The MS Finance SOP is kind of counterintuitive. Everybody knows you’re applying because you want to “level up” your career—you want to get paid.
At the same time, you have to impress academic faculty on the admissions committee who (let’s be honest) are gatekeeping this pathway to Wall Street and FinTech jobs. They demand you write a statement of purpose, and it has to be something an academic will consider “impressive.”
The good news: this doesn’t have to be hard. You can be 100% honest about your career goals while still sounding like an “intellectual.”
Just ask my friend, June. In the 2023 admissions cycle, she used the SOP template below to earn multiple Finance admissions at the best B schools in the world. Let’s read her essay and learn how you too can prove you’re an A+ applicant who’s ready for—and deserves—a big-time career.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Structure: How to Organize Your MS Finance SOP
- The Most Common Problems to Avoid
- A Brilliant MS Finance Sample Essay
- What Makes This Sample SOP So Good?
- How to Adapt This SOP Template for Short-Response Questions?
- What About Video Essays?
- Don’t Forget Your “Career Goals Statement”
- Will This SOP Template Work For All Kinds of Finance Programs?
Structure: How to Organize Your MS Finance SOP
To better understand June’s essay, let’s first examine how she structured it in 4 neat sections. The first 3 directly answer the big questions every admissions committee asks when reading your finance statement of purpose. The final section ties it all together in an elegant, intelligent way.
1. Frame Narrative Introduction: A quick, mature, professional explanation of how June discovered the problems she wants to get paid to solve in her career.
- 2 paragraphs
- 24% of word total
2. Why This School: Precisely how will Gotham University teach June to solve those problems?
- 2 paragraphs
- 23% of word total
3. Why I’m Qualified: How can June prove that she’s ready to tackle these problems in grad school?
- 3 paragraphs
- 43% of word total (honestly, this is too long—shorter would actually be more effective)
4. Frame Narrative Conclusion: A quick flashback to the introduction story, with an affirmation that June is ready to solve these problems and launch an amazing career.
- 1 paragraph
- 11% of word total
Notice how these 4 sections shape an implicit argument? Even without reading June’s essay you can tell—just from this structural outline—that she’s not focused on her personal history, but instead, her professional future.
What are the problems you want to solve in your career?
How will you learn to solve them?
This is the magic of our essay structure. By shaping your argument this way, your statement of purpose becomes something like a business plan. It says:
“Invest your time and resources in me, and here’s the proof that I’ll give you a massive return by solving big problems in an A+ career (and furthering the university’s good name).”
The Most Common Problems to Avoid
This structure may seem simple at first, but even so, most applicants make the same predictable mistakes. I estimate that at least 70% of applicants, and often closer to 85%, shoot themselves in the foot this way.
1. What’s Your Problem?
When you dig into June’s “Frame Narrative Introduction” below, take note of how clearly she explains the focus-problems she wants to solve in her professional career:
“Specifically, I hope to understand how the ML models traditionally used for institutional high-frequency trading (e.g. Markov Decision Models within Reinforcement Learning) can be adopted into accessible personal-finance tools for retail investors.”
Most applicants never do this.
Most just copy-paste general lingo from the school’s website. In fact, I’d bet that MIT’s MS Finance program receives 200+ SOPs each year that claim the applicant wants to learn “the latest financial theories, models, and industry practices.”
Trust me—glittering generalities won’t get you admitted. They just make you look like a copy-paste parrot.
Luckily, this is another problem that’s easy to solve. Just download our free SOP Starter Kit, complete the first exercise, and you’ll be well on your way to solving the real problems that schools like MIT, UC-Berkeley, and London School of Economics actually want you to solve.
2. Too Much Personal Background
Honestly, I can’t blame you for making this mistake. It’s not intuitive. Everything within you is probably screaming:
“Write about yourself! Tell your life story! They have to know who you are!”
Whew. Tell your inner voice to settle down.
The key to an A+ finance statement of purpose is remembering that your personal background is only supporting evidence. Yes, you need proof that you can achieve your goals. But that proof is meaningless if you don’t first establish what those goals are. That’s why Problem #1 above is so important.
June too faces this problem in her essay below. Remember when I pointed out that she spent 43% of her word count describing her personal background? It worked for her because her background (particularly in ML research) is extremely impressive, and because her career goals are clear. But for everyone else, it’s risky.
In their 3 application short essays, MIT has only one question that asks about your background:
“Question 1: Please discuss your past academic and professional experiences and accomplishments that will help you succeed in the Master of Finance program. Include achievements in finance, math, statistics, and computer sciences, as applicable.”
They give you 600 total words, but only want 200 about your past academic and professional experience.
That’s a good guideline: no more than 1/3 of your essay should be about your past.
Now, let’s see how June put all this together in her own magnificient statement of purpose.
