求定位，16fall申请MSF/MBF/Ms Econ in European Continent

sgyh0521UID: 3609119

RT，保证不删帖，求定位~
PS：金融本

学校背景：985/211，华南理工，国内25左右
想申请的专业:欧洲大陆（mainly Germany, Switzerland, Sweden & Norway）MSF/MBF/M Econ（应用型）
成绩：Overall 84.4，GPA 3.51（按排名算, ranking 35%）
课程：数学三件套特别烂（高数分别61/70，线代63，概率论69），统计类的还行（统计学87，计量92）
        计算机基础课都在90+，大四还有一门Matlab在修
        经济学方面，初级微宏观90+，中微中宏76，计量92
        金融，基本都在80-90，比较好的：货币银行学95，金融学原理92，国际金融90，金融风险管理92
GT：IELTS 7.0 (R 8.0, L 7.5, W 6.0, S 6.0), GRE 322 = V155 + Q167（还没出AW，但没准备，估计很烂。准备二刷中）
科研：正在做一篇关于城镇化和消费结构的论文，能不能发就不清楚了...做过实地调研
获奖：无奖学金
推荐信：都是副教授，水学校，没有大牛
实习经历：某四大行营业部打杂，某股份制分行贸易融资部
其他：无交换，做过校级学生干部，懂粤语、日语

另外，倾向于留当地工作，不排除PhD的打算

DIY，目前个人的申请排序是这样的，不知道合不合理...
非常担心数学和GPA太差了不够申:mad ，但大家都说排名没啥用，不知道各位怎么看？

Tier 1:
SSE
HSG

Tier 2:
NHH
Lund（这个我很纠结，MSF只有一年的了，宁可去两年的Econ）
BI（还在考虑）

Tier 3：
Frankfurt School of Finance and Management/HfB
EBS
Mannheim（GRE成绩不能申MiM，只能申VML，也就是经济系）

Tier 4:
Stockholm University
Goethe Univerisity Frankfurt
University of Cologne
...等一众德国公校

如有好的欧洲大陆项目也可推荐，谢过各位！

cheesechanUID: 3505689

1. given your background, i will seriously doubt if you are able / willing to go for graduate level economics.
the marks in intermediate micro and intermediate macro, and mathematics are......way too low when compared to others.
and thus you will stduy die or bored die, and consider those lecture work a waste of time (but have to do it else cannot graduate)

2. check if the school will look at your AWA or not.

3. it is a bit not that easy to mix the nodic school with the Deutsche one. but i will rank like:
SSE, then CBS; then Lund, Stockholm, BI, NHH and etc.
HSG, then Mannheim; and UZH, HU Berlin, LMU, WHU, Goethe, Frankfurt, EBS and etc..
and indeed, especially in Deutscheland, the ranking is useful but not that important.

4. Let's be realistic. I don't think you can prepare for job seeking + PhD preparation at the same time.
not to mention your portfolio is quite not enough for PhD (math and econ to low grade).
I will suggest you better to spend the time on taking up the language, and seeking internship rather than PhD.
a even better idea is to forget about economics master and go for only management and finance one (even though are econ master can be better, but you have to survive it first...). if GMAT is the only thing stopping you, take it. pain to take GMAT <<< pain of doing graduate level economics (if you don't like it)

sgyh0521UID: 3609119

cheesechan 发表于 2015-11-24 23:24
1. given your background, i will seriously doubt if you are able / willing to go for graduate level  ...

Thank you for such detailed info first!

I agreed that my undergraduate grades in Econ and Math are great disadvantages if applies for PhD, not to say that I'm still not sure whether I can stay with researching life or not. However, I hope to work in public sectors rather than private companies, so a master regarding financial economics is my first option, instead of finance masters aiming at corporate finance or investments.

For Econ courses, in fact, I got more interest in Econ courses rather than Finance ones. I understand that my scores are really awful, but not because of my unwillingness to learn that - it's my bad mathematical skills that stops me from taking scores from those courses.

My following Qs:
1.I wonder if these low Math and Econ grades would greatly impair my competitiveness in applying Econ masters?
2.Why CBS is ahead of NHH/BI?

cheesechanUID: 3505689

sgyh0521 发表于 2015-11-24 23:48
Thank you for such detailed info first!

