CC - Economics vs. SEAS - Financial Engineering..

<p>Does anyone here know the average GPA and SAT scores
for both?
Also, by how much would the big name i-bank recruiters
prefer SEAS financial engineering over CC economics?
I am planning to take the sats this october and november,
but if i have 3.7 UW gpa, 2250SAT I, 780math2, 770 physics, and a decent amount of EC's, how much chance
do I have for each majors? (I know that these are not
the only factors)
Thanks alot</p>

<p>You don't have to apply for each specific major--- you have to apply for each school (CC and Fu). CC is harder to get in for various reasons, but then again you also have to apply for Financial Engineering.</p>

<p>The FE program at Columbia is very strong, but then again so is the Econ program at the College. IB recruiting is less about the major, and more about the GPA and the networking/who-you-know. In that sense, the FE major will likely have a lower GPA than the econ major simply because FE, and the engineering GPA's are in general about .5 lower than the College's GPA's.
(avg GPA at Fu: 2.7, avg GPA at CC: 3.3)</p>

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<p>I think avg SEA is 3.1 or so. It's definitely not below 3.</p>

<p>it actually is below 3, i asked at the deans office last year. i think the financial engineering program is good and it seems wallstreet is looking for engineers so FE might not be a bad idea. The Econ department on the other hand is renowned and has quite a number of popular and award winning professors you might never see or who might be big jerks in real life. chose carefully</p>

<p>First off, no one on these boards know how well FE does in wall street because the program is so new that there is not large enough of a pool of graduates available to have sense of what happens.</p>

<p>From what I can gather many econ majors can get away with taking only two semesters of math, calc I and calc III. Only Econ-Stat, Econ-OR or Econ-Math require more. Columbia</a> College Bulletin</p>

<p>Whereas in SEAS, you know every financial engineer is going to have differential equations under their belt, which is useful for higher level economics. Operations</a> Research: Financial Engineering: First and Second Years
Operations</a> Research: Financial Engineering: Third and Fourth Years</p>

<p>Columbia College is making econ majors who can go into a diverse amount of fields, whereas Financial Engineering is making Quants. </p>

<p>With that being said, getting into the big bad financial engineering program is not based on anything you do in high school, but your grades in college, with emphasis on the grades in computer science and mathematics classes. However, you don't need the FE program to get a good job on wall street. Many of the OR, IE or EMS majors do well in job placement. The representative from the department explained without much detail, that the EMS majors do particularly well with investment banking placement. </p>

<p>I personally think the program you choose matter less than your ability to show up for informational sessions that the many different banks put on during campus, and from that, your ability to secure a junior year internship somewhere, which Career Services plays an instrumental role regardless if you are CC or SEAS.</p>