A Brilliant MS Finance SOP
During the summer of 2022, I worked as a front-end development intern at FinLight, Canada’s largest financial data service. There, my responsibilities included building the user interface for their financial terminal. However, I soon found myself most fascinated by Light API, a backend data service that enables quantitative-model construction and strategy backtesting for client researchers. This high-performing, real-time software was so impressive that, when I returned to Metropolis University, I quickly enrolled in Mathematics and Finance coursework alongside my Computer Science major. My goal was to acquire the theoretical knowledge necessary to build tools and frameworks for financial-data analytics myself. Since then, I have completed courses in ML, NLP, and Predictive Analytics, in conjunction with extensive coursework in Statistics, Probability Theory, and Financial Mathematics, and furthered my understanding of these subjects through independent research and real-world projects.
Today, I hope to expand upon these experiences by studying and conducting research at the intersection of finance and machine learning, with a focus on generative adversarial networks and ML models to synthesize alternative financial data. Specifically, I hope to understand how the ML models traditionally used for institutional high-frequency trading (e.g. Markov Decision Models within Reinforcement Learning) can be adopted into accessible personal-finance tools for retail investors. The Master of Science in Computational Finance at Gotham will make that possible.
In the MSCF program, core classes such as Financial Engineering Foundations and Stochastic Models will be critical for understanding the theories underpinning financial analytics, like CAPM, pricing models, and optimization strategies. Then, electives like OR Machine Learning will deepen my understanding of common ML techniques applicable to retail software, while FE Programming and Financial Big Data provide hands-on experience implementing ML, NLP, and Predictive Analytics techniques in algorithmic trading and pricing applications. Finally, the Seminar Series will expose me to new avenues for advancing personal finance, perhaps most importantly by connecting me with industry experts pursuing research interests similar to my own: how to create accessible tools that empower individuals to make better investment decisions.
With this theoretical foundation and industry-focused insight, I hope to participate in research either in Gotham’s AI Center in Financial Analytics or under Professor Lucius Fox. The latter, for example, has recently investigated how robo-advising and decentralized exchanges improve accessibility and convenience for non-accredited investors, a project that mirrors my own goals to innovate personal-finance resources. Understanding the mechanisms behind such research will better prepare me to contribute to software (based on these ML and stochastic models) that offers individuals access to risk-management and portfolio-analysis tools otherwise accessible only by financial institutions.
My extensive research experience shows my readiness to take on these challenging efforts at Gotham. At Metropolis University, I have investigated language models and ML applications relevant to linguistics, neuroscience, and finance. After taking a Natural Language Processing elective, I pursued an independent research project on the ability of various transformer models to extract context: in this case, irony detection. Furthermore, since last summer, I have assisted at Professor Selina Kyle’s CATLab, implementing a BERT transformer model to analyze neural-population data. At the same time, under the supervision of Professor Jim Gordon, I am working on a project (funded by a grant from the Wayne Institute) to forecast Metropolis economic contraction using Dr. Gordon’s localized VIX indicators and proprietary ML techniques. Thus, I feel that by adopting language models to analyze alternative data sources, and GANs to synthesize financial data, I can make a unique contribution to financial-planning problems at Gotham.
Outside school, multiple software-development internships have inspired me to learn more about financial technologies. At FinLight in 2022, I implemented the UI for Light Terminal’s macroeconomics indicators dashboard, witnessing the solutions the terminal provides—from real-time quotes for quantitative trading to risk management and macro research. At ByBit in the summer of 2023, I worked on an integration project for the Institutional Reports service, incorporating new features like real-time streaming updates and flexible time-range inputs. I was also responsible for a series of investigations into transaction discrepancies that were particularly fruitful. By delving into upstream and downstream services to locate errored logic, and by collaborating with trading teams to resolve numeric precision issues, I learned much about the adaptation of GRPC microservices within this distributed cryptocurrency exchange system—an understanding that will greatly aid my efforts at Gotham and beyond.
Furthermore, I am currently collaborating with a team of Metropolis graduates and Microsoft engineers on an application named Lulo. Using LLM and unsupervised ML to convert real-time hospital invoices into financial insights, we hope to produce an accessible platform—similar but more intuitive than the widely used EpicShare/MyChart—to help healthcare patients visualize billing and insurance requirements. Certainly, I am excited about this project, but I also feel strongly that coursework and research in the MSCF program’s Financial Computing Track will be invaluable as I pursue my long-term goal of building applications with even more complex analytics capabilities.
When viewing the heartbeats of streaming financial indices during my internship at FinLight, I did not expect to one day contribute to the construction of similar systems. Now, however, with guidance from Gotham University, I feel confident that I can help engineer these highly computational platforms. Upon graduating, my goal is to accumulate industry experience as a quantitative developer, before pursuing startup opportunities in a company developing novel personal-finance applications. Gotham’s Computational Finance program will bring me one step closer to this goal, and eventually allow me to fulfill my mission of broadening access to powerful financial-analytics tools.
