Re: Quants without phds?
OP, depends on what you mean by "quant". My friend who is doing 40% marketing, 30% fundamental analysis and 30% regression calls himself quant. Another one who reads VaR values all day assumes he is a quant. They are not by my definition. However, there are real quants with even with undergrad.
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i don't buy it. there's probably only 10-15 schools whose FE programs are worth anything on wall street, and their average class size is probably around 50.
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Looking at the trend you're wrong. When programs came out first, almost everybody got good jobs. I heard that U of T's program is not worth much nowadays. Only people who had PhD-s or financial experience going into the program got good jobs (and the market is not gonna be better than now).
I even know someone who didn't employed from NYU...his English is crap, but still.
Compare that to McGill finance PhD that had amazing placement in the industry (not so stellar in academia, but that's a different story).
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i don't see how less than a thousand people per year equates to everyone having an MFE in a few years.
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Add one thousand more from non-elite schools, MBA-s with quantitative PhD-s, several thousand PhD-s with other quant major (who will not be happy working as an assistant prof for 50k), increasing software, outsourcing, and the fact that derivatives are becoming more complex.
However, on the bright side if someone gets into the field now with a masters and gets good experience, he will not have to worry about PhD-s taking his job.
Also, if someone wants to become a trader (that has way bigger upside than a quant), a PhD is not necessary.
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