Oxford MFE R3 面经

May 20面的，面试官口音好像香港人，没有听清楚名字。语音很清晰

上来我先做了3分钟自我介绍。
然后她问道了我在一个风险投资项目中的估值方法。
在我说了市盈率可比法之后又问了我怎么比较的，用了什么其他的财务比率没。
然后打断了我让我说流动比率和速动比率有什么区别。
这部分的最后又问了我上市公司和私有公司有什么区别。我尽力说了一些，但是她还是说我说的不够全，花了5分钟解释其他的区别。

第二部分是一道期权定价题。
证券1 时间0价格是90，时间1价格是100，
证券2 时间0价格是70，时间1若希腊留在欧元区价格为100，
证券3 时间0价格是X，时间1若希腊留在欧元区价格为0，

Q1 证券1问为什么有差价，答货币时间价值
Q2 问为什么是70，通过什么方法和那些变量计算出来的，答这个是期权，用二叉树
Q3 问X=10对吗，如果不是的话X等于几，说出你是怎么计算出来的，答20，可以通过证券2和证券3复制证券1

然后我问她一些问题。。
两部分答得都不是很好，好多次都是在面试官引导下才得出答案。。还被说我需要提高英语的表达水平
但愿有AD吧。。这次面经比较特别，贴出来造福后人。。

Oxford MFE 2010面经

今天上午面试的，skype面试，网络连接一般，所以听不怎么清楚，说了一大堆sorry，pardon，excuse me。。。也没听到面试官的名字。
一开始问了我的academic background，介绍了一下自己，我说我是数学专业，没学过finance。然后马上到了学术问题
第一个问题是Monty Hall Problem，我当时完全不知道是什么，虽然他当时解释了3遍，可是我还是没听清楚，非常的杯具。所以乱答了几句，他很遗憾的说incorrect。后来wikipedia了一下，才知道是什么。
后来他让我说说financial innovation，他说虽然你没学过finance，但是说说这个应该没问题，于是我就开始用我仅有的知识说了说。
联系到了financial crisis，他又说那你觉得这些financial instrument和金融危机有啥关系呢，我又说了一通自己的理解。
后来谈到美国政府的bail out，他问我你觉得美国政府做得如何，我blabla说了一些。。。
最后又问了Why MFE，问我学过什么数学和经济课。
后来换我问问题，我就问了问他对美国政府bail out的意见。
总共耗时27分钟吧。。
觉得非常一般吧，本身也不抱太大希望。。。希望大家都offer多多！

虽然被拒了,还是发上来吧, oxford mfe 面经

虽然挺难过得，不过就算是给自己这段牛津梦最后画一个句号吧。发些面经上来希望对大家后面的申请有帮助。

面试官估计应该是欧洲人，说话很转，没有太多客套。

1。externality

    说了什么是外部性

    market efficiency 政府应该采取什么样的措施

2。different exchange regime

3。compare the exchange regime in China and Singapore

4.   那种政策你会比较prefer, 货币政策还是财政政策

5。global imbalance and globalization

6. capm 什么意思，有什么好还是不好，如何改进

7。risk 什么是风险，如何测量

8。what do you want to do at mfe?

时间有点久了，记得就这么多，虽然当时感觉没犯什么错误，不过估计还是不够好吧，希望大家好运

Oxford MFE Ad 附面经总结

27号等了一个晚上都没有任何动静，于是焦虑了一个周末。终于在刚才收到了ad。为了造福后人，我把我的面试经历总结一下：

其实面试的时候感觉挺郁闷的，因为我是9点半第一个面。在北京地铁上班高峰汹涌的人潮推挤下，9点10分到达地点，在楼下starbuck买了杯咖啡就上去了。居然正好和Prof. Sussman在同一间电梯里。不过因为和照片上有点小差异所以没敢认。然后他进了room，我在外面沙发待了一会。9点半他准时把我叫了进去。

Prof. Sussman果然是一个很严肃的人，不苟言笑。先是像审犯人一样问我背景（姓名，毕业学校，家庭电话号码（估计是为了防枪手替面））。然后就用冰冷不带一丝波动的语调简单的问了我关于我的专业，所获奖项等等内容。

然后就是Technical part了。不出意料的就是从我的毕设问起。我因为本科是mis专业，所以毕设做的是一个生产管理方面的topic。我才讲了几句，他就开始打断就我的毕设中的一个假定做challenge。我从operation的角度给他解释可是他就是死活不满意。后来明白他是想往经济意义上引。总之当时搞得我都快毛了。后来我明白他的真实意思后才回答了让他满意的内容。

接下来就是关于M&A.他在牛津就教这门课，而我在ps里写我的interest point就是这个，所以感觉撞枪口上了。不过他问我的内容并不深，也就是why you are interested in M&A? How do you evaluate the fact that most M&A deal destroy values? What are the motives for M&A? Please elaborate on how M&A could increase revenue? How M&A could reduce cost? On reducing cost, outsourcing is also a possible way to reduce cost, how do you compare outsourcing with M&A in eliminating redundancy? What do you think should be the most important motive for M&A deal? What are the most important factors when you analyze an M&A deal?

