied and get admitted into their first choice program after reevaluating and correcting fatal mistakes in their first try. It’s time to take an objective look at your application and see what you can improve or correct.

Here are the most common reasons

1. You applied only to programs in which you had zero chance of gaining admission
2. You bombed the in-person/phone interview
3. You didn’t meet the specific math/programming/finance/experience requirements
4. You failed to make a compelling case for why you need the MFE degree
5. Your GRE/GMAT/GPA/TOEFL scores are too low compared to the overall applicant pool
6. You failed to customize your applications to each program you applied to
7. You disclosed your plan of doing PhD after MFE
8. Your essay showed lack of English proficiency or was written by someone else
9. You failed to proofread and named a different program in your essay
10. You failed to address specific questions asked in the essay topic
11. Your application had fundamental flags around judgment or interpersonal issues.
12. You failed to present new information when you reapplied
13. Your recommendations had a damning effect
14. You rushed the application and didn’t spend enough time on it
15. You failed to complete the application or provide missing documentation

Unlike MBA, there are few admission consulting services available to MFE applicants because the market size and need are decidedly different. For rejected students, there are very few outlets to seek help. Sites like Quantnet’s forum are a very effective resource in getting the most useful feedback from current students and alumni of various MFE programs.

Understanding what went wrong with the application also can come from the admissions staff at the programs that rejected you. MFE programs vary in their policies on providing feedback. Princeton’s Master in Finance program does not allow appeal nor offer explanation or suggestion to denied applicants, citing the university’s graduate admission procedure. Since majority of applicants to MFE programs apply from abroad, programs almost never provide feedback for unsuccessful application via email and phone due to admission privacy policies. Almost all programs encourage strong applicants to apply again in the future.

Also, many programs have info sessions where staff provides quick profile evaluation and suggestion to prospective students. If you can attend in person, take advantage of the opportunities to both gain insight and get direct feedback from people who make the admission decision. If you plan to reapply, taking this extra step can play a major role in the outcome of your application.

By ERICH WOOD

Table of content

1. Starting at Baruch MFE
2. The Birth of an App Idea
3. App-lying Myself
4. Time to Submit the App
5. Marketing the App Free-style
6. Conclusions

One day in July 2005 I called Dan Stefanica, director of the financial engineering program at Baruch College. I had been to one of the open house sessions and heard that they had a somewhat new and pretty good program there. My econometrics professor had suggested I check it out.

To my surprise, Dan picked up. I was expecting a machine; or at best a receptionist. So I wasn’t exactly prepared for a conversation. I said, “I went to the open house the other day and have an application in progress.”

“So you want to meet with me or sit in on a class?”
“Okay. Both.”
“When can you meet.”
“Anytime.”
“How about at five o’clock?” (It was around two.)

When I hung up, I started getting a little nervous, which is not like me. I was totally unprepared and not confident at all about my skills. I was a graduate student in economics at City College and had recently finished two courses in econometrics. Before that, it had been many years since my calculus and statistics courses as an economics undergrad at UCLA. And I’d gone nowhere near something like stochastic calculus.

At five I arrived at Dan’s office and he skimmed through my application and asked me a few questions. Then he said (and I paraphrase) “I don’t think you will make it in this program.” Nice. In my mind I totally agreed, but I’ve never been one to believe people when they tell me I can’t do something. I prefer to find out myself.

The blackboard used by Baruch MFE students in their Quant Lab

In the end though, Dan told me to take the calculus “refresher” course (3 semesters of calculus crammed into two weeks) and then see if I still wanted to apply. I got the calculus book and did the first 12 chapters before the class started. I did good enough that Dan allowed me to be in the program “provisionally” by taking Introduction to Pricing Financial Instruments, a class taught by Dan. If I did well, then I could stay. I did well (enough) and so I stayed.

I graduated in December of 2008 with my Masters Degree in Financial Engineering, having attended courses part-time while working full-time at an energy trading software firm. There probably wasn’t a worse time to graduate with such a degree. My original plan was to look for work, then change jobs to one of the big banks. That plan changed to “keep your job until further notice.” Further notice came in August 2009 when I was laid off.

The Jeep that I traveled cross country in.

One week after my last day at the office, I took off on a cross-country road trip. I visited numerous national parks along the way, took a lot of pictures, visited some friends in California, and generally chilled. The rest of the year went by fast. I went out a lot, visited family a lot, and had a trip to Mexico. Luckily I had save up enough money over the previous five years (and did well in some key stocks) so I didn’t need to rush out to find work. But work would find me soon enough.

