help!! UMD or Tulane for Master degree in Finance

College Search & Selection
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<p>Pls help me choose a school for studying master degree in finance
l'm a Chinese student.. and I hope that after graduate I can find 1 year internship in the US</p>

<p>following are my thoughts:
UMD's programme - Master of Scince in Business: Finance - is held in DC campus (ronald reagen building). and this year is the 1st year of the programme as a full-time one.
faculty in umd are pretty good, most of them are from ivy, mit, nyu, chicago.etc..
my concern is the quality of this programme because it is too new... and maybe little campus life as it is held in reagen building</p>

<p>tulane's programme - Master of finance
programme has operated for many years
location is a issue coz finance job opportunities there seem to be very limited
faculty of tulane are not as impressive as that of umd at the first glance
programme has a strong aspect in energy trading, courses such as burkenroad report is attractive</p>

<p>so.. i'm really struggling
any input is highly highly highly appreciated!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!</p>

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<p>How much does it cost to attend both schools? If cost is not an issue definitely go UMD, as you have mention; better faculty, better location and broader internship opportunities.</p>

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<p>thanks raezin
tuition of umd is lower than that of tulane… and total cost is about the same</p>

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<p>Tulane is very well known to the finance community and was ranked 10th in the world by The Financial Times of London. In case you have not seen all these links already:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=615836031&play=1[/url]”>http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=615836031&play=1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p><a href=“http://tulane.edu/news/releases/012808.cfm[/url]”>http://tulane.edu/news/releases/012808.cfm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p><a href=“http://www.freeman.tulane.edu/burkenroad/whatis.php[/url]”>http://www.freeman.tulane.edu/burkenroad/whatis.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p><a href=“http://www.freeman.tulane.edu/fenner/[/url]”>http://www.freeman.tulane.edu/fenner/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p><a href=“Top colleges and business schools for entrepreneurs.”>Top colleges and business schools for entrepreneurs.;

<p>Tulane has an experienced and excellent faculty, the campus is gorgeous, the city very interesting, and all the major firms recruit there.</p>

<p>Both are great I am sure, but don’t sell Tulane short. Benetode, who is a Tulane grad in this area and put me onto those links, will hopefully weigh in as well.</p>

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<p>to fallenchemist: thanks a lot!
very useful and informative links
tulane’s trading room is very attractive.
can I ask you one more question? do you know how likely the int’l students will be to land a intern in the south?</p>

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<p>I really cannot answer that with any degree of experience or expertise. Maybe Benetode can. Not to be naive, but I don’t think these old stereotypes about southerners are much of an issue any longer. Depends on what you call the south, but Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, Charlotte, Miami…these cities all have very sophisticated and international people involved in banking and finance. Also, the New York and California firms, along with others, do recruit at Tulane.</p>

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<p>Ibm, Fallen’s correct in that I can provide some more specifics. I studied finance as an undergrad at Tulane and later went back for my MFin at TU. I’m familiar with Maryland’s reputation on Wall Street as well. You’ll probably run into more people from Tulane than Maryland on the street simply due to the strength of TU specifically in finance but also the number of New Yorkers that go to Tulane. As Fallen mentioned, Financial Times ranked Tulane 10th in the world for finance in '08. Their finance department is much more highly regarded than the school as a whole (which still has a good reputation.) I think Maryland might be the better overall business school but Tulane is stronger in finance. This partly due to the fact that Tulane really lacks any strength in marketing in my opinion. They are also becoming very well known for entrepreneurial studies as well, as is the city of New Orleans itself. </p>

<p>I’m glad you mentioned that you were a Chinese student. One thing about Tulane is that there is a very large number of international, particularly Chinese, students who go to TU for their MBA/MFin. So that may make you feel more comfortable there. </p>

<p>I worked for Morgan Stanley before going back to get my MFin and now I work for a boutique firm located down in New Orleans. </p>

<p>One thing to realize is that neither UMD or TU will be able to help get you a full time position if you cannot secure some sort of work Visa, ect. for when you graduate. I know a lot of people from overseas that had problems initially. The US is really restricting giving those out. Just making you aware in case you weren’t already. That being said though. There are opportunities in New Orleans to do internships while studying but I don’t recommend it. It’s a full time program. I don’t know how Maryland’s works. </p>

