Anyone applying to SMU MAF 2012?

class

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anyone heard what's the min gmat score to go for this course?
 

atsuro69

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hi all. just registered for the july part time intake for SMU's MAF.
have yet to attempt my gmat but have registered for the exam in march.
in the meantime, i have signed up for a 12-lesson GMAT prep course in the local school 'icon+'.

to those who have registered for the MAF, have you took your GMAT yet?
after reading through this forum, i am slightly considering if i should go for somewhere which has a 'brand name and ranked' for my MAF. seems like for MBAs, it is important for one to go for a globally ranked uni.
 

PostCountWarrior[+1]

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hi all. just registered for the july part time intake for SMU's MAF.
have yet to attempt my gmat but have registered for the exam in march.
in the meantime, i have signed up for a 12-lesson GMAT prep course in the local school 'icon+'.

to those who have registered for the MAF, have you took your GMAT yet?
after reading through this forum, i am slightly considering if i should go for somewhere which has a 'brand name and ranked' for my MAF. seems like for MBAs, it is important for one to go for a globally ranked uni.
i assume u have a local uni degree. wld having another SMU brandname help? Think abt it...

pcw +1
 

maisatomai

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hi all. just registered for the july part time intake for SMU's MAF.
have yet to attempt my gmat but have registered for the exam in march.
in the meantime, i have signed up for a 12-lesson GMAT prep course in the local school 'icon+'.

to those who have registered for the MAF, have you took your GMAT yet?
after reading through this forum, i am slightly considering if i should go for somewhere which has a 'brand name and ranked' for my MAF. seems like for MBAs, it is important for one to go for a globally ranked uni.

Pm me to discuss. I got lots of questions on the program which I guess we can share our limited info.
 

class

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i thought people will go SMU coz of its brand name.

SMU sure market itself well.
 

atsuro69

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i assume u have a local uni degree. wld having another SMU brandname help? Think abt it...

pcw +1

i do not have a local uni degree. previously studied in melb, monash doing IT

i thought people will go SMU coz of its brand name.

SMU sure market itself well.

no doubt SMU markets itself well and its undergrads are highly sought after, SMU is sadly not ranked in world top 100 universities as it's a relatively new school. from wad i knw, a uni has to be at least 14 - 15 years old with a gd track record before it can score a chance of being ranked.

to be honest, i would pursue my MAF there but for my MBA, i would rather stick with a ranked uni. i'm sure many have heard that fortune 500 companies will only consider a post grad from a ranked uni/business school
 
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frayed

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my opinions:

smu probably won't be ranked even if it was older as it is too specialised. and even if it was ranked, it will be very lowly ranked because it has no engineering, chemistry, biology, et cetera departments. that's just the way it is. for example, i don't think lbs is in the top 100 of any general university ranking. the better comparison to smu may be lse, but even lse has a wider range of departments.

as for the cost of attending, if you are planning to go work in the finance industry, you can apply for the mas scholarship, which co-pays 70% of the cost if i remember correctly. the bond is to work in any financial institution in singapore for 2-3 years after graduation. however, i think the maf program was only considered as an acceptable course for the scholarship until last year and is no longer on the list.

as for whether the course is a good one... i was a teaching assistant for several smu maf courses over a period of three years. personally, i think the maf is only good as a paper to help you in switching industries. the topics covered are seriously not very deep, and are very similar to undergraduate material in my opinion. however, i can understand that having a masters may be a requirement for promotion for many of the people taking it.

as far as i know - the smu job placement track record only applies to the undergrads. anecdotally, the masters programs aren't on the same level for two reasons: firstly, most of the students have jobs already, and are taking it for the promotion-ality; secondly, a smu masters really doesn't have much of a cachet. the smu mba's lack of success kind of infects the other professional degrees at smu, since it is supposed to the flagship program.

the various mfe programs are very different from the maf programs. make sure you know what the difference is before you apply for either. what i hear, however, is that mfe is a degree that is producing far more people than what the local industry needs. my friends working in banks have a lot of colleagues with the nanyang mfe, but are at the same level positions as people with just an undergraduate degree.

professional masters at brand name universities can be extremely expensive. i think the mfe at haas or carnegie mellon cost more than 50k usd per year. one possible alternative for those who want to do a professional masters can go check out the business masters programs at the norwegian public universities. their government makes it free for anyone admitted, regardless of nationality. you just need to cover your living and moving costs.
 

atsuro69

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frayed - thanks for sharing your comments.. very insightful.
i am 28 yrs old, currently a equities dealer/stock broker with a local bank for arnd 2 yrs. previously, i graduated from monash uni in melb with an IT degree. future career goals after my masters would most likely to be -> analyst (in either equity or fixed income) -> fund manager/IB/m&a advisor

what do you think would be a wiser choice for me now: to pursue a Masters in Finance in SMU or to simply go straight for a MBA? i'm currently pursuing my GMAT and will take the exam in march. judging by my mock tests, i would most likely end up with a score in the 620 - 640 region.

would like to break out of current sales role and get into a job with a high basic salary instead of relying on commissions n sales.
 

frayed

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this is a complicated question, really.

if you are restricted to local options, to be honest, i don't know of any really good ... like bao make it type of options, regardless of what program (msc, mfe, mba). the only thing i can say is that the maf is not very in depth. i am also not convinced about the value of taking the distance mbas that are offered in singapore either, mainly because these programs are not cheap for what they offer.

