SIPA requires applicants to furnish a professional and quantitative resume. This blog post offers guidance on creating a quantitative resume, including tips on making the most of this component of your application.

You may be wondering “What is a quantitative resume?” For our Office, a quantitative resume is a tool that helps the Committee evaluate a candidate’s previous quantitative background. The coursework at SIPA is notably quant-heavy; four of the eight (or nine for MIAs) Core courses are quantitative in nature. We want to ensure our students are in the best shape to tackle SIPA’s quantitative coursework.

Forget me not

Many applicants are surprised to learn about the quantitative resume requirement for all applicants. Instructions on completing the resume are found within the Application Portal. There’s even a sample quantitative resume for you to follow. This two-column format is preferred, as it helps our readers assess each applicant uniformly. An application lacking a quantitative resume is incomplete, preventing the Committee to arrive at a well-informed decision. Don’t forget the quant resume!

Be consistent

No component in your application sits in isolation. In fact, the Committee considers all parts of your application to gain a greater sense of who you are. That said, make sure your quantitative resume supports the other components found in your application. Engineers, mathematicians, economists, scientists, and other general nerds coming from a rigorous quantitative background should have a longer-than-average quantitative resume. That’s cool! Perhaps the less numerically-gifted will have shorter resumes. That’s cool, too! These resumes help showcase who you are. Own it!

Also, check for consistency when reporting grades on the resume. It’s a bit odd when an applicant reports earning a B in microeconomics, but the transcript indicates earning a C.

The Devil is in the Detail

When it comes to the quantitative resume, we know we’re asking a lot. From short descriptions of the course down to the textbook one used, we value the work and detail poured into your resume. These details help establish a baseline understanding of the concepts covered in class, and can easily be found in the course syllabus. There is no need to copy and paste the entire document; just the textbooks and a few lines about the topics taught will suffice. If locating your syllabus proves truly difficult, find a syllabus of the current equivalent course taught at your institution. We truly appreciate the legwork put forth to complete this resume, and we hope it will pay off upon matriculation into SIPA.