Quant Guide 2021: Cornell University

Ithaca and New York City, New York, US

 

Cornell’s New York-based Master in Engineering with Financial Engineering Concentration (MFE) programme, split across two campuses, is a persistent high scorer in Risk.net Quant Guides. This year, it maintains the 9^th place ranking it achieved in 2020, leapfrogging rival Carnegie Mellon University’s Master of Science in Computational Finance, another dual-campus programme with a New York presence, which slips to 10^th.

For Cornell’s most recent programme, total applications have risen strongly, with the MFE reporting 874 this year, versus the previous year’s 737. The programme also extended fewer offers, with 149 given out this year versus last year’s 169, boosting its selectivity score. Fees have risen for the second year in a row, from $84,825 in the last Quant Guide to $87,870 today.

The research score of the course’s faculty members has also been impressive over the last 12 months. Instructors such as statistician David Ruppert and computer science luminary David Williamson, for example, were both highly cited throughout 2020.

Programme director and professor of practice Victoria Averbukh, formerly of Deutsche Bank, says that a raft of changes have been made to the degree’s structure in response to the coronavirus. Students based on Cornell’s Ithaca campus, she says, were able to take classes in a hybrid format. Those stationed in densely packed Manhattan, however, switched to entirely remote learning. The MFE’s large number of industry instructors, she adds, were provided with extra training in modifying their courses for online teaching.

“The quality of the course delivery matters just as much as the content,” says Averbukh, adding that students have given favourable feedback on the programme’s efforts.

View this institution’s entry in the 2020 guide

View other universities and a guide to the metrics tables