另外还有一个题：用一句话通俗易懂的解释什么是economics(上过曼昆书的同学都应该知道标准答案是“稀缺资源的有效配置”）。用一句话解释什么是Finance（参考wiki 百科的解释就是“时间资金和风险的权衡分配”）

面完的感觉其实很不爽，因为Prof Sussman给你的感觉是很冷，没有feedback，所以让你一点都不exciting。而且时间到了就立刻结束。害得我辛苦准备的非常technical的东西都没用上。既然如此，就把我之前整理的牛津MFE面经及回答附在这篇帖子后面。

P.S wiki pedia真是一个好东西，可以有效的让人速成很多专业知识。

面试题目汇总：
1.        What is asset pricing? What is the basic idea behind asset pricing model?
Valuation is the process of estimating the potential market value of a financial asset or liability. Valuations can be done on assets (for example, investments in marketable securities such as stocks, options, business enterprises, or intangible assets such as patents and trademarks) or on liabilities (e.g., Bonds issued by a company). Valuations are required in many contexts including investment analysis, capital budgeting, merger and acquisition transactions, financial reporting, taxable events to determine the proper tax liability, and in litigation.
Asset Pricing theory tries to understand the prices or value of claims on uncertain payments.
Basic idea: price equal to expected discounted payoff
Positive use(实证): Why prices and returns are the way they are?
Another way of use: discover mis-priced assets
2.        好好看下macro micro econ 这两本书
3.        Under market microstructure, why there is a spread between bid and ask?
The size is a measure of liquidity and transaction cost. Rooted from the mechanism of deal: limit order, market order, trading frictions, market maker. It is due to the risk aversion of traders with liquidity risk.
Market microstructure: The area of finance that is concerned with the process by which investors’ latent demands are ultimately translated into transactions
4.        Why stock prices will soar in a few days after IPO?
5.        In OECD countries, why do you think there are financial disasters? Do you think the people who make the wrong decisions are well punished?
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)

6.        What have you learned in Marxist Economics?
Marx employed a labour theory of value, which holds that the value of a commodity is the socially necessary labour time invested in it. Capitalists, however, do not pay workers the full value of the commodities they produce. The gap between the value a worker produces and her wage is a form of unpaid labour, known as surplus value.
7.        What are your academic weaknesses? What if we don’t offer you a place?
8.        What have you learned from Financial Economics?
The allocation and deployment of economic resources both spatially and across time in an uncertain environment.
9.        What do you think is the most important development in capital structure over the past 50 years?
Capital structure: The way a corporation finances its assets through some combination of equity, debt, or hybrid securities.
M&M theory, pecking order theory, static trade-off theory, personal taxation对investment choice的影响，agency cost
Trade-off theory allows the bankruptcy cost to exist. It states that there is an advantage to financing with debt (namely, the tax benefit of debts) and that there is a cost of financing with debt (the bankruptcy costs of debt). The marginal benefit of further increases in debt declines as debt increases, while the marginal cost increases, so that a firm that is optimizing its overall value will focus on this trade-off when choosing how much debt and equity to use for financing. Empirically, this theory may explain differences in D/E ratios between industries, but it doesn't explain differences within the same industry.
Pecking Order theory tries to capture the costs of asymmetric information. It tates that companies prioritize their sources of financing (from internal financing to equity) according to the law of least effort, or of least resistance, preferring to raise equity as a financing means “of last resort”.
Agency problems:
Asset substitution effect: As D/E increases, management has an increased incentive to undertake risky (even negative NPV) projects. This is because if the project is successful, share holders get all the upside, whereas if it is unsuccessful, debt holders get all the downside. If the projects are undertaken, there is a chance of firm value decreasing and a wealth transfer from debt holders to share holders.
Underinvestment problem: If debt is risky (eg in a growth company), the gain from the project will accrue to debt holders rather than shareholders. Thus, management have an incentive to reject positive NPV projects, even though they have the potential to increase firm value.
Free cash flow: unless free cash flow is given back to investors, management has an incentive to destroy firm value through empire building and perks etc. Increasing leverage imposes financial discipline on management.
Market timing hypothesis—capital structure is the outcome of the historical cumulative timing of the market by managers.

10.        What is your future career planning after you return to China?
11.        What problems does the financial industry face? What strategies could the banks take to solve this problem?
12.        What do you think is the most challenging part of this course?
13.        Why do you like finance?
14.        What is finance? What is the text book for your corporate course? Microeconomics? Macroeconomics? Financial Economics?
The field of finance refers to the concepts of time, money and risk and how they are interrelated. Banks are the main facilitators of funding through the provision of credit, although private equity, mutual funds, hedge funds, and other organizations have become important. Financial assets, known as investments, are financially managed with careful attention to financial risk management to control financial risk. Financial instruments allow many forms of securitized assets to be traded on securities exchanges such as stock exchanges, including debt such as bonds as well as equity in publicly-traded corporations.
15.        How do you measure risk? The pros and cons of different risk measure? What is the classification of risk?
Standard Deviation
Value at Risk
Expected shortfall, or conditional VaR: The "expected shortfall at q% level" is the expected return on the portfolio in the worst q% of the cases.