<p>Tulane recruits very well in Dallas (bulge brackets like JP and MS among others have offices there), Houston, North Carolina (where tons of banks are), Chicago, Boston (to a certain extent), and New York (though it’s a tough market there for everyone.)</p>

<p>I highly recommend taking at least one class in energy trading, Burkenroad equity research program, and Darwin Fenner (where you manage part of Tulane’s endowment.)</p>

<p>If you are looking to get into trading, Tulane is clearly the winner. Maryland’s a great school for business too but Tulane has spent a ton on its trading coursework and keeps adding new trading classes. </p>

<p>One thing you’ll find at Tulane is that professors were often practitioners before going into academia. So your financial modeling professor will have worked for the Fed. Your fixed income analytics professor will have structured derivatives for Goldman or JP. Your other professors were energy, power market, Forex traders all before they decided to teach. </p>

<p>Best of luck. And please post any specific questions you can think of and I’ll post back as soon as I can. I have weird office hours. Best of luck! Maryland and Tulane are very good options to have!</p>

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<p>What section of finance are you looking to get into? I don’t mean buy or sell side but what capacity. Restructuring, corp finance, i-banking (new issue and M&A), hedge funds, plain vanilla (mutual funds), private wealth management, trading, equity research, venture capital (or private equity), structured products, ect. That sort of thing.</p>

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<p>equity research, i-banking, and personal financial planning are my priority</p>

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<p>thanks so much for Benetode’s comments.
some more questions:
according to the latest USNews report, UMD is ranked 25th in graduate program specilized in finance. how do you think about it?
and I knew that to secure a full-time job (require H1B working visa) is very hard, so my hope is I can intern for 1 year in the US after graduate. I am not clear about how hard it can be to do so near UMD or tulane.</p>

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<p>Maryland has a good reputation in business. It can actually be very difficult to land an internship once you have the degree actually. There are opportunities in New Orleans but there will probably be more in Maryland, particularly if it’s on the DC campus as you stated. If you are looking to get into personal financial planning, which is mainly a sales job, I’d skip the MFin all together. You won’t need it.</p>

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<p>Benetode,</p>

<p>I’ll be graduating with my BBA in Finance from Washington State University this summer with a ±3.0 GPA. To improve my GPA, bolster my graduate application, and better prepare for the GMAT, I’ve decided to return for one more year to obtain my BS in Economics. I’m interested in learning about trading, but I think my skills are better suited to pursue a career in investment banking (M&A). Preferably a regional or boutique investment bank. I also have hopes of attaining the CFA charter someday.</p>

<p>Given this brief academic overview. What do you think I can do to improve my admission chances into Tulane’s MS Finance program? Tulane is my #1 MS Finance choice due to the reasons you mentioned. I will also be applying to University of Rochester, Bentley University, and possibly University of Arizona.</p>

<p>Any information or tips you can provide would be of extreme help</p>

<p>Thanks,</p>

<p>Alex</p>

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<p>irocktheyellow, you even did not add UMD to your options. could you tell what the reasons behind are?
Tulane’s MFIN is great as many people knew, but how about UMD’s to your knowledge?</p>

<p>to your question, I guess you should improve your GPA to 3.3+ with a GMAT over 650+, then you should have a good chance to get into Tulane. If possible, you can also try to pass CFA level one before your application.
besides, I would like to say that univ of rochester should be a very top choice. UR is really good in finance as far as I know.</p>

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<p>ibmeruon,</p>

<p>Here is a brief overview of why I’m applying to each school I listed…</p>

<p>Tulane: Reputable and known finance school, CFA partner school, top notch trading room, solid business school in general, excellent in energy sector trading/finance job placements, selection of courses, decent New York pipeline</p>

<p>University of Rochester: Known finance school, top 30 business school, good placements throughout the Northeast (NYC, Boston), ability to transition from MS to MBA with ease </p>

<p>Bentley University: course selection, excellent trading room similar to Tulane, pipeline to NYC/Boston markets</p>

<p>In addition, I put a lot of emphasis on schools put a lot into there MS Finance programs. Compare these schools’ MS Finance webpages to others and you will see a difference in quality. This tells me that these schools have put more effort in and thus care more about the quality of the MS Finance program. </p>

<p>I have never known UMD to have a top business school or finance program. They have nice course offerings and a good recruiting location in DC.</p>