also, analyst roles are being cut across asia, so aiming in that direction may be counter productive. i don't know of many people who manage to go from being an analyst to ib either, but my sample is biased as it is based upon the people i knew in smu undergrad. for ib, it's seems to be an either you get in or you don't. on the other hand, you are in a local bank, so you are by definition tapped in to the industry more than i am, so what i state here may very well be wrong, except for the analysts thing.

were you planning to pay for the course yourself? do yourself a favour and apply for the mas fsp (MAS: Finance Scholarship Programme (FSP)), which will co-pay up to 70% of the cost of the degree. they no longer have the pdf of the procedures and what not, but ntu has the latest copy (http://www.mscf.ntu.edu.sg/Documents/FSPBrochure Jan2011-1.pdf). i cannot find any version of this with a list of pre-approved local programs online anymore, but i do remember seeing such a version back when the scholarship was first set up back in either 2007 or 2008. this (http://www.mscf.ntu.edu.sg/Documents/FSP Brochure (Nov 08).pdf) is the earliest i can find online. but like i said, i recall seeing that some of the local masters programs were going to be no longer pre-approved last year. i may be wrong.

if you were already planning to pay the 32k that smu asks for by yourself, i would rather try to aim for one of the foreign masters degrees on the mas fsp list, since 70% of the cost will be covered by the mas fsp. as far as i know most of the people who take up the mas fsp use it locally, so if you apply for a foreign uni and get in, you may have a high chance of getting the scholarship. on the other hand, i have seen a massive increase in the number of singaporeans in the princeton masters in finance, which is extremely hard to get in. i suspect these singaporeans are all mas fsp people. you can see their profiles at the princeton masters in finance website - very elite bunch, too.

your gmat score is extremely low, however, for most of the foreign programs. do note that the masters programs at the local programs are essentially cash cows for the universities. this is true even for the foreign ones, of course, but if i were going to spend that much on something, i would rather spend it on something that is relatively more valuable.
 
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frayed

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update: based on an old brochure for the maf program (http://www.business.smu.edu.sg/MAF/documents/2009 Brochure/smu_maf_singapore_bro_v7.pdf), it appears that the maf program is no longer supported by the mas fsp. this is line with what i remember about most of the local masters programs, unfortunately. however, do check with mas directly.

you may also want to compare faculty profiles across the local programs, especially those who are full time faculty members. most of the finance full time research professors (not adjuncts, practice professors, or teaching professors) at smu are not involved in the maf program, but then again, most of them are foreigners who are more research focused. on the other hand, this begs the question of why these professors are not more involved with the program as well, considering that their salary is higher.
 

maisatomai

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I have emailed fsdf whether students of SMU MAF is eligible for the scholarship

@frayed:
1) Do you know if SMU interviews by prof koh blind interview?
2) Is FSDF scholarship given to a lot of students or only a few? Does everyone in the class has this scholarship?

We are very lucky to have frayed in this thread. He is so knowledgeable on SMU MAF.
 

frayed

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i am not sure what you mean by the first question - i can't decipher what you are trying to say. the interview sessions are usually held at two of the meeting rooms on the fourth floor of the business school as far as i remember. this may mean that there are two interview rooms and hence the interview may not be conducted solely by prof benedict, but one of the rooms may be the waiting room. i really cannot recall.

i do not have figures on how many people have the scholarship, especially for the local applicants, so i have no idea as to whether everyone has the scholarship or not. additionally, while carrying out my duties as a teaching assistant, i did not ask students if they had the fsdf scholarship, and they certainly did not go around telling me if they were.

as i mentioned earlier, it is likely that the scholarship is no longer applicable for the smu maf, but as far as i know, it is still applicable for the singapore chicago gsb program in fin math, and the local mfe programs. friends of mine who took it up for masters overseas were all successful at getting the scholarship for obvious reasons. you can see an old list of pre-approved masters programs in the older pdf link i posted earlier.
 

maisatomai

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I think there are still offering to MAF students. But it is only 1-3 students per year (see link)???

For my first question, I was trying to ask what will the interview be like? Will Prof Koh conduct a blind interview (Questions like "Tell me about yourself", "why take this program") vs asking those hypothetical questions such as "Tell me about a time you were managing a team and you perceived the outcome to be a failure."
 

frayed

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well, there you go. however, i am not sure if there is a requirement for fsp holders to take it full time or not. people who want to do it part time better double confirm with mas because the part time option is relatively new.

i don't know what the interview will be like, but i don't think it will be a problem, really. remember my comments about it being a cash cow. as long as you don't rub the interviewer the wrong way you should be fine. in my opinion, the first set of questions you listed are more likely la. you could also try checking the chinese forum chasedream to see if any of the maf china program applicants have ever posted about their interview experiences for the program.
 

Whiteblack

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Hey Frayed, I'm also interested in the MAF program but after hearing what you have said, I'm starting to worry about the prospect after graduating from the course. BUT going overseas to the universities you have listed is not a workable solution for me either. So could you help me answer some questions that I have about the MAF program.

You said that the curriculumn is not deep/thorough enough, was that for the ENTIRE program, including those advance topic, or just the topics which you were assisting in?

And do you know how are the graduates fairing? Who are the main employers and what roles are they in now? I am looking at an analyst role but you said those roles are being shifted to other parts of asia and that worries me a lot!
 
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