16.        What is your understanding of risk and return?
17.        你觉得CAPM用到的beta和Black-Scholes公式计算出的Implied Volatility虽然都是度量风险，但是在philosophy上有何不同。
CAPM属于absolute pricing: price each asset with reference to fundamental sources of macroeconomic. Black-Sholes属于relative pricing: given the prices of some other asset, what is the price of this particular asset. 后者与基本面关系不大，属于衍生定价。
In financial mathematics, the implied volatility of an option contract is the volatility implied by the market price of the option based on an option pricing model. In other words, it is the volatility that, when used in a particular pricing model, yields a theoretical value for the option equal to the current market price of that option. Non-option financial instruments that have embedded optionality, such as an interest rate cap, can also have an implied volatility. Implied volatility, a forward-looking measure, differs from historical volatility because the latter is calculated from known past prices of a security.
An ordinary option pricing model, such as Black-Scholes, uses a variety of inputs to derive a theoretical value for an option. Inputs to pricing models vary depending on the type of option being priced and the pricing model used. However, in general, the value of an option depends on an estimate of the future realized volatility,  , of the underlying. Or, mathematically:

where  is the theoretical value of an option, and  is a pricing model that depends on  plus other inputs.
The function f is monotonically increasing in  , meaning that a higher value for volatility results in a higher theoretical value of the option. Conversely, by the inverse function theorem, there can be at most one value for  that, when applied as an input to  , will result in a particular value for  .
Put in other terms, assume that there is some inverse function  , such that

where  is the market price for an option. The value  is the volatility implied by the market price  , or the implied volatility.
Often, the implied volatility of an option is a more useful measure of the option's relative value than its price. This is because the price of an option depends most directly on the price of its underlying security. If an option is held as part of a delta neutral portfolio, that is, a portfolio that is hedged against small moves in the underlier's price, then the next most important factor in determining the value of the option will be its implied volatility.
Implied volatility is so important that options are often quoted in terms of volatility rather than price, particularly between professional traders.
Example
A call option is trading at $1.50 with the underlier trading at $42.05. The implied volatility of the option is determined to be 18.0%. A short time later, the option is trading at $2.10 with the underlier at $43.34, yielding an implied volatility of 17.2%. Even though the option's price is higher at the second measurement, it is still considered cheaper on a volatility basis. This is because the underlier needed to hedge the call option can be sold for a higher price.
Implied volatility as a price
Another way to look at implied volatility is to think of it as a price, not as a measure of future stock moves. In this view it simply is a more convenient way to communicate option prices than currency. Prices are different in nature from statistical quantities: We can estimate volatility of future underlying returns using any of a large number of estimation methods, however the number we get is not a price. A price requires two counterparts, a buyer and a seller. Prices are determined by supply and demand. Statistical estimates depend on the time-series and the mathematical structure of the model used. It is a mistake to confuse a price, which implies a transaction, with the result of a statistical estimation which is merely what comes out of a calculation. Implied volatilities are prices: They have been derived from actual transactions. Seen in this light, it should not be surprising that implied volatilities might not conform to what a particular statistical model would predict.

18.        What factors other than risk and return are you interested in when making investment decisions?
Budget constraint, Investment horizon, individual risk tolerance and utility preference, overall financial planning objectives
19.        How do you hedge your portfolio? What is diversification?
In finance, a hedge is a position established in one market in an attempt to offset exposure to the price risk of an equal but opposite obligation or position in another market — usually, but not always, in the context of one's commercial activity.
Diversification in finance is a risk management technique, related to hedging, that mixes a wide variety of investments within a portfolio. It is the spreading out investments to reduce risks.
There are three primary strategies used in improving diversification:
Spread the portfolio among multiple investment vehicles.
Vary the risk in the securities. A portfolio can also be diversified into different mutual fund investment strategies, including growth funds, balanced funds, index funds, small cap, etc.
Vary your securities by industry, or by geography. This will minimize the impact of industry- or location-specific risks.
20.        Please explain "hedge fund" to a person who doesn't know about finance. What is the difference between hedge fund and mutual fund?
Hedge funds as a class invest in a broad range of investments extending over shares, debt, commodities and so forth. Hedge funds often seek to offset potential losses in the principal markets they invest in by hedging their investments using a variety of methods, most notably short selling.
Difference: client base, investment target, regulation difference
Mutual funds are regulated by the SEC, while hedge funds are not
A hedge fund investor must be an accredited investor with certain exceptions
Mutual funds must price and be liquid on a daily basis