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<p>irocktheyellow,
yes, your comments are great.
you know, our international students usually lack detail information about the US univs. We often judge a school by looking at USNews’ rankings.
in terms of that rankings, UMD is ranked 45th in business school while tulane is 53rd
Finance graduate program: UMD 25th while tulane N/A
it is obivious there is information asymmetry between your native Americans and us Chinese.
In addition, UTD’s academic rankings based on academic contributions ranked UMD’s Smith School of Business at 7th. all the information seems to favor UMD as a better B-School. I am very confused by that and what you just mentioned.
any comments welcome
All the best, & good luck for your future application!</p>

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<p>irocktheyellow,<br>
I would guess that coming from an undergrad other than Tulane, you’ll have to have a higher GPA than had you come from TU itself. Try for a 3.3+ if you can. I wouldn’t worry too much about that though as your GMAT will be the primary concern for TU. One of the reasons that Tulane has a lower GMAT score is frankly, the Tulane undergrad students. A lot of kids from Tulane know they are given a certain amount of preference and usually just study for a couple of days and then take the exam. In my class it was the same way. If you can get a 650+ on the GMAT, you should be ok. If you have a 3.0-3.3 I would really work on the GMAT before you take the exam to maximize your score as that alone will be your deciding factor.</p>

<p>I’m glad to see you are interested in trading. I took every trading course offered (though they now have more than when I was there) because it’s really a great thing to know. I knew I didn’t want to trade on the floor in Chicago or NY but I do use some of what I learned in those classes at work and I definitely use it for my personal portfolio. Plus, they’re just really interesting classes. Unfortunately one of my favorite trading professors, and probably the best known at TU, is no longer in academia. The others are good though and you’ll have a great experience with them as well. </p>

<p>Tulane will place you well with a regional or boutique firm. The problem is sometimes finding the firms if they are particularly small. This can be done easily enough by narrowing down cities and then checking for SEC registered firms, ect. Best of luck!</p>

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<p>One additional note, boutique firms pay, on average, much more than bulge bracket firms until you get to the extremely high levels. So assuming you land with a boutique i-bank in Dallas for example, you could be making 40% more than your counterparts at larger firms in New York, and that’s even before the cost of living adjustment. I find the quality of life at smaller firms more advantageous as well and in this economy, you certainly don’t have any more job security at larger firms.</p>

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<p>Benetode, </p>

<p>Very good points regarding boutique firms. These are exactly the reasons why I’m currently much in favor of boutique over bulge bracket…that and I don’t have the pedigree/experience for bulge bracket. </p>

<p>Besides improving my GPA and studying for the GMAT. Can you offer any suggestions on what else I can do over the next 6 months to improve my graduate application? Also, what are the best ways to study for the GMAT? My goals is 600+. As far as I can tell, a 3.0 GPA and a 600-610 GMAT would put me around the 25 percentile of those accepted. </p>

<p>Of all the schools I’m applying to, they all have mean GPAs between 3.3-3.5 with mean GMATs between 630-660.</p>

<p>Thanks</p>

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<p>The key to the GMAT is to learn their adaptive software. If you get a tough math question correct, they give you a harder question next. If you don’t, they give you an easier one. Some questions also don’t count. You have to really get that system down as much as possible in addition to understanding the math itself. I would buy a book to learn the math but one with an included CD so you can practice using their system. It’s tough to get the timing down on when to skip a question. I would really try for a 640+ to have a shot at admission.</p>

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<p>Certainly I will try for the highest score I can get. Realistically though, I will have a 3.0-3.1 GPA and around a 600 GMAT when it comes times to apply. Given this, I will try to distinguish myself in other ways such as showcasing my scholarships, extra curriculars, leadership activities, letters of recommendation, and personal statement</p>

<p>I know my statistics put me in the lower 25% of those accepted…but they still accept individuals with these statistics. I know a lot of these MS Finance programs look at leadership activities, leadership potential, and how aligned your career goals are. I think have leadership potential and having clearly defined career goals are going to give me a slight advantage.</p>

<p>Can you suggest anything else before I apply this fall? I am trying to get into contact with the program director to discuss my situation and develop a relationship. Is there anybody within the program that you can suggest I become acquainted with that could help me gain admittance? </p>

<p>As you can tell, I REALLY want this. In addition to improving the GPA and doing well on the GMAT, I am trying to differentiate myself in anyway possible.</p>