Graduate / The proseminars in particular attract me. Seeking an advice on Personal Statement for MIT Sloan MFin [7]

Hi,

I am currently applying the Master of Finance program in MIT. I need to submit a statement answering the 3 questions below, and they have set a word limit for 500 words. I drafted my personal statement but I found it hard to reduce it to 500 words. Do you have any suggestions on what part I should cut? And in general do you have any advice on the content in the personal statement? I appreciate if you could give some advice on my essay. And sorry for that as I dont want this application to be searchable so I hide some names of some relevant institutions.

Thank you and happy new year!

Essay: The mission of the Master of Finance program at MIT Sloan is to create the next generation of principled, global financial leaders with state-of-the-art training in modern finance theories and methods. Our program attracts the best and brightest students who go on to advance financial management practice and improve the world. Please draw upon experiences from the past three years. (...)

practical experience opportunity in MIT program

My draft:

Dear Sir / Madam,

I have been fond of making investment since I was young. One of the aspects of investment, especially in the area of proprietary trading, that I find most interesting is its application of knowledge from other areas of discipline like statistics, mathematics or even politics. This reinforces my belief that my excellent exposure to different aspects of knowledge and strong logical thinking ability make me well-suited to this industry.

During my undergraduate years, I have been awarded 5 scholarships and Students' Academic Excellence Award, passed the CFA level one exam, and got excellent grades in all the courses. One of the major accomplishments in my undergraduate degree was that I was selected as a portfolio manager of the [name of the school fund], managed a US$1 Million portfolio. With the efforts of me and 4 research analysts I led, I beat the market by 20% in terms of annual return. The systematic learning and experience cultivated my logical thinking ability, and they had laid a solid foundation for my further study on finance.

While my hard work and critical thinking ability have brought me to a higher level of academic accomplishment, my work experience will surely enhance my candidacy for graduate studies at MIT. In 2014, I spent three months in [name of a property research company], a company providing research of mainland China property sector for both buy-side and sell-side clients. As an intern there, I am enlightened on investment research by the team and it was my first time to publish a research report to sell-side and buy-side clients. After graduating from [name of a university], I began my career in finance field in [name of an Big 4 audit firm], and joined a CNY10 Billion Chinese fund afterwards, accumulated experience in financial accounting and investment research. The successful execution of every task allowed me to have a more profound understanding of investment, broaden my horizons and strengthen my confidence.

I aim to join a proprietary trading firm or the trading department of a bank as a trader after graduation. Within 3 years, I target to achieve more than 30% of annual return, which is the industry average. In the long-term, I aim to improve in the return to 50% in 5 to 10 years and have a bigger portfolio to run. As my academic and work experience focus on the fundamental research side of investment, I relatively lack the knowledge on the quantitative research side to be a successful trader. The courses in the Capital Markets or the Financial Engineering concentrations of the program will certainly be beneficial.

People around the world often misunderstand traders as the greedy ones who just buy and sell on market and contribute no real production to society. But in fact traders are contributing to one thing that is of utmost importance to society, which is market efficiency. The investments reward good companies and penalize bad companies, allocating monetary resources to better places. I believe my aim of being a trader, together with my leadership skills shown in my management of my school fund mentioned above, are consistent with the mission of MIT Sloan.

The outstanding academic reputation of MIT, mingled with its diverse environment, creates an opportunity for growth that is second to none. The proseminars in particular attract me as they will equip me for practical experience and enable me to build industry network with all the leading experts participated in the seminars. In all, I'm looking forward to embarking upon this rewarding and insightful academic pursuit and contributing my unique and diverse experiences to this vibrant learning environment. I believe that my commitment qualify me as an excellent candidate for your program. Thank you for your consideration.

Yours faithfully,

[name]