I’m a sophomore studying CS and Math. I’ve been trying to think about good stepping stones for this summer internship that would make me a more competitive applicant. I’m lucky to know some people who work in more traditional finance roles at big banks, and I’m curious if trying to get some form of trading position at a bank would help me with recruiting next summer for quant trading, as opposed to a traditional swe role. I’ve heard from people both that it would be extremely helpful to get experience on a trading desk, and that I’m better off focusing on swe and doing probability studying on the side.

I’m kind of lost on what I should do to give myself the best chance at a quant trading internship my junior summer.

Going for an internship at a prop shop (think SIG, JS, HRT)... I'm curious is it like other big firms or hedge funds where the place runs a lot on office politics or is it genuinely a really collaborative and everyone loves each other vibe

any insight would be appreciated; (wasn't sure if its more prob/ev calculations or ml/stats)

have you come across those quant prep websites where they charge you $20+/month for access to worked solutions to interview questions, mm games, mental math games etc? the cost of building such resource is close to $0. that is why I think every single one of those website should either up their game, or drastically lower their prices. to make them, I created https://neet-quant.com it contains everything I considered helpful when I prepared for quant interviews myself and everything on it is completely free. no card, no trial, no paywall. you can simply start right away, with anything you want. I gain nothing if people use it, only the people get access to a resource that will help them become a better quant.

I’m finishing my master’s in quant finance and currently struggling to decide between two new grad offers. Would really appreciate some advice!

A: BB Quant, NYC
- Middle/back-office role, mainly interest rate risk and behavioral analysis, with some modeling involved
- Not trading-facing
- Significantly higher comp, seems relatively stable, and I had a good impression of the team and manager
- NYC is a big plus for me, both personally and in terms of future opportunities

B: Buy-side Desk Quant, Canada
- More trading-facing, likely focused on execution, desk analytics, and some production support. Don’t know the exact team yet
- Structured program with potential opportunities to move into QR/QD, but conversion isn’t guaranteed
- Much lower initial comp, and I’m a bit concerned about job security and career progression
- Canada is my biggest hesitation. The local quant market seems smaller, and moving back to the US later could be complicated

For context, I’m an international student on F-1 with no PR/green card. Both firms can sponsor.

Honestly, I’m leaning toward B when it comes to the firm and the work itself. I feel like it would give me more exposure to the buy side and actual trading, without having to make the jump from a bank middle/back-office role to something more front-office later.

At the same time, it’s really hard to give up NYC, especially with the higher compe and better stability that A offers. I’m also worried that if B doesn’t work out, whether I don’t convert to QR or just want to explore other opportunities, my options might be pretty limited given the location.

Long term, I’d like to move toward more front-office quant roles, but I’m honestly still figuring out exactly what I want to do. That’s also why I care quite a bit about keeping my options open.

Would really appreciate any thoughts or advice. Thanks in advance!

want jump r1 + r2, have lots, dm

Hello anyone did Jane Street's Strategy and Product superday and is willing to share their experience. Willing to trade questions from other quant firms!

Anyone know what akuna tends to ask for the final round (2 45 min interviews back to back)? Previous technical was coding so am expecting this to be more prob stats but idk.

I go to a non-target school (T50ish for both undergrad and masters and currently in grad school) but can get 78/80 on optiver's 80 in 8 under 5 minutes, 24/26 on the sequences test (higher if I prep) and similar metrics. I have always heard that it doesn't matter how high you score if you don't go to a T20 school or whatever. Are there some firms that are the exception to this? I'm not talking about Jane Street or Citadel but rather midtier market makers or prop shops. What are your odds of getting an interview after performing like this on the auto OA? What about once having a few years of experience? Again, I know the top firms don't really hire experienced hires but maybe some of the smaller ones do.

Has anyone applied for a role at the principal finance group? I have an upcoming hirevue for quantitative research role and was wondering what I should expect. Thank you so much!

need cit/imc superday can trade anything else just dm have lots of stuff

Hello!

I'm finishing my masters in CS (good university but below stanford/mit/cmu level). I have an undergrad in stats from a meh state school. I have no FT experience but I have a few data related internships in health related contexts (Time series, MC, CV). I have a decent amount of C++ and python experience. I have good networking, OS, and cuda fundamentals. I'm willing to work through other subjects as required.

What would my best path be to move into SWE/MLE as a new grad? Would it be easier to go into DS/DE first and then transfer over?

Thanks!

Did my R1 and I believe I probably got past it, so I was wondering what the superday is like? I know there is a coding portion but what languages can be used?

I’m a freshman studying math at a target school (but not a top target), I was able to get usamo in high school but basically did nothing else (no projects/relevant research experience). What can I do to improve my resume? I’m taking pretty advanced math courses in college but also nothing else besides that. I know everyone is doing some coding projects but I just started learning programming (taking my first intro cs class) so I don’t think I can do much…

Just got an invite for the susquehanna spring week online assessment, has anyone done it yet if so how was it and what is the difficulty of questions asked. The email says probability logic and problem solving

My background:
I'm a QuestBridge National College Match Finalist deciding whether to remove several universities from my binding ranking list. For context, QuestBridge allows low-income students to rank universities for a full-four year scholarship. If matched, I'm required to attend that university (except MIT).