21.        Did you take any courses related to asset pricing?
Corporate finance, financial economics, investment, …
22.        Please sum up CAPM. What does beta mean? Why is beta so important? What is the usage of CAPM? What is the limitation of CAPM?
Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) is used to determine a theoretically appropriate required rate of return of an asset, if that asset is to be added to an already well-diversified portfolio, given that asset's non-diversifiable risk. The model takes into account the asset's sensitivity to non-diversifiable risk (also known as systemic risk or market risk), often represented by the quantity beta (β) in the financial industry, as well as the expected return of the market and the expected return of a theoretical risk-free asset.
Assumptions of CAPM:
Aim to maximize economic utility.
Are rational risk-averse.
Are price takers, i.e., they cannot influence prices.
Can lend and borrow unlimited under the risk free rate of interest.
Trade without transaction or taxation costs.
Deal with securities that are all highly divisible into small parcels.
Assume all information is at the same time available to all investors.
Short-comings:
Normal distributed return assumption
Use variance to measure risk
Homogeneous expectation assumption
Assumes that the probability beliefs of investors match the true distribution of returns
Investors choose assets solely as a function of their risk-return profile and it is divisible
23.        What is the relation between CAPM and APT?
The APT along with the capital asset pricing model (CAPM) is one of two influential theories on asset pricing. The APT differs from the CAPM in that it is less restrictive in its assumptions. It allows for an explanatory (as opposed to statistical) model of asset returns. It assumes that each investor will hold a unique portfolio with its own particular array of betas, as opposed to the identical "market portfolio". In some ways, the CAPM can be considered a "special case" of the APT in that the securities market line represents a single-factor model of the asset price, where beta is exposed to changes in value of the market.
Additionally, the APT can be seen as a "supply-side" model, since its beta coefficients reflect the sensitivity of the underlying asset to economic factors. Thus, factor shocks would cause structural changes in assets' expected returns, or in the case of stocks, in firms' profitabilities.
On the other side, the capital asset pricing model is considered a "demand side" model. Its results, although similar to those of the APT, arise from a maximization problem of each investor's utility function, and from the resulting market equilibrium (investors are considered to be the "consumers" of the assets).
24.        Topics in Statistics: mean, variance, skewness, kurtosis, regression, bias, symptotic, …
25.        The basic idea behind calculus

26.        How will you contribute to the class?
27.        What is Brownian Motion? How do you evaluate the relation between Brownian Motion and Stock Price Movement?
In mathematics, the Wiener process is a continuous-time stochastic process named in honor of Norbert Wiener. It is often called Brownian motion, after Robert Brown.
The Wiener process Wt is characterized by three facts:
W0 = 0
Wt is almost surely continuous
Wt has independent increments with distribution  (for 0 ≤ s < t).
N(μ, σ2) denotes the normal distribution with expected value μ and variance σ2. The condition that it has independent increments means that if 0 ≤ s1 ≤ t1 ≤ s 2 ≤ t2 then Wt1 − Ws1 and Wt2 − Ws2 are independent random variables, and the similar condition holds for n increments.
28.        一个好的项目应该用Bond or Equity融资？哪个成本高？项目风险对于融资选择的影响？
取决于公司的资本结构和融资成本。Equity成本高。
29.        What is risk management? What is VaR? (Confidence Level)
Risk management is activity directed towards the assessing, mitigating (to an acceptable level) and monitoring of risks. In businesses, risk management entails organized activity to manage uncertainty and threats and involves people following procedures and using tools in order to ensure conformance with risk-management policies.
VaR is defined as a threshold value such that the probability that the mark-to-market loss on the portfolio over the given time horizon exceeds this value (assuming normal markets and no trading) is the given probability level. A common complaint among academics is that VaR is not subadditive. That means the VaR of a combined portfolio can be larger than the sum of the VaRs of its components.

1.        What is the basic idea in Game Theory? Please briefly explain prisoners’ delimma, Nash equilibrium and the application of Game Theory on oligopoly analysis.

2.        Why does financial market exist?
Financial market is a mechanism that allows people to easily buy and sell (trade) financial securities (such as stocks and bonds), commodities (such as precious metals or agricultural goods), and other fungible items of value at low transaction costs and at prices that reflect the efficient-market hypothesis.
It evolves to raise capital, transfer risks, and facilitate trade and production. To match who want capital with who have it.
3.        How do you see you are related to the crisis? How does the financial crisis affect your motivation of studying finance?
4.        What is micro-economics? What is macro-economics? What is the relation between them?
Microeconomics is a branch of economics that studies how individuals, households and firms and some states make decisions to allocate limited resources, typically in markets where goods or services are being bought and sold. Microeconomics examines how these decisions and behaviours affect the supply and demand for goods and services, which determines prices; and how prices, in turn, determine the supply and demand of goods and services.
Macroeconomics involves the "sum total of economic activity, dealing with the issues of growth, inflation and unemployment, and with national economic policies relating to these issues" and the effects of government actions (such as changing taxation levels) on them.
5.        What is Martingale? Equivalent Martingale Measure? What is the usage of this in financial economics?

Oxford MFE 北京3.17面经


11点半面的, 面试官是oren sussman刚刚进去的时候太紧张，把名字叫错了....想叫mr sussman,然后我的MR生生没有叫出来，就憋出了一个sussman.....然后就小尴尬了一下。整个过程还是比较柔和，没有相像中的那么严肃。除了开始的那个尴尬.....

