FinStat

True, but from what I have been told those types of jobs only go to a relative handful of PhD's from top tier programs, which for stats is something like top 20, or perhaps top 40 if they are coming from school with strong math finance faculty and they are one of that department's strongest students. If someone is currently trying to decide between a masters at American or Columbia, they are probably not going to get into a top 20 stats PhD after the masters. The PhD's from the mid to lower tier PhD programs are doing the same stuff the MFE's are doing. This was true 30, or even 20 years ago, but as more math, physics, stat and OR PhD's entered the industry and started publishing papers in finance journals, the finance PhD's, especially at those schools with strong asset pricing and market microstructure faculty got more mathematically sophisticated. In fact I would argue that at the current time the median student at a top 10 finance PhD has a stronger mathematical background than the median student at a top 10 stats PhD, and are just as mathematically skilled at the end of their PhD. I was told otherwise by the DGS at a top tier OM department, and math/stats faculty at a couple of PhD programs. They have no problem accepting and funding someone who wants to do research in academia in mathematical finance who may do some hedge fund consulting on the side, or be one of those people who floats back and forth between academia and industry, but if your goal from the start is to be an industry quant they generally would prefer to use one of their limited funded slots on someone who think is likely to go into academia. They know that some students will end up in industry jobs, but they only want to fund students who they at least think is likely to become an academic.

The WSO link is over a decade old. Things change over time, and the quality of the top MFE programs has significantly improved over that time, especially due to the need to adapt after the '08 financial crisis. The quantnet link is seven years old, predates many of the changes the top MFE programs made, and anyway the consensus on that thread seems to be that the MFE is good/sufficient for a quant career and a PhD is not needed. Quantstart is a website selling a product that seems to be specifically targeted at PhD's who want to become what I would call "super day traders" and I would take their advice with a grain of salt. I have lived my whole life in the NYC metro area, and did a BA in math and an MA in stats at good local schools. I have a number of friends who went to MFE programs in the NYC area and got jobs at top hedge funds and investment firms and a couple of friends who did math or CS PhD's and decided to take the money and become quants rather than go the academia route. They all do the same jobs and since it is a performance based industry they pretty much earn the same. There are a handful of top tier firms/funds, most notably RenTech and DE Shaw that are known for having a specific preference for PhD's over MFE's, but most firms do not have a specific preference. The upper tier PhD programs in stats, and also for that matter in math, CS, OR and finance know how to spot someone who just wants to be an industry quant a mile away. In fact two of the finance PhD programs I interviewed with specifically asked me questions that were designed to see if that was my goal. One even asked me straight out why I was applying to the PhD program and not to the top tier MFE program at the same school. Even if they accept you it is unlikely that they will give you funding. If you don't get into an upper tier PhD program, then you will not get those top hedge fund jobs you obviously want and will be doing the same type of work MFE's from the second tier programs do. Most PhD quants are people who intended to become academics/researchers in their chosen fields, became disillusioned with academia while going for their PhD's and decided to go for the money in the financial industry, not people who intended from the start to become quants. And to be blunt, if becoming a quant is your goal, an OR PhD is a better fit than stats and since they are usually in engineering schools are also more likely to be willing to take on a student they know wants to go to industry from the start, though you probably would not receive funding.

Sorry, but if you want to be a quant working hedge funds, a PhD is not the way to go. Yes some PhD's do end up going that route, but you would be better off doing a MFE/MQF/MMF at a top tier program than doing a stats masters now and a PhD later. A stats MS plus a PhD will take you 6-8 years to complete and if you are lucky you will receive 35k per year in funding while doing the PhD. A MFE or similar degree will take about 1.5 years, and a quant finance masters from a top 10 or even top 20 masters (check out quantnet's rankings) will start at about 90-110k plus bonus and at five years out of the masters -roughly the same time you would be completing the PhD- it is not uncommon for salary plus bonus to be in 250k+ range, and 500k+ is not unheard of. The salary for a fresh PhD in stats working in quant finance is usually less than that. On top of that, the stat PhD programs with significant quant finance faculty are very good at sniffing out the students who are not interested in the PhD for a research career and just want it to become a quant. A number of quant finance masters programs are still before their deadlines for fall admissions and you could still apply, though the deadline for a number of them is March 15.

Hello, I am a longtime lurker, first time poster looking for some advice on LORs. To give a better idea of my background, here is my profile Undergrad: Large Masters Granting Public with affiliated PhD (top 50 Math, top 75 Econ) Major: Mathematics and Economics GPA: 3.68 Graduate: Same Major: Statistics and Applied Math GPA: 3.87 Coursework includes Grad (MA) Real Analysis at level of Royden and a lot of Prob and Stat classes, both theory and applied. Type of Student: Domestic White Male GRE: Took some time ago, 164Q, 167V, 4.5A, retaking in late November. I have research experience in econ and finance, a final project for my masters which was an applied stats paper and teaching experience in stats at a local LAC. I completed my masters six years ago and I have been involved in a number of things unrelated to stats or math (or econ for that matter) since then. However I can demonstrate that my math knowledge/skills are still current. I am interested in risk management, math finance and time series statistics. I am mostly applying to finance PhDs, but I am applying to a few PhDs in Statistics and Operations Research who have faculty in my areas of interest. I know that Stats and OR PhD programs prefer math and stats professors over econ professors for LORs, but I was never really close with any of my undergrad math professors and of the three stats professors I was close to during my MA, one retired a couple of years ago and the department does not have current contact information for him and another was a visiting professor who is now retired and his old department has not been forthcoming with contact information. At the moment my LORs are 1) Stats prof, extremely well published, ASA Fellow, took a number of classes with. 2) Econ prof, emeritus, well published with publications in mathematical economics, specifically dynamic programming. 3) Econ "distinguished lecturer", has PhD from top 30 econ program. Has floated back and forth between industry and academia over the last 25 years and has a number of publications in statistical modeling in finance and risk management. All of these LORs will likely be very strong. These LORs will probably be good for my finance applications, but I am afraid that for stats and OR phd programs having two econ LORs will not be enough. I can probably track down the other two stats profs who I was close to with but even if I do, I am not sure they will be willing to write LORs for me, and I was not as close to either of them as I was to the three professors that I am using for my LORs so I do not know if the LORs will be as strong. Any advice on whether my current LORs should be sufficient would be greatly appreciated.