One day Ernesto and I were sitting in Shade, a small Greenwich Village bar with great crepes, drinking our third or fourth Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier, talking about how we should be developing iPhone apps. Ernesto Santos is an experienced, self-employed Web programmer. However, he is most identifiable as the president of La Boule New York, a petanque club (labouleny.com). Shade is where he and his petanque friends usually hang out after playing. It’s as good a place as any to think of an app idea.

iPhone startup idea brew over a few beers

There are basically two ways to go about doing it as indie developers. You can try to bang out a new simple app every few weeks and flood the app store with a bunch of (mostly clone) small apps. Each is low risk and most will generate no revenue, but if one is a hit it pays for the failures. Or we could try to think of one cool idea and spend some months developing it and hope it’s a home run. We decided to try to think of a home run. If we couldn’t, then we’d just start banging out apps and see what happens.

It’s easy to have an initial idea for an app, but not so easy to think of an app that is original, doable, and could make money. We had lots of ideas, but each had a pitfall, like needing a large content partner, no way to make revenue, or just too hard to make.

Then I thought about it in a different way. Instead of trying to think of a cool app that runs on the iPhone, think of the particular capabilities of the iPhone and make an app that exploits them. So what are the capabilities of the iPhone? Text, photos, sound, video, push notification, location services. What can we do to take advantage of these features?

At this time, Ernesto was talking about Monkeyfish, an old idea he had back in the ‘90s that would “mash up” stuff from different people. I wasn’t really sure what that meant, but the idea of combining stuff from different people to make a new kind of rang with me. Also in my mind from news earlier that day was Chat Roulette, the random chat service that seems to be mostly for exhibitionist guys. I’ve never used Chat Roulette but the randomness of it intrigued me.

I was stuck on the push notification functionality of the iPhone and I jotted down a few quick notes on a piece of paper. Telephone. Push notification. Random. Time limit.

Then I asked Ernesto, “How about a game like telephone, where you record yourself saying something, then it goes to a random other person with push notification and they have to repeat it? And you can only hear it once and have only 30 seconds to repeat it. And the chain goes on until the end and you can see how the message changed.” Ernesto thought it sounded good. So we did some brainstorming.

There could be a problem with sending voice messages to random people, since you don’t have control over what they say and you can’t guarantee it won’t offend the next randomly chosen user. So the telephone game seemed questionable. But we could do something like it, where you create a topic and random people reply to the topic within a short time frame. At the end, we can censor any offensive content. This seemed more realistic and more likely to get approval from Apple. It could work for text, photos, sound and videos; it uses push notification and location services.

At the end of that beer, we had the basic idea complete. We decided to do a first version with just text and photos. What we loved about the idea is its simplicity and users can make of it what they will, like Twitter. It’s a simple, random micro-blog. The development name for the product would be Hot Potato.

Ernesto is a server-side expert, so he would focus on the back end and I’d do the app. The problem was that I didn’t know Objective C, the programming language of the iPhone. But it seemed easy enough to learn (might have been the beer thinking). The next day Ernesto lent me two iPhone programming books and I got started learning Objective C and iPhone programming.

Developing an iPhone app is both easier and harder than you think, especially if it’s your first app. Objective C is a pretty easy language to learn, but may seem odd if you already know C, C++, Java, or other languages not based on Smalltalk. And the iOS development environment, Xcode, takes some getting used to also.

WARNING: Be prepared to spend 25 hrs a day, 8 days a week on this. If you are an MFE student, then it’s a lot like that, except you need to maintain the motivation yourself, without classes, homework, tests, assignments, and deadlines.

Programming aside, developing and releasing an iPhone app is not like making a Web site. You have to get development certificates for developers, provisioning licenses for all phones being used for development, get different provisioning licenses for your testers, describe your product for the iTunes store, design the product within Apple’s interface guidelines, and so many other little things.

So next time somebody tells you “I have a great idea for an app, it’s so easy we can do it in a week,” be skeptical.

The two books I started with are Beginning iPhone 3 Development and Sams Teach Yourself iPhone Application Development in 24 Hours. I also bought one other book later, which was very useful: The iPhone Developer’s Cookbook. But the best resources are online. You can Google just about any iPhone programming question and you will find dozens of forums and blogs where other people experienced the same problems. After I got the hang of developing using the books, the Internet became the best learning tool.

Everybody learns programming in his or her own way. Some people like to read books cover to cover and understand each step of tutorials. Some people like to bang through examples waiting for something to “click.”