然后他就问我，你家地址是啥？我就汗了一下....估计是想确认身份吧。

然后就问，你是学物理的拉，问什么要学金融呢？我就说我喜欢金融拉，物理虽然好，但是慢慢的我就不感兴趣了，因为很难有大的成就。然后就说你在XXX工作是吧，做什么工作，给我描述一下，我就扒拉扒拉的说，然后面试官说，你说的太technical了，说一些实际你们做的事情吧，然后我就扒拉扒拉的再说...似乎最后他认为还是过于technical，过于框架了。 然后他接着问，为什么选这个MFE呢？我就给了我的理由，我说我喜欢拉，而且以后想从事扒拉扒拉的工作。可能由于对未来的展望不太一样吧，这个问题被challenge了很久。然后就问，你学过什么金融的东西拉，我说CFA 1及， 自学了一些基础的经济学，还有旁听过别的课。然后就问了一点technical的问题，CAPM, Game theory等等。反正CAPM回答的不是特别好，有一个问题我确实不懂，就是Covariance为啥能够描述风险，书上压根就没提到过这个东西嘛。然后我就巴拉巴拉的解释，最后我和他说我希望能够在牛津弄懂这个问题。好像这次MR sussman的时间特别紧。25分钟的时候告诉我时间差不多了。我就抢着问了两个问题。问了问牛津会不会分班，金融危机对招生有什么影响云云。

然后，就结束了。

面的中不溜的，发发面经攒人品。

大家加油拉，吼吼吼～～～

OXFORD MFE 面经

OXFORD的面试没有传说中的那么恐怖，首先因为考官很nice，电话里听起来他心情很好的样子，好像接到电话很兴奋。心里轻松一下~他先介绍了下面试过程，就开始问了。常规的问题持续了两分钟左右，问学了哪些数学课程，除了数学喜欢哪门课程，然后实习经历。下面就问道专业问题，郁闷的是他全部问了他的interest area, 我都白说了我的兴趣了~

1.关于market microstructure, market maker有两种报价，bid price and the offered price,为什么不只提供一种报价？（我说是market maker 的commission）他说of course,  important reason,接着问如果他不以盈利为目的，为什么两种报价，为什么报价相差这么大

如果做市商遇到一个比他更well-informed的投资者，如何利用差价获得风险补偿(中间还举了个例子)

两个市场，其他条件相同,loose/strict enforced rule,哪种差价会更大，why

两个市场，其他条件相同，high/low turnover,那种差价更大，why

2.关于IPO。为什么issue price 和offering price in Europe and US 会有10%到15%的差价，我从ｒｉｓｋ　ｐｒｅｍｉｕｍ，ｌｅｍｏｎ　ｍａｒｋｅｔ回答他，他不放过我，还问为什么15%,not1%

在IPO定价中投行和公司谁更有话语权，why

IB prefer high/low stock price, why

3.雷曼兄弟破产，美国政府应该让它破产还是应该save的，why

我们如何防止此类事情再次发生(I talked about risk management, globalization, speculation, overdeveloping of financial instruments/derivatives, financial regulation, education of investors)



就一开始有点紧张，开始问专业问题后就进入状态了，完全感觉不到是在面试，更感觉不到非母语，就是像老师给我上课。如果有我说不出来的他会引导我一直到说出来为止。问完之后我跟他说觉得自己发挥不怎么好，因为对IPO不太熟悉，他笑着说没关系，不expect我熟悉。然后我说他们没有从我们学校商学院录取过学生，我希望自己成为第一个，他又笑，我也是笑着说的，说I think Ｉ　ｗｉｌｌ　ｍａｋｅ　ｙｏｕ　ｐｒｏｕｄ．我感觉挺舍不得挂电话的，说和他聊得很开心，然后互相ｔｈａｎｋ　ｙｏｕ，拜拜　挂了后看看时间，面了２８分钟　



觉得自己发挥还不错，听室友说我说的很流利，内容也很多。自己感觉都是被他逼着瞎掰的～面试前贴满周围的名词解释和准备好的关于ｒｉｓｋ　ｍａｎａｇｅｍｅｎｔ，ＣＡＰＭ，ＢＳ，ＭＭ之类的通通没用上，只是低着头拿着只笔在那写他说到的数据。只是没有再研究一下他的方向，太可惜了。不管啦　ｍｏｖｅ　ｏｎ～

[原创]Oxford MFE 12.1.电面面经
申的是Oxford MFE的第一轮，10月20号就把材料弄齐了，然后11月中旬就收到面试的email。本来想约12月3号的，结果被调剂到了1号。于是，我12月的头三天就满满地排了3个面试……

之前看面经，都说Oxford的面试很technical，于是在两个星期的准备过程中，先花了四五天把我所学的那些专业教材过了一遍，包括Corporate Finance，Investments，Money、banking & Financial Markets，International Finance等等。当中着重复习了一下Portfolio Theory，MM Proposition，CAPM，Interest Parity等等我认为比较重要的内容。

