stanfordian

In finance, the Columbia name is huge. In fact, you will find a lot of people with a degree from either Columbia or NYU. The downside to the MS&E program is not so much about its coursework or training. Rather, it's about differentiation. When you have many MS&E grads with moderate financial engineering training applying for FE jobs, your resume may be lost in the pile unnoticed. If you are truly committed to coming to Stanford, I think you're better off to do more specialized program, such as Financial Mathematics, Statistics, or Computationl & Mathematical Engineering. Nowadays, btw, Statistics grads (PhDs especially) are very, very sought after. They are like the new darlings of finance.

I think it's worth going, especially that if you attend you will have to live there for a while. Cool places to check out are the Memorial Church, Cantor Museum, Hoover Tower, Shopping Center/Sand Hill Road etc. Do join the campus tour.

You may find this interesting: http://gsbwww.uchicago.edu/programs/phd/Annual%20Reports/Annual_Report_2002-03.pdf

I forgot to tell you: the MS&E MS students can petition to move to the PhD program, but the sucess rate is very, very low. I know someone who had 4.0 GPA from the MS and still wasn't admitted to the PhD. (He ended up going to the OR group of a first-tier business school.) So while moving is possible, it's not easy at all. As to whether or not it's worthwhile to spend $50,000 for an MS, the answer certainly depends on your financial situation and future plans. If you're thinking about an industry career, than the PhD is really the long way to it. Oftentimes you're better off to head to industry as early as possible. If on the other hand you're interested in an academic career, I'd probably take the Ga Tech offer (assumign that you will get full financial support). It's a very respected school, and not having to pay tuition is nice. If in a year or two you find you don't like the place, you can always take your coursework from Ga Tech and reapply to Stanford or other places. (Stanford allows trasfer of 12 semester or 15 quarter courses into the PhD program.) Often we get applicants who have finished one or two years at other good schools, and because these people have already been exposed to PhD level course work it's easier for the admissions committee to discern whether or not they are qualified. Many do get admitted. In fact, I'd say it's easier for someone from Ga Tech's PhD's program get admitted to our PhD program than for one of our MS students. The training at the PhD level is far more rigorous than at the MS level. Hope this helps.

hi kr5002. 1. The MS&E department (which used to be three separate departments: Industrial Engineering, Operations Resarch, and Engineering-Economic Systems) covers a very wide range of disciplines. They have groups that do stochastics, simulation, optimization etc. There are many course offerings both at the MS level (easy to ok) and the PhD level (can be very hard). There are also related course offerings at Statistics or the business school. So in terms of courses, you will no doubt find almost anything of your interest. 2. In terms of the academic strength of Cornell's ORIE vs Stanford's MS&E, I'd frankly say Stanford is stronger. Stanford's lead is not as big as it used to be, but it's still among the very best. 3. I don't think you should be too concerned with the academic strength though, since what you're interested in is the MS. I'd say job prospects are more important. 4. MS&E students place relatively well. Initial salaries usually not quite as high as EE/CS, but not too far away. (Some people who come with industry experience do get paid a lot.) I also find that in the long term MS&E grads do very well, as they don't get stuck doing purely technical work and many advance to managerial positions. 5. Many high tech firms hire MS&E or Statistics type people to do modeling. However, MS&E MS students tend to compete with MS&E undergrads a lot more than they compete with PhDs. 6. I don't know what the job market is like for Cornell ORIE people. 7. The majority of people are able to finish the MS&E masters degree in 3 quarters, although I don't know the actual percentage. In the worst case you can do it in 4. Some MS&E MS level courses are very, very easy (but useful). Like accounting, intro finance, etc. 8. MS students usually don't get funding. (My guess is most people either take a loan or are supported by family.) I don't think it's as easy for most of them to find research assistantship, but since you did EE you may have a greater chance for success. Hope this helps.

no problem. you're still at a very early stage of your academic career, so lots of chances to put together a stellar app. good luck!

hi pgpguru. Grad admissions depend on many factors. But in general 1. GPA of 3.7 is not bad at all for MS applications. 2. Overall GPA is not as important as dicipline specific GPA. A lot of grad schools like to see strong math grades in particular. 3. GPA trend is important. If you show improvement in the next two years, that'll be very favorable. 4. Don't get too obsessive with test scores. Having strong LOR (from respectable professors) and grades (in rigorous courses) is the priority. Even more beneficial is if you can pick up some form of research experience. Relevant internships are sometimes also helpful. Hope this helps!

hi WaitingMoster. All I can say is that stanford's culture has very strong entreprenseurship ethos. Risk-taking is championed. You even find professors founding their own companies. It's more about the glory than the money. I find it cool, but others might not. In fact, I imagine some people may even really despise this culture as being academically disrespectable.

hi international student. LSE is *very* highly regarded, at least by the academics, in the US. They are considered the best European institution in policy and economics. I think it will be a very good choice. Johns Hopkins is up there with Harvard when it comes to medical sciences. They are top 3 in the whole nation in terms of total research grants. But I don't know much about their program in policy.

WaitingMonster: There are many companies founded by Stanford affiliates. I can think of HP, Google, Yahoo!, eBay, Nike, Charles Schwab, Cisco, Sun Micro, Adobe, Electronic Arts, Symantec, nVidia, Sillicon Graphics, Netscape, Agilent etc. Some time ago they estimated about 40% of the revenues from the largest 150 companies in the Sillicon Valley are earned by companies founded by Stanford affiliates. Last year, the Forbest list of 10 richest men under age 40 had 7 from Stanford; most if not all of them are technology people. Stanford is very industry-centric. There is a culture to startups, and many do success. (Everyone here knows a few people who have started a company.)

TokaBoy: I'm really sorry to hear about the reject. I hope you don't let it bother you too much. PhD admissions are known to be very volatile. Sometimes some very good students are not admitted. At Stanford, because they usually get more qualified applicants than they can support, so their split hairs in the end, picking based on very minor issues. Not being admitted oftentimes is a matter of luck, and may not mean that you're not qualified. I hope you get better news from your other applications. Good luck!

hi chickadee. It's very easy to enroll in a masters degree at most departments if you're already a grad student at some other department (especially if you're a PhD student). You just need to get some signatures. Enrolling in the PhD degree of another department may be much harder, and depends a lot on the department. Some departments will take you if you can pass their quals (I know this to be the case with Computational & Mathematics Engineer). Other departments will require a whole new application package (CS, Management Science & Engineering). So it really depends. I have heard of cases where students with full fellowship (such as the prestigeous "Stanford Graduate Fellowship") to easily move to a different department.

The work you do in an RAship often goes towards your dissertation. With a TAship you just get paid. The RAship is almost always preferred.

Congrats, Mindcraft! This is among the best of such programs. "Spring 2005" may well mean the "Spring quarter of academic year 2005-2006".

There is a qual to pass as well if you go to Caltech. The answer really depends on whether you want to go into the industry or academia. For academia, I can see some unique advantages with caltech: the novely as well as what must be very intimate advising. The downside, however, is the smallness of faculty and course offerings. Caltech is in a very nice part of LA (Pasadena). The campus is very small. Ony a few blocks. However, when it comes to the industry, any one of MIT, Stanford, or Berkeley will win hands down, because (1) recruiters often don't bother with small schools, especially startups; (2) network.