I agreed that my undergraduate grades in Econ and Math  ...

1. for sure. Greatly. (unless the ad com is lazy and just look for standard test score)
Analytical ability in doing graduate level economcis (and also finance, which is indeed most likely financial economics, unless one is doing some financial management / corp fina research stuffs) cannot be proved by coursework in finance or business at UG level. Yes, I mean cannot, but not "not that useful".
They will look at your course in mathematics, statistics, and advanced economics.

Ability is the most important. One can be interested in many things, but a very important consideration of the admission committe is that: the student is able to do it or not. If it's your bad mathematical skills that stops you from taking scores from those courses, it is very reasonable that the admission committe will doubt if you are able to do graduate level economics. This is not something can be proved by GRE Q. (your stat course are decent, but......there are no advanced stuffs, so I will say it is just something expected, but not a plus/minus)

Motivation also indeed. You can say anything, e.g. I really like financial economics. Whether I believe it or not is not important at all indeed, it is the admission committe. Show them some fact to support that. I see none now. Your need a story with example in your SP / PS.

what I mean is not suggesting you not to try that, but you for sure need a plan B C D for yourself.

for financial economics, or related stuffs, (put aside the chances to be admitted first):
I will list (no special order): HSG MiQEF, Goethe MSQE, HU Berlin MEMS, Basel+Bern MIME, UZH MA Econ, SSE+SU MRes Econ, CBS adv econ & fina, Konstanz MSQE. Of course Bonn and Mannheim economics.


2. Simply because Dermark > Norway. (check the history and econ structure....haha)
indeed and also if you check into the ranking.......you will see that.
i guess the difference is quite obvious indeed.

but this is not the most important reason. the most important reason is, what kind of finance you are going to do in Norway? Dermark itself is not good place too of course, but still better than Norway.

sgyh0521UID: 3609119

cheesechan 发表于 2015-11-25 00:09
1. for sure. Greatly. (unless the ad com is lazy and just look for standard test score)
Analyti ...

Thx again! Invaluable suggestions indeed!

I'll try for Fin masters first.
Thanks to your words, I realized that if I hope to stay abroad without PhD but working there, then Fin is a much more realistic option than Econ.
Selecting some Econ Courses in Fin masters can fulfill the desire to learn Econ too.:p

One more question:
Is the course regarding Matlab able to prove some abilities in programming?

cheesechanUID: 3505689

sgyh0521 发表于 2015-11-25 00:44
I realized that if I hope to stay abroad without PhD but working there, then Fin is a much more realistic option than Econ.

Selecting some Econ Courses in Fin masters can fulfill the desire to learn Econ too.

One more question:
Is the course regarding Matlab able to prove some abilities in programming?

1. I will say, it really depends. economics theory in a economics master is not useful for work, but not those econometrics. in general a economics master will have better analytical training than a finance one (unless the finance one is really solid),  while a finance master will be more soft but practical.  The best idea is indeed trying to both practical stuffs for interview (either coursework or self study)  and analytical training.
the only constraint is indeed.....if you have the time (and be self motivated). Given that the tuition fee in Europe is normally lower, you have much more flexibility in extend it to handle both internship in finance for working, and doing more theoretical coursework.

2. That's a possible way, but beware if the school have / allow that. I will say the stuffs match you the best are things like HSG MiQEF, HU Berlin MEMS, CBS Adv. econ and fina, or whatever program that have economics and finance together (counter example: LMU Econ, or WHU Management)
e.g. HSG MBF seems to be not able to select those core econ and PhD level course, and you have to check this school by school and program by program. You may wanna say I can audit it......but seldom ppl can do it continuously till the end, and not to mention it is necessary to have it on transcript for PhD application.

3. MATLAB helps to prove programming for sure.
but program ability is not as important as mathematical one, as the general belief is ppl can do maths will be able to learn programming, but not necessarily the reverse.

aquilavolaUID: 3181488

cheesechan 发表于 2015-11-25 00:09
1. for sure. Greatly. (unless the ad com is lazy and just look for standard test score)
Analyti ...