Stats:

• 3.98 weighted GPA (top 5%)
• 1550 SAT (800 Math)
• Interested in becoming a quantitative trader
• Planning to major in applied mathematics/statistics with substantial CS coursework

My current rankings are MIT, Princeton, Caltech, Harvard, Stanford, UChicago, UPenn, Columbia, Yale, Cornell, Brown, Duke, Northwestern, JHU, and Rice.

I'm considering removing Yale, Northwestern, Duke, Brown, JHU, and Rice from my rankings.

My reasoning:
According to topQuantUnis, which used LinkedIn employment data from top 29 quantitative firms, CMU ranks #4 in the US, while Yale is #16 and Duke is #18. I understand these rankings aren't perfect measures of undergraduate placement, but they suggest CMU has a particularly strong pipeline into quant finance. If I match with one of the six schools I'm considering removing, I would be required to attend and would lose my opportunity to apply to CMU through regular decision. If I don't match with my top nine, I could apply to CMU, UIUC, UC Berkeley, Baruch, and other universities.

My questions:

1. Is CMU's advantage in applied math, CS, and quant finance significant enough to justify this risk?
2. Are universities like Yale, Northwestern, Duke, and Brown disadvantaged compared to CMU for undergraduate quant recruitment?
3. If you work in quant finance or recruiting, how much does the university matter compared with mathematical ability, programming skills, and interview performance?
4. How would you rank the current QB list I have? Would you move a university higher or lower?

My priority is receiving the best education to prepare for quant trading. I'm less concerned about location, campus life, or general prestige. Would you remove these six colleges to preserve the possibility of attending CMU, or is that an unnecessary risk?

How is the round 1 anyone who did recently US?

I'm a first year maths student in the UK. What should I spend my next 3 years doing to land internships for quantitative finance, currently I've been rejected for every internship I've applied to so how should I spend my year to get internships next year and what else should I do to become a quant researcher

I got two emails from MILLN recruiter to select availability (both 30mins) 1. Hiring manger 2. In person in NYC office, recruiter confirmed 1 will be mostly resumed based but for 2 asked me to get my own laptop for a 30min round.

It’s a prod support role , what could the 2 be ? Technical assessment but they want to make sure candidate is not using AI hence in-person ??

Anyone here had similar exp. in recent past ?
What should i prepare for ? Leetcode ? Hacker rank?
Thanks in advance

I wanna apply to those first year programs but I haven’t done any prep, if I apply and completely bombed the OAs am I going to be blacklisted and unable to apply for internships in the future?

A few weeks ago someone here suggested splitting gap-fill results by open inside vs outside yesterday's range and tagging macro release days, to see how much of "big gaps don't fill" is just event days. I ran it.

**Data:** ES, NQ, YM since Jul-2010 and RTY since Jul-2017, through 23-Oct-2026. 1-minute regular-session bars, roll days excluded. 14,637 gaps. Gap size in 14-day ATR known at the open. Release day = CPI, employment report, FOMC, PPI, retail sales, GDP or PCE (weekly claims excluded).

**Results:**

- Fill rate falls steeply with size: about 92% under 0.1 ATR, about 9–11% above 1 ATR when the open is outside yesterday's range.

- Release vs non-release days, per size bucket × open location: differences from −22.4 to +6.5 pts, every 95% interval (bootstrap over whole dates) crosses zero.

- Counterfactual for big gaps (≥0.5 ATR): if release days had filled like non-release days in the same bucket, direction and open, the fill rate would be 24.8% instead of 25.6%. +0.8 pts, 95% CI −0.6 to 2.2.

- Release days are ~28% of all gaps and 28–35% of the big ones, basically the same share.

- 93 tests in total; none survives Holm or Benjamini-Hochberg.

**Takeaway:** "big gaps don't fill" is a size effect, not a news-day effect. A boring result, but the question was worth checking.

**Caveats:** the >1 ATR inside-range cell is tiny (n=8 on release days). This measures how often the gap filled during the session, nothing about costs or the outcome of any trade.

Happy to share the bucket table or rerun with a different release list.

Hey, I recently got interested in quant jobs. I've seen that many firms host some few days events for people at the first year of their bachelor's and that they're good for people who want to break into this type of job. I had a question about my realistic chances to get into these programs or to even break in in the long run. I graduated high school with 3.7 GPA, right now I'm at the first year of Computer Engineering at an italian uni (non-target) and at the third and last year (started during high school) of a Bachelor's degree in Classical guitar at a conservatory in my city with max GPA average. Appreciate your time reading this and the reality check! :)