Hi everyone,
I'm planning my grad school applications for quant-related fields and trying to figure out the best strategy.
Strategy A: Cast a wide net across many different universities, applying to just one program per school (e.g., Statistics)
Strategy B: Focus on fewer universities, but apply to multiple related programs at each school (e.g., Statistics AND Financial Engineering/Computational Finance/Applied Math at the same university)
Essentially: Is it better to diversify across universities or diversify across programs within universities?
My_qualifications: Mechanical Engineering undergrad with Minor in Data Science, undergraduate thesis on probabilistic modelling for scientific computing.
I'm interested in eventually working in quantitative finance, so I'm looking at Statistics programs plus anything quant-adjacent (Financial Engineering, Computational Finance, etc.) What's worked better in your experience? Does applying to multiple programs at the same school hurt or help your chances?
Thanks