From my point, I would suggest LZ applies for SSE Finance master instead of the research master in SU (Actually I think it might not exist any more), if the main interest is in finance industry. The requirement is quite reasonable to reach for LZ at the moment.

zy2013UID: 3405528

你确定德国的都是3，4流么？:O

sgyh0521UID: 3609119

zy2013 发表于 2015-11-29 20:44
你确定德国的都是3，4流么？

都是一二流的，不过德国入学方面感觉好像卡的没那么严格。
求推荐三四流德国有哪些？
反正德国公校质量都不错，Fin的话找大城市，Econ的话，德语区一大堆好项目呢。

sgyh0521UID: 3609119

aquilavola 发表于 2015-11-28 07:48
From my point, I would suggest LZ applies for SSE Finance master instead of the research master in ...

In fact I found no double-degree master by SSE+SU anymore...
By the way, I really got no confidence of being accepted by SSE...

And my list for Sweden at now is:
Tier 1: SSE MSF
Tier 2: Lund MSc in Econ+Stockholm U MEcon
Tier 3: Gothenburg U MEcon

aquilavolaUID: 3181488

sgyh0521 发表于 2015-12-31 05:38
In fact I found no double-degree master by SSE+SU anymore...
By the way, I really got no confid ...

其实一直都没有，只有博士项目是两个学校合办的

因为SSE是独立系统，所以无所谓啊，无论结果如何你还可以拿到另外一个录取。个人建议SU排到Lund前面，相对来说在斯京找当地工作会好些，而且目前看似乎SU的中国人要少些

sgyh0521UID: 3609119

aquilavola 发表于 2016-1-1 03:24
其实一直都没有，只有博士项目是两个学校合办的

因为SSE是独立系统，所以无所谓啊，无论结果如何你还可 ...

正好在纠结这两个哈哈哈。感谢信息！
对了，你提到的SU中国人比较少，是指整个学校，还是MBF项目？
我打算在SU申两个项目，MBF和Econ

aquilavolaUID: 3181488

MBF不了解，Econ因为正好有学妹在，知道中国人的确是比较少

cheesechanUID: 3505689

aquilavola 发表于 2016-1-1 03:24
个人建议SU排到Lund前面，相对来说在斯京找当地工作会好些 ...

[offtopic]
想請教&八卦一下:
1. Lund可以說是方便去Copenhagen找工作嗎?
2. 以finance 找工作來說, Copenhagen比Stockholm差多少? I guess people considering CBS and etc. will be interested in this too.
[/offtopic]

aquilavolaUID: 3181488

cheesechan 发表于 2016-1-1 23:51
[offtopic]
想請教&八卦一下:
1. Lund可以說是方便去Copenhagen找工作嗎?

很好的问题，我不算是finance的所以我只能说说我个人了解的情况

1 Lund去哥本哈根找工作的确有这种可能吧，不过感觉在商学院混还是个圈子的问题，恐怕偏瑞典这边更多一些。据我了解Lund的Finance更中国化一些，如果是宣讲恐怕中国人内部竞争就已经不小了，有限的non-EU机会不太乐观。我倒是觉得马尔默可能能招走一部分人。大部分留瑞典的中国学生还是以企业和商业银行为主，其他机构都比较少，至少第一份工作一般没有。

lund这个项目总的来讲近几年排名涨的不错，据说是目前瑞典仅次于SSE的项目，不过我不确定他家平均薪酬是怎么算的，我觉得项目质量应该是挺好的。

我个人觉得在瑞典找工作的捷径是平常上课就海投试试part time，这点上lund应该要吃些亏。我了解像SSE和SU是有Mentor之类的项目的，Lund不知道有没有，如果有的话或许可以抵消部分地域上的劣势

2 我个人觉得企业的话两者难度应该差不多吧，不好评价，如果冲IB去据说斯京是北欧最全的地方，没证实过这个观点，不过似乎确实跟伦敦关系也比较紧密，无论是professional还是学术会议都比较容易接触到。如果是要在读书镀个金向伦敦冲一冲，我肯定建议斯京，但是如果就是当地就业，差距应该不大。

BTW，哥哈的情况我不大了解，我在Oslo的朋友说似乎那边找工作还未必比斯京容易（他是NHH的本科和硕士），我觉得尽量还是当地就业最为容易，宣讲或是招聘都比较方便