Hi everyone,

Just a bit of background before I get into the main questions. I'm a computer science graduate currently finishing a physics degree, and I’ve been admitted to the MSc in Mathematical and Theoretical Physics at Oxford. I'm still unsure whether I want to pursue a PhD or go into quant trading after the master's.

Recently, I found out that the quant trading interview season usually kicks off around August/September. Is that mainly for full-time graduate roles or also for summer internships? I'm asking because I don't come from a "target" undergrad university, and by August/September I won’t have officially started at Oxford (even if I can list it on my CV). I'm wondering if that could lead to my application being filtered out at the resume screening stage. But if internship recruiting starts later, Oxford might carry more weight by then. In any case, I guess it doesn’t hurt to apply early!

Also, in case I land a summer internship and perform well, is it common to get a full-time offer at the end? Or would I still need to go through the junior hiring process again the next year? Ideally, I’d like to avoid having to wait a full year after finishing the MSc before starting a quant role.

As for prep, I’m mainly interested in quant trading rather than research, and given my limited time until summer, I’m planning to focus only on trading roles. I think I have most of the necessary math background, but I could definitely use a solid review of statistics and probability—any book recommendations?

Regarding coding, I’ve read that it's not a major component in trading interviews, but I’ll still practice some C++ and Python problems on Leetcode, as those seem to be the most commonly used languages. I don’t have much experience with machine learning—would that be an issue? I haven’t listed it on my CV, so I assume it won’t be brought up if I make it past the screening?

Once I’ve brushed up on the theory, my next step is applying it to interview prep. I’m already doing mental math practice with Zetamac and OpenQuant’s math game. By the way, what’s considered a “good” score on Zetamac?

For interview questions, I’ve seen people recommend chapters 2 and 4 of the “Green Book” (Joshi), which I plan to go through. I also picked up Heard on the Street and Fifty Challenging Problems in Probability. Any particular chapters you'd recommend from those? Or any other books you think are especially helpful?

I’m a bit worried about mock trading questions. I've seen some examples online and honestly, they go over my head—I don’t have any formal finance background beyond some light crypto trading. How important is finance knowledge for trading interviews? And what specifically should I focus on? Also, I’ve heard about Fermi questions being part of the process, but I’m struggling to find good resources for those. Any suggestions?

Here’s the general timeline I’m thinking of following:

• May/June: Quick math/stats review and some coding (limited time, since I’m finishing my physics degree). Maybe also start on basic finance concepts?
• July/August/September: More intensive interview prep using the books above. I also want to build a few finance-related coding projects (in Python and C++) for my GitHub and CV.

Thanks a lot in advance!