然后剩下的一个星期，就开始搜刮网上的各大面经，针对那些经典面试问题准备了份稿子，七八千字啊，不过顺便也把另外两个学校没那么technical的面试准备了。

面我的是Professor Tony Atkinson，一位70多岁的爵士。之前看他的简历，感觉很有压力，他的背景简直是……简单说，就是十几个顶级大学的名誉教授，在很多学术组织和政府经济部门任职（其中我印象最深的是他曾是法国总理的经济顾问小组成员和欧盟的一个什么经济委员会的成员），出过几十本书，发表了200多篇paper……

但是遗憾的是，他的研究方向是西欧国家的political economics和income inequity，与我的Finance完全没交集……这个也在后来的面试过程中验证了……

Oxford真的很牛，一个体现就是他要求我直接打电话给教授，而不是像其他学校一样学校打给我，结果我之前还专门跑到移动营业厅开通了我手机的国际长途业务。

整个下午，都很紧张，不过还好上个星期收到了3个学校的offer，可以拿来保底，压力稍微没那么大。面试的时间是伦敦时间早上10点，我提前了3分钟打过去，貌似Professor Atkinson还没准备好，等了一阵才接的电话。

接下来就开始电面了。

寒暄了两句，他就自我介绍了一番，说他是Professor of Economics Department，responsible for the class of MFE，然后强调说“I am an economist, but not a financial specialist”（听到这句，简直心都凉了，本来我经济学就学得没金融学那些好……），说会有20分钟来问我问题和回答我的疑问，他很nice的提醒我“If you cannot understand me, do please say, because you may be more used to American English than British English”

接着转入正题，说会问一些关于Economic Current的问题。

Q1：How do you see you are related to the crisis? （因为我的PS中写了关于Financial Crisis的东西）结果我没怎么反应过来，他又从另一个角度重复了一遍：How does the financial crisis affect your motivation of studying finance?

我上一个回答提到了RMB的升值对国内企业的负面影响，于是Q2: But the wages in China are still much lower than that in US and UK, right? 我说了一堆，结果他说it is a good answer, but I think it may not solve the problem.（唉，我可怜的经济学）

于是他觉得可能在Economics问不出什么了，就说要ask some questions related to your study in Western China. Q3: You say you see the difference between West and East China, so will the Western China be more competitive under this economic environment?

Q4: What do you learn from studying in the region that is quite different from where you live? In what way is the difference? 这个问题貌似他比较满意。

然后他继续change topic。说看了我的transcript，Q5: Could you tell me what you done in the area of micro economics? 我简单说了一些我经济学学过的内容，说我们专业的economics学得不多，主要focus on finance的课程，希望他问我关于finance的啦。他说其实economics也挺重要的嘛，还说我也学了不少economics啊，比如就学了货币银行学啊，还有一个叫做投资决策分析的课程，问我what’s this?

Q6: Well, what about the macro economics? 我只能硬着头皮说，我们本来economics学得不多，而且还主要学micro的……

Q7: You learnt International Economics, right? Would it include international finance or other topics? 于是我就把这个课程和我从中学到的那些与汇率相关的知识说了一遍。

接着他说了一句让我伤心欲绝的话。I notice you learnt a lot on finance. But I will probably not ask you about that because I did not do much about finance。天啊……

Q8: My next question is about the Econometrics. 他说我学了计量经济学的嘛，Oxford里面4门必修课之一就是Financial Econometric，不过这门课也需要不少statistics的知识啊。我说，我也学了概率论和统计学的，我觉得我到时学这个，在数学方面没问题啊。

然后终于结束专业问题了。接下来问了一个面经上面的问题Q9: What do you think is the most challenging problem if you study in Oxford? 终于问到一个我充分准备过的问题了……他建议我如果被录取了最好在开学之前提早来学校，适应一下环境等等。他还问我之前有没有出过国啊，我说没有啊，他说，这个对你来说也是一个很大的挑战啊，我说是啊是啊。

到此一共15分钟。接着就是我问问题时间了。问了他两个问题，其中提到他曾是Nuffield College的Warden啊。他似乎挺高兴的，说你之前做了不少功课哦，哈哈。我一共问了他两个问题，然后看着就到20分钟了，就说I have no more questions了。

最后他说，他们会尽快给我答复啊，nice talking to you啊，have a good day啊，就挂机了。

总体感觉，Professor Atkinson人很好，没有我想象中英国爵士的那种高高在上。虽然不少问题我确实回答得不好，我前几分钟也经常听不懂他说什么，但是这20分钟还是聊的挺愉快的。但是，我准备的finance的东西，他一个都没问……当然，他也没有问一些他所研究的与我毫不相关的欧洲political economics和income inequity的东西。

    第一个电面算是结束了，好好睡一觉，明天后天继续奋斗Vanderbilt和CWRU。希望能够对接下来12月3号、10号、12号面的同志有帮助啦

[原创]Oxford MFE 12月3日面经。Andrew Patton

前天本来写好的，无奈系统超时，写的东西都没了，今天才找到时间重写。

面试官：Andrew Patton，Australian，Brochure里小辫的那个。76年人，刚刚从LSE跳槽到OX，主要研究方向：金融计量，对冲基金

面试人：财务管理小本，在essay里说的喜欢的方向是valuation and asset pricing

Ox那边GMT8.30

北京下午4.30

第一遍打过去的时候，那边说听不清楚，又打了一遍。我用的是铁通的17955？的IP卡，一般报亭都有卖，100面值的24元，打英国每分钟3.2，可以绑定在座机和手机上。