I strongly believe that the best way to learn is by having an app to develop. It doesn’t even have to be an original app that you want to release. You could copy an existing app. You just need to have an app in mind and work toward implementing the various functionalities it needs. The problem with just going through tutorials is that your motivation peters out. If you are actually creating something, you’ll stay interested, solving all the problems you need to solve. Programmers love having problems to solve. It’s what keeps us up until 3 a.m. without feeling tired.

This is what I had. As I went through the books, banging out tutorial apps, I always kept “Hot Potato” in mind, planning how I would code it. As I finished tutorials, I thought about how I could incorporate the new knowledge into my app, and every few tutorials I would take time out to do actual programming for my app. I really just like jumping in and playing around to learn, then reading more later to refine.

In the meantime, Ernesto was building the server application. It was only a few weeks before we had a working prototype sending messages to the server. I had even implemented the audio and video recording. But the code really sucked.

Original App Logic Design

Although we had the major functionality working by mid April, the app was definitely not release ready and we had a lot of cleaning up to do. The app code was very bad and the interface was clunky. I had just been “piling code on top of code” since the beginning. I learned a lot more about good code design, so it was time to start from scratch.
I highly recommend throwing out the first bit of code written for an app and starting over, at least if you follow my method of learning (banging out code and refining it as you learn). It is a tremendous learning experience. Chances are, all the code you wrote before is garbage and you now know a lot more about good coding practices.

Regarding graphic design, it was pretty obvious that my skills were lacking. Aside from the fact that I am color blind, I only know what looks good after I see it. Good designers can envision how something should look and implement it. My “trial and error” method is just a big time waster.

Masako Masuda is an experienced graphic and user interface designer who agreed to join our company in late May. It didn’t take long before the app started looking good. Even her first day’s design put mine to shame. But she would continue to improve it and together we created a user interface flow and design that often gets the first compliments.

At the same time, we brought on Richie Narvaez (of asininepoetry.com) for writing and editing. He would be responsible for all the text in the app, the description in the app store, the press releases, and other writing that came up. It helps to have friends with such skills. We had everything we needed, except a marketing expert.

Now we needed to name the app. Hot Potato was too generic and the URL was taken. We thought the potato metaphor was cool, so I asked Masako, who is Japanese, “What’s the Japanese word for potato?” It turns out there are a few, but the one that sounded good was “Jagaimo.” I took the “a” out to make it a short “i” sound and we named the product Jagimo. Jagimo.com was available. So now we had a name. All we had to do was finish the app.

The app submission process is notorious, but not as ridiculous as its reputation. Apple is strict about what they accept for the app store: can’t crash, must adhere to Apple’s design guides, can’t have nudity or defamatory content, can’t do something one of Apple’s apps already does, etc. But it’s not as bad as people think. There are 8-10,000 apps submitted each week (including updates) and nearly all are approved.

This being my first app, I was fairly certain that it would be rejected for some technical reason. But I worried more that it would be rejected for some conceptual reason. Specifically, we are sending user-generated content from one user to randomly chosen others. If Apple believed that a 12-year-old could be receiving inappropriate content from some other user, they might reject it. If that was the case, our whole business model is out the window. Time to find a job.

There is a lot to do to get your app ready for submission. You need to submit the description, screen shots, app icons (large and small), and enter other information like keywords, age rating, and categories. Then you need to build your application in a specific way that makes it work for distribution. The documentation on this is not easy to dig through, especially if you’re working late trying to finish by your self-imposed deadline. But once you finish, you upload your app’s binary and wait.

We waited about one week before the status of our app changed from “Waiting for Review” to “In Review.” That was pretty exciting. But it sat in that status for two more days. Then it changed to “Rejected.” Why? Because when I copy/pasted the password for the Apple reviewer to use, MS Word decided I wanted to have it capitalized. So the first letter of the password was capitalized and the reviewer could not log in. Once I sent them the proper password, the app went back to “In Review” a couple days later. This time the status changed only an hour later to “Ready for Sale.”

I was shocked. I was certain that there would be some technical problem with the app that caused it to be rejected. This was my first app after all, and it wasn’t a farting noisemaker, a flashlight, or some other totally easy app. This app had to do a lot of network communication with a server, push notifications and location services. Either this means that I’m an awesome programmer or that the review process isn’t as scary as people believe.

Here was the description of Jagimo in the app store:

Jagimo is the app store’s first and only social brainstorming game. Users toss ideas. Random people catch and add to them. Together they create cool and creative mashups.

