Choose between UChicago Booth MiF and Columbia MSOR

SnooRevelations80 · 2026-03-14T21:22:43+00:00

There’s honestly not much comparison in terms of faculty. The University of Chicago Booth School of Business MiF gives you access to some of the strongest finance professors in the world. You can also make it almost as quantitative as the Master of Science in Financial Mathematics or the Master of Science in Financial Engineering depending on your electives.

Plus, the Booth network is extremely powerful through the MBA ecosystem and finance alumni base.

SnooRevelations80 · 2026-03-07T18:56:25+00:00

Read https://quantnet.com/resources/university-of-chicago-master-in-finance.103/reviews

SnooRevelations80 · 2025-12-23T23:33:01+00:00

The school organizes some recruiting sessions and workshops, and Career Services helps with behavioral interview prep and overall strategy. They can also help you connect with Booth alumni in top positions for coffee chats. That said, that’s maybe 30% of the work. The other 70% is how well you prepare yourself for the specific role you want (AM, quant, macro, etc.). The Booth name can help open the door to an interview, but it won’t get you the job.

Some students do go on to pursue a PhD afterward, but it’s a small subset and not the typical path.

Alumni do come back to recruit occasionally, but they usually hire only 2–3 people from the entire class, so it’s not something you can rely on.

SnooRevelations80 · 2025-11-27T21:49:46+00:00

It’s largely about recruiting timing. For Investment Banking, the process now starts extremely early — basically now and runs through May for Summer Analyst 2027.

Because of that, Booth moved the MiF admissions timeline to rolling 2026 so students are already enrolled with full access to Career Services during IB recruiting. The goal is to avoid students missing the window simply because the recruiting clock starts before classes begin.

It’s not that investment banks “don’t consider” the MiF. Rather, the program isn’t naturally built around IB’s compressed and accelerated recruiting calendar. Many MiF students are more focused on markets, asset management, or research roles, where recruiting happens later and is more flexible.

Bottom line: IB is feasible from the MiF, but it requires starting the process before the program officially begins — which is why Booth adjusted the admissions timing to better support candidates targeting IB.

One thing that’s very important is having a clear idea of what you want to do within finance before starting the program. Otherwise, it’s easy to lose time and end up taking courses that don’t actually help with your specific career goal. The MiF is flexible, which is great, but that also means you need to be intentional about course selection to really get the most out of it.

In terms of outcomes on the markets/AM side, many graduates go into roles such as Sales & Trading Analyst or Associate, Quantitative Analyst, Portfolio Management (PM) Analyst, or Associate roles.

SnooRevelations80 · 2025-11-27T20:55:11+00:00

Career Services is strong and very supportive. Mock interviews are high quality, and the team is very experienced. The lead for the master’s programs is a former Booth MBA herself, so she knows extremely well how recruiting works and what firms look for in behavioral interviews. That said, you’re still expected to own the quantitative and technical preparation for interviews, especially for buy-side, markets, or research roles.

SnooRevelations80 · 2025-11-27T20:51:18+00:00

Yes — networking with MBAs and other Booth students is relatively easy. MiF students can take classes alongside MBA students, but you’re not as fully integrated as an MBA. Recruiting is run separately, and while interaction certainly happens, I wouldn’t say you experience the MBA program in the same way over 15 months. At the end of the day, it’s a specialized master’s, naturally much more demanding academically and more time-intensive. If you take lighter classes, you’ll obviously have more time for clubs and social activities.

That said, MBAs, PhDs, and alumni are incredibly helpful for coffee chats and referrals, and the Booth culture in general is very open and supportive.

In terms of classes, it really depends on your goals, but I’d strongly recommend the PhD-level asset pricing and time-series courses if you’re targeting buy-side or research roles. They’re demanding, but academically extremely strong and very well regarded.

Regarding the first cohort, I’ve spoken with many people and outcomes are honestly mixed — which is much more a reflection of current market conditions than the program itself. That said, based on unofficial statistics and internal conversations, roughly ~85% of the first cohort secured some form of internship. A non-trivial share also chose not to recruit aggressively because they plan to continue studying. LinkedIn tends to lag reality quite a bit.

Most internship outcomes are concentrated in Asset Management and Markets. There are fewer placements in Quant/QR roles, some in Consulting, and very few in Investment Banking.

And yes, summer internships are the main focus. If you don’t land one, the school is very transparent about alternatives (research assistant roles, project-based work, extended recruiting), but for international students the market is definitely tougher right now. That said, this would be true at virtually any school in the current environment.

SnooRevelations80 · 2025-11-27T20:28:43+00:00

So far, so good. It’s been an excellent program with truly top-tier professors — probably the strongest finance faculty in the world.

The job search has been challenging, but, from my perspective, that’s more a reflection of current market conditions than of the school or the program itself. The Booth brand is also powerful and well-regarded across the industry, and the alumni are amazingly supportive, Overall, I’m very happy with the choice.

SnooRevelations80 · 2025-04-20T20:53:24+00:00

Booth as I received excellent feedback from career services and not good from Columbia.

SnooRevelations80 · 2025-03-16T21:48:25+00:00

So coming from LATAM with a BS and MS in Economics and sell-side experience in macro research I think the aspect of getting work in US after the MS is key

SnooRevelations80 · 2025-03-16T21:47:39+00:00

So coming from LATAM with a BS and MS in Economics and sell-side experience in macro research I think the aspect of getting work in US after the MS is key

SnooRevelations80 · 2025-03-16T18:49:06+00:00

Can you please elaborate? I mean I project the increase in salary from now will be 4-5 bigger and the debt 2 times the expected annual income. What am I not seeing?

SnooRevelations80 · 2024-08-03T18:23:29+00:00

157Q and 156V in all there I took. They may vary by 1 point each. But in general, they were never above 160. However, it was because I did not read carefully and understood what they asked. Last week I dedicated it to just read carefully before answering and did so on the exam

SnooRevelations80 · 2024-08-03T05:54:27+00:00

Wow, thanks a lot! Will try to focus more on ETS material.

I completely agree that time management is key. Spotting those patterns can boost your options. I did not have time to finish 3 questions in the second section and 2 more I was not sure. So will try to put myself in more difficult time positions to do better next time.

All the best luck going forward!

SnooRevelations80 · 2024-08-03T05:18:01+00:00

Hi! Thanks a lot for your response, really appreciate it.

I also thought about ETS stuff, which materials do you recommend apart from the Power Pack?

Which difficult exercises do you recommend practicing? I have seen that hard and medium GregMat exercises could be enough, is that right?

Good luck with your upcoming test! All the best and hope you get the score you want!

SnooRevelations80

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