对方的口音有点怪，不过整个全程跟下来倒没什么大问题

1 General Qs

先问这学期学什么课程，我说高级财务管理，说了三遍才说对。然后问学了什么，我就说财务战略，包括资本结构安排，股利，筹融资，然后还有兼并收购；他没什么评论，就说：哇，勾起了我遥远的回忆。后来似乎是要证明自己学过公司理财的意思似的，想了个Dividend Signaling来跟我讨论，我高度紧张下的表现就是巨没有逻辑，总之就糊糊过去了。他也没有深究。

然后问我在ASB的交换经历。问怎么样，照例是说了两句。然后他问我学什么，我说应该算是general business study, 他表示赞同。

2 CAPM

说下面我问你CAPM，你学过吧。

嗯，你说说在哪里可以用？我就主要围绕公司估值和项目投资决策说

然后说公式是什么，如何根据数据推出来

然后问有什么缺陷？我提到它有很多Objectional的假设，提到了EMH，就问EMH是什么

后来我觉得那边没反应就赶紧加句说CAPM的很多缺陷恰恰是APT的优势，他就问说APT是什么啊？狂晕，我就赶紧道歉啊，说我不该用缩写，那天也客气了半天。。。

3 Statistics

他说觉得我数学背景还是弱一点，所以他们要问些问题来证实下，他说比较简单

a.       how do you estimate the mean of a variable? 我当时一下子概念不清，就说分点估计和区间估计啊，真水。他纠正说，我是说一个变量，比如从X1到X20；我就说那加起来除20啊，他说可以吧，后来就没怎么深究，但是我心里很忐忑了，现在想来，真的是概念不清啊，也没说要考虑X的分布

b.       什么是unbiased。很费劲才说清楚

c.       然后说你刚刚说那种算法是unbiased吗？

d.       The variance of beta hat. 我不知道有没有听清楚问题，总觉得不应该跳这么快，因为之前好像没提回归的问题。不过我回答时候就当这个来答了。计量里面这个是很基础的了。只不过在给他叙述公式的时候说不清楚，特别是分母的离差平方和，当时没想到deviation这个单词，恨不得跟他说把x减去x均值的平方加起来，所以叙述的不清楚。

4 然后就是我问问题的时间了

我问了他Ox跟LSE的那个项目的对比，哪个更career-oriented些，他说好像OX会。我说Ox是不是有CFA的培训课程，他问我什么是CFA啊，我说我是不是不该用缩写啊？

总体感觉：难受。这边说完了那边没什么反应，两个人都在那儿客气。还有他对我说的兴趣方向研究不多，然后他的计量他担心我承受不住也不敢问太多。第三部分答的不好。

希望7号和12号面的同志们加油，一切顺利。

Oxford MFE 面经

可能有点晚了，刚刚拿到offer,把面试的经验拿出来跟大家分享一下。

Interviewer是 Alan Morrison，照片上看是个很smart的人，结果没想到面试时穿着很随便的毛衣，头发乱乱的，看起来刚睡醒的样子，不过人很好，不会给你压迫感。

我是早上9点半的面试，大概15分钟就结束了，那天面试的人大多都是10-20分钟。

几乎没有general questions。

Q: What modules have you taken in your third year?
A:  Econometrics, financial economics, Research in Applied economics......

Q: What have you learned from Financial Economics?
A:  corporate finance，capital structure.....(其实我这门课没去听过，因为和另外的课时冲撞了，所以都是用第二年学的finance蒙过去的）

Q: What do you think is the most important development in capital structure over the past 50 years?
M&M theory, 然后具体说了一遍MM(1958) and MM(1960) ，不过忘了personal taxation的部分了。然后他就一直问personal taxation对investment choice的影响,直到我终于想起来才放过我

Debt to Equity Swap（具体忘了是什么了，只记得没学过不会回答，然后他一直在引导，直到我答对了）

Q: What are your future career planning after you return to China? (问这题的原因是我personal statement里有提到要回国）
A:  probably central banks(突然想不到临时编的）

Q: Why do you want to go to central banks?
A:  Because financial industry is fast developing and as the Chinese financial industry still have some problems, it is a great opportunity for me to contribute and succeed.

Q: What problems does the financial industry face?
A:  poor governance of banks. Large scale of Non-performing debt due to the support to state owned enterprises.

Q: What strategies could the banks take to solve this problem?
A:  Debt to Equity swap (从报纸上看来的，所以我很明确的告诉他我也不清楚具体是怎么回事，怕他再往下问）

Q: Why do state owned enterprises perform badly?
A:  Lack of incentive to increase productivity as government

Q: Do you think privatisation is a good idea and do you think investors welcome privatisation and invest in these companies?
A: Yes. Although the state owned companies are making losses, they have factories and equipments which could make profit is well managed.