It’s easy to use. The jagimo starter enters a topic, creates the first message with words or photos, and tosses it. The server sends it to randomly chosen people. Those who catch the jagimo have a limited time to respond. After a certain number of tosses, they can check out the resulting mobile mashup and comment on it.

Let the Downloading Begin! Right?

The first day after our app was approved was the biggest day for us. People started registering and tossing jagimos around. Ernesto and I were having a “business meeting” at Shade that night. Our phones kept buzzing with new jagimos as we frantically responded to each and tracked new user registrations in the database with our iPads.

But the frantic pace of new user registrations and tossing lasted exactly one day. New apps show at the top of the list in the app store when first released, because they are listed by release date. Since there are so many apps released each day, your app is pushed to page 2+ very quickly, and the new downloads slow to a trickle. Then you have to figure out a way to get people to notice your app.

This is the hard part. All the other stuff about thinking of an idea, programming, designing, and submitting to the app store is the easy part. How in the world are people supposed to see your app when there are thousands flooding the app store and review sites every day?

This brings up what I consider to be our first mistake. We were very afraid that someone would steal our idea, so we didn’t do any pre-release publicity. We thought that if someone saw the description of our app in a press release, then they could do the same idea. We were also afraid that Apple would reject the app on conceptual grounds, ending our development. So our first release was probably a month too soon. We didn’t want to work another month if Apple was going to reject the concept and we didn’t want to wait a month because we thought someone else might do the same app.

Looking back, this was not smart. First off, no one had thought of and implemented the idea for the past few years. It was unlikely someone would suddenly do it. Second, the first day in the app store is an app’s big chance to get eyeballs, so you really need to publicize it ahead of time. Then people will be waiting for it and will recognize it when it’s released. The fear about Apple rejecting it on conceptual grounds was legitimate, but since Chat Roulette is in the app store, it seems unlikely that Jagimo would be rejected.

When we released subsequent app updates with enhancements, we saw nowhere near the amount of downloads as we did on day one. Always promote your app for at least a month before you release it.

This appears to be very common for just about every app submitted to the app store. There is an initial spike of downloads from people who see it on the first day, followed by a long tail of very few daily downloads. The biggest challenge at that point is to get your app noticed. The more people that see it, the more will download it. This is harder than it sounds.

Being a startup company with no money for things like marketing, we needed to try every free marketing tactic we could. The Internet is full of tips on how to promote your app and there is at least one book, The Business of iPhone App Development: Making and Marketing Apps that Succeed, which provides lots of good information. We had already made the first mistake, not promoting the app before release, so it was important for us to do everything we could to make up for it.

The first thing I did was to join a lot of forums that discussed iPhone apps. I posted an introduction about Jagimo and started participating in discussions. It is important to follow the forum’s rules before posting. You don’t want to look like you only came to promote your app, or to look like spam.

Next we submitted the app for review on about 75 Web sites. Since these sites receive hundreds of review requests each day, it is not easy to get them to look at our app. But we had to do this. We also submitted a press release to many of the same sites as well as tech news sites. The press release started showing up in Google searches, but it’s unclear how many people are seeing or reading it.

I also joined Meetup groups that specialize in technology, mobile apps, iOS, and entrepreneurs. These are hit and miss. Although I’ve met great contacts in some, others are just a waste of time. One that I went to was just the organizer and me having dinner. It was like a blind date.

I visited the Baruch Small Business Development Center, where I talked with a counselor who actually gave some pretty good advice. I subsequently met with the marketing specialist there. Based on these discussions, we’ll be trying some grassroots marketing tactics and hiring an (unpaid) intern from the marketing department.

How do these free marketing methods work out? Not great, to be honest. Sure, we have seen a bigger trickle of downloads, but it’s not enough to “get over the hump.” Other app developers say that the number one thing that increased downloads was being featured by Apple in the app store. How do you get featured? Well, Apple has to like the app. There is nothing we can do to get it featured besides make a good app that Apple likes. What kind of app does Apple like? Only Apple knows.

One might be asking, “How did the financial engineering degree help, if at all?” Well, the honest answer is that it did not help in any specific way. Jagimo does not use math or finance and has nothing to do with financial engineering. But there are some less obvious ways in which my MFE helps, even for an app developer.

First, the Baruch MFE program is very demanding. I was working full time and taking courses at night, 2-4 nights a week. So my work+school day started before 9 a.m. and finished after midnight (on good days). Weekends were dedicated to homework. These happen to be the same hours required of a small business owner, especially a startup tech company. People like to say that owning your own business must be great because you can set your own hours. To which I reply, “Yes, I can work whichever 20 hours of the day I want.”