Get Your Free SOP Starter Kit
Learn the “4 Questions” every SOP must answer to earn admission at competitive schools. This guide will tell you what to write, and leave you feeling super confident and ready to hit “submit.”
What Makes This MS Finance SOP So Good?
After submitting variations of this SOP to her target schools, June was quickly admitted to 3 of her top choices, then canceled the rest. She’d achieved her dream and was ready to launch her quant career. Why did it work so well?
It’s unique
Any applicant can say they want to learn “the latest financial theories, models, and industry practices.” Most applicants WILL say that.
But only June said she specifically wants to study how institutional high-frequency ML models can translate to apps for retail investors—similar to the work of Dr. Lucius Fox—so that after graduation she can build industry experience then pursue startup opportunities developing novel personal-finance tools.
In a sea of applicants with general, unspecific goals, June was singular.
She was 100% honest about her career goals, and explained exactly how she’ll achieve them.
That makes June very special, and you should strive for the exact same quality.
How to Adapt This SOP Template for Short-Response Questions?
While many schools (like Georgetown or UT-Austin) only require a single essay, many require multiple shorter responses. Is it possible to recycle the template above to fit these unique requirements?
Easy peasy, summer breezy!
If you (thoroughly) answer all the questions in our SOP Starter Kit, and build your statement of purpose according to the 4 sections above, you’ll already have answered most short-response questions you might see.
UCLA’s Andersen School of Management asks the following question:
“Financial engineering requires a combination of mathematical/quantitative abilities and creative thinking. Describe a project you worked on, either as a student or professional, that demonstrates your analytical and creative problem-solving skills. Tell us why this project was interesting to you.”
That’s just Section 3, Why I’m Qualified! Tweak it, recycle it, and save yourself some time.
Among their 3 short-response questions, MIT also asks:
“Tell us about your short-term and long-term professional goals. How will our MFin degree help you achieve these goals?”
No sweat! If you follow June’s brilliant example, you can easily answer this question by stating your specific career goal, then recycling Section 2, Why This School.
What About Video Essays?
These days, many B schools want to see you before they admit you. MIT, Wash U, Berkeley, and Boston all require video essays, for example.
Honestly, I can’t give you any tips about how to film these videos. I’m just a humble writer, an introvert, and I’m terrible at editing videos myself.
BUT…
One thing I promise you: if you first write an MS Finance SOP according to the guidelines above, you’ll be ready to nail these video essays.
By clarifying answers to the 4 questions, and structuring a cogent response, you’ll be ready to talk fluently and brilliantly about yourself no matter the setting. You’ll already have done the hard thinking.
Videos? Interviews? Whatever the medium, you’ll be prepared. You’ll have a clear vision for your career, and you’ll know exactly how you’ll achieve it at all of your target schools.
Don’t Forget Your “Career Goals Statement”
Every good finance statement of purpose requires a smart “career goals statement.” I’ve written about this extensively here, but basically, you need 1-2 sentences that confidently state your specific and unique career ambitions. For example, June wrote:
“Upon graduating, my goal is to accumulate industry experience as a quantitative developer, before pursuing startup opportunities in a company developing novel personal-finance applications.”
As the article linked above shows, however, you can get a lot more specific. A former student (admitted to multiple top-5 programs) wrote the following:
“After graduation, I plan to launch an analyst career in Singapore, hopefully in a buy-side investment firm like Stark Capital or Redstar Securities. Southeast Asia still has tremendous potential for social development, and I envision a career in asset management because I believe in the potential of impact investing to address issues like healthcare accessibility.”
Pro Tip: A smart career goals statement will make it even easier to answer a lot of those short-response questions!
Will This SOP Template Work For All Kinds of Finance Programs?
MS Finance. MS in Financial Engineering. MS in Financial Economics. Or, as Boston’s Questrom School of Business calls it: “Master of Science in Mathematical Finance and Financial Technology”.
They’re all the same.
The names are different, but these programs all fit into the same category of MBA-adjacent, technical specialist programs. Their graduates all apply for similar jobs, so we can be certain that this kind of thoughtful SOP structure will help you out no matter where you’re applying.
Conclusion
I’m incredibly thankful to June for allowing me to share her super-successful finance statement of purpose. She’s a rockstar, and her generosity is profound.
Rest assured, if you want to achieve similar success in MS Finance admissions, this SOP model will give you a strong foundation.
It’ll declare your career goals with 100% honesty, while still appealing to the intellectual sensibilities of the academic faculty reading your application.
Still unclear about what to write in each section of your MS Finance application essay?
In my FREE PDF, I share the 4 questions that every personal statement must answer to generate 3, 4, or 5+ grad admissions.
Get yours now!
