Employment Statistics for the Graduates of the Financial Engineering MS Program

Five cohorts of students have graduated since our Financial Engineering MS Program started in September 2002. (The MFE Program was then called the Applied Mathematics for Finance Master Program.)

The program has about one hundred active alumni, including those who graduated in December 2007. Having a rigorous and selective admission process means that our cohorts, and therefore the graduating classes, tend to be small.

Though several of our alumni are currently pursuing PhD degrees in finance and economics, over 90% of our alumni work in the financial industry. All the students who graduated in December 2006 found employment in the industry. Our experience is that international students have a success rate similar ro that of US residents, the one major difference being that international students are rarely eligible for positions that have to be filled immediately.

A small number of our graduates do not look for employment, primarily because they already have senior positions in the financial industry.

First Year Compensation

The first year compensation reported here is the compensation guaranteed at the time of hire. It is comprised of the starting base salary plus the signing bonus plus any first year bonus guaranteed in the offer letter, if any.

The annual performance-based bonus is not included here. The annual bonus is typically an additional 15-25% of the base salary, and may by prorated. We do not track these numbers. In other words, the first year total compensation of our graduates is higher than the guaranteed compensation reported.
 

					First Year Compensation
Graduation Date	Graduates	Placement Rate	PhD/MS	Did Not  Look	Low	High	Average
Dec'03-May'04	14	8 of 10	4	0	60K	80K	69K
Dec'04-May'05	10	8 of 10	0	0	70K	110K	87K
Dec'05-May'06	19	15 of 16	2	1	55K	155K	94K
Dec'06-May'07	27	18 of 19	1	7	65K	195K	111K
Dec'07	24	15 of 20	0	4	72K	200K	101K

First Year Starting Salary 
The table below contains the first year starting salary of our graduates, which does not include any bonuses.

First Year Starting Salary for graduates with no relevant work experience
First year compensation depends in part on prior work experience. Some of our students worked in the financial industry before starting the program (although not necessarily in front office positions), and this seniority has usually been recognized in initial compensation packages. However, some of the highest compensation packages have also been offered to strong graduates with no previous work experience in the financial industry.

The table below contains data on the first year starting salary of our graduates who had either no work experience, or no relevant work experience in the US.