Second, the Baruch MFE program teaches C++. Although the iPhone development language is Objective C, understanding object-oriented programming is key. Objective C is like a blend of C and Smalltalk. The Smalltalk part gives it its objects, and it is very object-oriented. The other nice thing is that you can mix C and C++ into an Objective C program and the compiler takes care of it. A lot of programmers will use C when they want to get some extra processing speed or if they only know how to do something in C.

Last, having an MFE degree from Baruch makes me confident that I can find work when I need it. At this point, it’s like an insurance policy. If my company does not succeed, I believe I can find a job at a financial institution more easily than without the degree. That’s a big help to an entrepreneur because starting a business is very stressful. And if I cannot raise or earn money from the business, I will have to find a job at some point.

What’s next for Woern? Well, we are seeking investment to take Jagimo to the next level. We need to have a major marketing push and would like to develop the Android version. So for now, development is on the back burner and the front burner has a big boiling pot of business plan. On the other front burner is marketing.

Developing an app isn’t just about having a cool idea and programming it. If you intend for it to be a source of income, you need to deal with all of the other business aspects that go with it— legal, business, project management, personnel management, marketing, etc. It is true that there are many hats to wear, and if you are the type of person who can juggle hats, you just might succeed.

About the Author

Erich Wood is president and co-founder of Woern LLC, a company he started with Ernesto Santos in order to develop an iPhone app called Jagimo. The app launched in late June of this year (free in the app store) and the company is now seeking investment. Erich (known as Woody to most) graduated from Baruch College’s Masters in Financial Engineering (MFE) program in December of 2008. Starting a mobile apps development company was not what he had in mind while earning his degree; a job at a big bank seemed more realistic. But sometimes you just have to go with the flow and answer the door when opportunity knocks. You can reach him at woody@jagimo.com. See more about Jagimo at http://jagimo.com.

Newman Library, Baruch College

The following review was submitted on 8/21/2010 by a student who studied full-time in the program from 9/2008-12/2009

Can you tell us a bit about your background?
Education: BA Mathematics
Prior work Ex: approx 1.5 years

Did you get admitted to other programs?
NYU Math Finance

Why did you choose this program (over others, if applicable)?
There were two deciding factors: close attention from the faculty (Dan comes on strong), and superior teaching. Other programs I observed had, what I considered to be a very poor learning environment.

What alternative sources of info you used to learn more about the program?
Quantnet, information sessions, sitting in on classrooms, talking to students & alumni, talking to instructors

Tell us about the application process at this program
Application process was straightforward and responsive.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the accessibility of the faculty and staff?
8

Does this program offer refresher courses for incoming students? How useful was it?
Baruch has refresher courses, although “refresher” is a misnomer. They are stand-alone courses of their own, which cover material you are not really expected to have known previously, although they will probably be a real challenge if you haven’t learned those subjects before. When I took them, there was some push back from students who also had full-time jobs (even part time admits take four days a week of refresher courses!) and found it very difficult to keep up.

On a scale of 0-10, how would you grade the usefulness of these refresher courses?
8

Tell us about the courses selection in this program. Any special courses you like?
When I attended there were roughly 14 courses of which you took 11 and a capstone (give or take one course). I felt at the time that the offerings were somewhat restricted and narrowly focused; if you had an interest in algo trading, there was nothing for you. However, if you had an interest in equity options, this program was perfect. Now, they have broadened the offerings somewhat, so you have more flexibility in this regard.

I felt that Sylvain’s courses on structured finance were very instructive, since they were project based. I also benefited greatly (at large personal cost, given how demanding it was) from the programming courses.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the flexibility of the curriculum?
4

Tell us about the quality of teaching
The quality of teaching was variable. Some instructors were very good, whereas some were too busy to prepare for class, or did not structure the curriculum well, or did not answer questions and were generally unavailable. As a result, more than one course in the program yielded little benefit to me or other students, who were quite vocal about this problem.

On the other hand, some courses were very demanding and I learned a great deal, which continues to be useful in my work. (For the doubters, that includes Stochastic Calculus.)

TAs were extremely helpful and responsive. The other students are also very collaborative and provide assistance on homeworks.