Q: What do you think is the most challenging part of this course?
后来我出来又问了一下别人，打算读PhD的都会问到研究方向。还有一个问题我觉得比较难回答的是‘Why does financial market exist?' 当时那个人没答上来，Alan就问了些别的问题，大概过了5分钟又绕回来问，所以回答的时候一定要尽量想可能的答案然后说出来，错了的话他会纠正你，并且把你引导会正确的方向。
我记得的大概就这么多，还有一些细节上的专业问题有点忘了，希望对大家有帮助

[原创]MFE in Oxford Said Business School 面试经验

面试我的是一个希腊的教授，在网站上和Brochure上看到照片，看上去开朗可爱。在MFE的项目里做主课的老师，在雅典COLLEGE读了以后又在YALE拿了BA，MA，MPhil，和PHD的学位，之后在LSE也担任过成员，在OXFORD教书，而且是EDMUND HALL的成员，在BANK OF ENGLAND做每周一次的金融顾问。

OXFORD的面试在我之前的多方了解下是很难的，网络上到处传着OXFORD和CAMBRIDGE的面试有多么恐怖。因此也做好了足够的准备，为了面试准备足足两个星期，这几天都很辛苦，然而梦想在那里，为了把握住这次机会，我甘愿牺牲我所能牺牲的。

面试是在同班的一个同学那里（他也与我同一天顺利拿到了这个OFFER，呵呵我们班很牛：p），借了他房间的固定电话打的，因为自己对国际长途太有信心了，本来以为肯定没问题而且自己打电话给美国让ETS送分让PEARSON送分都没问题，可是那天居然出状况！给英国打总说我无权使用该号码！我当时快疯了，眼看着时间一分一秒过去，我的电话还没拨成功。我很急，真的很着急，现在想来那时候都好害怕。因为这第一印象已经毁了，奇怪的是不知道后来怎么又打通了。虽然一直道歉但显然教授已经等了很久。。。

整个面试其实只有20分钟左右，又加上我迟到了几分钟。教授问了BACKGROUND，MATH，PLAN AFTER MASTER，等等，还问了我们全英班的金融经济学什么教材，这些泛泛的问题只用1分多钟来提问，甚至不给我多解释的时间，特别赶的样子，我一句话还没答完他已经紧接问下一个问题，总之十分紧凑。之后就开始像出考卷一样出面试题目。关于定义等的问了CAPM，ARBITRAGE，也问了我们DERIVATIVE方面的知识是怎么教的，之后就是连续几道题问我怎样做投资和定价。总之，根据我和我们班其他申请这个PROGRAM的同学的经验，尽量要多研究那个要面试你的教授的研究方向，比如我那个也拿到OFFER的同学被问到的就是IPO和SPREAD方面。总而言之，真功夫和应变能力就是在这一时刻体现的。我之前准备的面试材料里搜集了这个教授所有的论文，全部浏览过（虽然的确超级难的。。。），其他准备的是一些金融的常识，时事金融，以及金融经济学核心方面的材料和最新的一些研究趋势。还要提醒一下，如果有他们的brochure，尽量多看看，里面有他们需要招收怎样的人的标准，对照一下看自己是不是达到这个标准，我在准备面试的时候仔细一条一条对照过，所以对自己还是很有信心的：）

当时面试太紧张了，主要是打电话迟到了。一直在流冷汗，心里流。虽然他都会说excellent,但我总觉得这样的excellent好象是例行公事给我一点信心。所以还是心里发毛。一些知识点没有准备，问起来的时候感觉脑子里那么几点零星的东西浮现就把它们全倒出来给教授，然后就等他来评判。

ANYWAY，就好象很多朋友跟我说的，这是一场经历，宝贵的经历，之后再遇到任何的面试都不怕了。虽然那些GENERAL的问题没有太多问，但这两个多礼拜以来我所学到的东西，总结的东西，也许比我四年来的任何一个学期的收获都要多。

所以我要感谢这个机会，真心感谢！PS：这个项目应该是基本没奖学金的，还没有仔细看过申请的步骤，英国的奖学金会比较难。

写下这篇面经，与大家共勉：）还是那句老话，大家梦想成真！飞跃成功！

附加上我的背景（好多都在问）：

普通大学本科金融，全英班，GPA：3.6，GMAT不高，GRE也就马马虎虎，不过两个分数的Q部分都是满分，TOEFL 620+，参加过国际性大学生商业类比赛，区域第一全国第三，有leadership经验，帮教授做过两个项目，有四次实习经历，两次是在金融机构。其他的就是些兴趣爱好得奖之类了。我只能说，在硬的方面我可能与其他的candidate不能比，但是在其他方面比如personality，experience和potential，我认为作为一所世界一流的大学，会综合看待每一个candidate的qualification。当然，面试发挥也是至关重要的。

在申请OXFORD之前，我曾经因为母亲反对而想过放弃，她说太高难度了。但后来一个朋友鼓励我，让我去冲，我就鼓起勇气去冲刺，You never know what would happen next second!

想对说的是，相信自己，如果你觉得你适合这个学校，你足够的qualified,就去挑战自己吧！年轻人，现在不搏何时搏呢？

暂搁笔，Best wishes to all of you!