I am an international student, and I have been admitted to WUSTL MS Finance (Quantitative track) and U Rochester Simon MSF. Both programs have given me some funding (25% from WUSTL and 40% from Simon).
Both are 17-month programs and I would like to do a summer internship in BBIBD or Asset Management company (e.g. JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, BlackRock, Putnam, Fidelity). My preferred location is NorthEast, i.e. Boston and New York.
For me, the main distinction is in the program content, since WUSTL MSF (Q) is very quantitative including courses such as Stochastic Finance, math.fin and advanced credit risk modelling, whereas U Rochester MSF seems to be more generalist and with fewer electives.
I have 2 questions, and I would like people who REALLY KNOW from their experience to help me with the choice between these two schools.
1) Which of the two will place better in Boston/ NYC in BB IB or large AM company? Please base your answer on what you know, heard, or have experienced, and do not make inference from the stats on the schools' websites, as they tend to be flawed.
2) Would you say that for an international student without any prior work experience in finance, it would be better to choose a program which is more quantitative, such as WUSTL? They have a lot of programming and math in comparison with U Rochester.
Thanks a lot!