The support from TAs in each class is great and an invaluable help to comprehend better the class work.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the quality of teaching?
8

Materials used in the program
All the books are shown on quantnet (master reading list for MFE students)

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the practicality of the curriculum?
8

Programming component of the program
C++ primarily. VBA and R were also used at times

The programming component is very intense. However, pedantic programming instruction is minimal, and (in my opinion) not important. It seems to me that the biggest determinant in what you get out of the programming courses is what you came in with; I had a strong background in programming and learned a great deal, and it earned me a great deal of attention from employers. On the other hand, students who came in with weak programming skills struggled but did not receive adequate support to improve, in my opinion. Unfortunately, the only way to become a good programmer is to devote significant time to it, and this is not easily taught.

Projects
We did a number of individual and group projects. In our C++ course we did a PnL calculator for stocks and bonds, and a series of projects based on Mark Joshi’s options book (highly recommended). We also programmed a linear algebra library for the linear algebra course. For structured finance we programmed a deal using excel & VBA. For a handful of other courses, we used R (or our language of choice).

Career service
There is very good career service, with good placement and close attention. Placement is a very high priority.

Of course, this was a challenge when I was a student and few positions were open. Nonetheless, Dan devoted significant time and resources to opening new avenues of hiring.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the career service for internship and full-time job?
9

Can you comment on the social interaction between students of different ethnics, nationalities in the program?
Students did form ethnic groups, but also interacted a great deal with the larger student population. Since the program is so small, everyone fits in a room and works together, which breaks down those national barriers.

What do you like about the program?
The intensity of the program is crucial to its success. It strains personal relationships in particular in the first semester for full-time students. However, you move quickly up the curve and resources are there for those who want them. Given its small size and value placed on enterprise, a student who decides to take leadership and responsibility is rewarded with it, in the classroom and in the community. However, you will be allowed to languish if you choose not to participate.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the value of the program for the price tag?
10

What DON’T you like about the program?
The rest of my review has a number of criticisms; inconsistency of teaching and course material was my biggest objection.

Suggestions for the program to make it better
Since I have left, I think many of my peeves have been improved. Furthermore, there are many proposals and countervailing opinions floating around among the faculty of their vision for the program. These are suppressed now; it would be best to listen to them both to increase faculty satisfaction and to improve the coursework from seasoned practitioners and educators.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade your experience in the program?
9

What are your current job status? What are you looking for?
Employed as quantitative analyst

On a scale of 1-10, would you recommend this program to others?
10

Other comments?
What you put into any masters program is what you get out. Baruch MFE gives you a path for success, but you must apply yourself, and selectively choose what is important to learn and what interests you. (Presumably much of it interests you as you chose to attend the MFE). It will always be a mistake to choose an “Easier” course at this level of education (solely for that reason); the goal should be to maximize exposure to topics and improve your skills; leverage other students, the school’s resources, faculty. Again, Baruch has those available, so use them.

Click here to submit a review of your program

Haven’t posted anything in a while and I wanted to put up something more relevant towards this site. For those of you who do not know, I just recently finished my MS in Finance from Villanova. I truly love the degree and feel that specialized masters degrees do not get the respect or attention that they deserve. While the MSF is not nearly as quantitative as the degrees that many of you are interested in, there is still a lot of overlap and some MSF programs tend to be more quant than others. I think this program fits that description.

Here is some insight on the program  provided by Kevin Arnold, Director of Graduate Admissions.

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.

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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
karnold@cmc.edu
(909) 607-3347

More on CMC can be found here

Employer: Major Investment Bank
Job Title: VP/Director
Job location: London
Compensation: commensurate with experience
Contact info: Andy Nguyen (use the contact form to email resume)

Job description:
The European Commodities Risk Manager is responsible for analyzing the market risk profile of the commodities trading business in London. The risk manager works as part of a global team that is responsible for communicating the risk taking activity to the firm’s senior management, and will interface with traders as well as business support groups (controllers, IT, Credit, etc.) on a daily basis.

The candidate must have an understanding of risk management concepts such as VaR, stress tests, and the risk representation of options portfolios. The candidate needs strong interpersonal skills combined with a solid understanding of the energy commodities and non-energy trading markets. A quantitative background and fluency with Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, Visual Basic is desired as is a familiarity with Statistical Analytics Packages (Stata, Matlab), SQL database queries. The candidate must be able to interact comfortably in a trading environment and with Sr. Management at various levels within the firm as well as with external regulators.

This role is ideal for someone with 4-6 years of experience that wants exposure to an extremely varied set of Commodity risks (Oil Liquids, Electricity, Natural Gas, Emissions, Coal, Freight, Base Metals, Precious Metals, Agricultural products).

Qualifications:
Preferably MS in financial math/engineering/statistics/economics. We would also consider non MS candidates with commodities experience.

Location: Toronto, ON, Canada
Contact: recruiting@wil.com
Compensation will include immigration and relocation assistance
Job description

Primary Responsibilities:

• Developing, testing and implementing quantitative trading models.
• Models will be based on quantitative data analysis rather than qualitative analysis.
• Research strategies in equities and other markets.
• Perform historical backtesting to determine optimal strategy parameters.
• Generate new indicator ideas.

Requirements of the Candidate include:

• PhD or Masters in physics, statistics, mathematics or operations research.
• Strong working knowledge of statistics.
• Must possess expert level C/C++ programming skills.
• Must be a strong self-starter and able to work well independently.

About this recruiter:
Waterfront International is a Toronto-based financial consulting firm, specializing in developing computer based statistical trading strategies. Waterfront’s selective hiring process considers only highly talented individuals with a history of exceptional professional and academic achievement, and solid real-world experience.

This review was submitted on 13 Aug 2010 by a student who studied full-time in the program from 9/2009 to 5/2010

Can you tell us a bit about your background?
Worked as a Business Analyst for 2 years in Financial Services before joining the program.
GRE: 800 quant, 650 verbal.

Did you get admitted to other programs?
Yes

Why did you choose this program (over others, if applicable)?
Notoriety

What alternative sources of info you used to learn more about the program?
Quantnet, Forbes Magazine, etc

Tell us about the application process at this program
Respond via email, waitlist candidates usually find out very late into the year

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the accessibility of the faculty and staff? (1 worst, 10 best)
8

Does this program offer refresher courses for incoming students? What do they offer and how much it costs?
Not offered

On a scale of 0-10, how would you grade the usefulness of these refresher courses?
1

Tell us about the courses selection in this program. Any special courses you like?
Stochastic Finance was very interesting, and very challenging course.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the flexibility of the curriculum?
7

Tell us about the quality of teaching
Depending on the professor, the courses can be extremely interesting or incredibly boring. TA’s can be helpful in some courses but not all.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the quality of teaching?
7

Materials used in the program
John.C Hull – Options, Futures, Derivs Stochastic Processes – Lawler

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the practicality of the curriculum?
7

Programming component of the program
4.5-6

Projects
Development of Trading Strategies

Career service
Not helpful at all. Very minimal support by the University or the program.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the career service for internship and full-time job?
1

What do you like about the program?
I liked applied courses, where we could see the theory applied in practice

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the value of the program for the price tag?
6

What DON’T you like about the program?
Career Service and Support

Unfortunately the Faculty, and the Department that sponsors my program was not helpful at all. Besides the occasional email about a job posting, or career fair there was really nothing much they did. All the students are pretty much on their own as far as finding a job is concerned.

That was my biggest gripe with the program. I understand markets are tough, but we are paying quite a bit of money to the University, and I feel like we should get more help than we did.

Also I didnt particularly like how at Columbia, you must be affiliated with a program in order to take their courses. Some really nice courses like Quantitative Risk Management, Advanced Derivatives,etc. were only offered by the Business School, and the School of Engineering. Students from our program we’re not allowed to take these courses.

It was not all bad though, the core courses that a Quant is required to take (Stochastic processes) were taught by a very high quality professor and staff. I also liked how Columbia does push students to their limits as far as academia is concerned. Hard work is definitely rewarded.

Suggestions for the program to make it better
Improve the Career Service, and make it easier for Students to take courses from other departments

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade your experience in the program?
7

What are your current job status? What are you looking for?
Employed full-time as an associate

On a scale of 1-10, would you recommend this program to others?
7

To submit a review, click here

Main campus - Illinois Institute of Technology

This review was submitted on 1 Aug 2010 at 4:22:18 PM by a student who studied full-time in the program from Fall 2006 to Spring 2008

Can you tell us a bit about your background?
B.S. in Engineering from top 25 US university.

Started my career as a risk analyst for a re-insurer. Later, worked 4 years as a currency options trader for a European bank.

GRE: around 1300. It was near 90th percentile in 2006

Did you get admitted to other programs?
Yes, Univ of Chicago, Kent State

Why did you choose this program (over others, if applicable)?
First, I was working in downtown Chicago which made it easy to get to classes because i started out part time. Second, my firm had hired a guy from this program and he was very bright. Third, the school offered a wide (and practical) array of courses.

What alternative sources of info you used to learn more about the program?
School’s website was main source of info. Also talked to program director John Bilson.

Tell us about the application process at this program
no interview, easy. a few essays, test scores, etc…it was easy.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the accessibility of the faculty and staff? (1 worst, 10 best)
7

Does this program offer refresher courses for incoming students? What do they offer and how much it costs?
Yes, I did not take any but I think they are same price as regular courses. They are basically mathematics refresher courses (lin alg and calculus I and II)

On a scale of 0-10, how would you grade the usefulness of these refresher courses?
1

Tell us about the courses selection in this program. Any special courses you like?
Financial modelling in Excel/VBA
Financial Economics I (which wasn’t an economics course at all but a great finance crash course)
Numerical Methods for Option Pricing in MATLAB
Fixed Income Modelling
Monte Carlo Simulation
Time Series Analysis

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the flexibility of the curriculum?
8

Tell us about the quality of teaching
Mixed bag. Ironically, I enjoyed the adjunct faculty’s courses as they work in the field and don’t get bogged down in theoretics as much.

There are two full time faculty members Geoff Harris and Greg Chaudoin who were outstanding instructors. The concepts they taught as well as projects/homeworks were indispensible during interviews.

Had some good adjunct faculty (Russell Wojcik, Andy Kumiega, and others) as well.

The TA’s are basically graders. Not really helpful with homeworks.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the quality of teaching?
7

Materials used in the program
Brandimarte- Num. Methods in MATLAB.
Hull (of course)- 6th edition
Luenberger- Investment Science
Jorion-Value at Risk
Ruey Tsay- Time Series Analysis
Glasserman – Monte Carlo
Greg Lawler- Intro to Stochastic Processes

Loads and loads of professor’s notes in .pdf form

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the practicality of the curriculum?
10

Programming component of the program
Tons of C++ classes. Ben Van Vliet is on the faculty and has written a lot of books on C. Lots of people go here to learn to program algo- trading strategies. MATLAB and VBA used heavily. Mathematica, S Plus and R a bit.

Projects
Most projects were individual. Several students pitched their C++ projects to prop firms/hedge funds. Almost every class had some project required, but there was no master’s thesis required. I wasn’t interested in doing a heavy piece of research, but I heard students who did had a hard time finding mentors/advisors. IIT won’t be a great choice for you if you love doing academic research.

Career service
I didn’t rely heavily on it, but did not hear good things. This school is a good one, but everyone had better be aware that the school doesn’t cultivate connections in Chicago very well. So if you attend, you will have to do some leg work on your own to find employment/internships. The school is in huge need of a marketing whiz to come in there and get it where it generally deserves to be.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the career service for internship and full-time job?
3

What do you like about the program?
Chicago is probably the best city in the US in which to live (winter aside). It’s also a global financial giant because of CBOE/CBOT/Merc. Faculty were generally pretty good. Cost was moderate. Curriculum was very practical and hands on; I think a lot of people are too hung up on solving ODE’s and SDE’s and forget that you are more likely to be asked about a concept like duration, or gamma in a job interview.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade the value of the program for the price tag?
8

What DON’T you like about the program?
No diversity. Literally 80-85% of the students are from India, China or Korea. Classes too big because they admit way too many people. Most students have sky-high mathematical abilities and GRE scores but no work experience which, (for me) detracted from the experience. Administration of program seems to be running it too much like a cash cow.

Suggestions for the program to make it better
Admit fewer people. Admit people with work experience. Eliminate some of the ‘recycling’ of homeworks, exams and quizzes and projects which was rampant among a lot of students. Hire someone to overhaul career services. There are hundreds of small trading firms in Chicago, but few actively recruit people from here, which is a shame since those firms are infinitely better to work for then a ‘top tier’ investment bank.

On a scale of 1-10, how would you grade your experience in the program?
8

What are your current job status? What are you looking for?
Employed. Bulge bracket investment Bank.

On a scale of 1-10, would you recommend this program to others?
8

Other comments
WARNING TO ALL STUDENTS WHO ARE NOT AMERICAN OR GREEN CARD HOLDERS!!! This school might not be honest with you about employment prospects after graduation. The US economy (particularly financial services) is in terrible shape at the moment. Small firms will likely pass on you if they need to sponsor your H1B Visa. A lot of of my classmates have had very tough times finding US employment (at least in Chicago), and have had to return to countries of origin. You will have to be pretty good to get picked up by a firm in the current environment. Don’t expect careers services at IIT to place you. If you can legally work in the US, and have some work experience, you will likely get a lot out of this program. Some of my classmates are doing well.

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