Graduate School

The student didn’t start with the classic finance resume.

A computer science major at Swarthmore. No business degree. No finance internships. Just clean code, a quiet mind and a fierce game of tennis.

But at OPUS, we saw something hidden beneath the surface: an engineer who could not only build algorithms but think like a strategist.

First, we deepened his domain credibility-pushing him to develop and publish a hybrid AI model called MVO-TDQN, which merged reinforcement learning with mean-variance optimization for portfolio construction. He didn’t just ode for output. He asked deeper questions:

• What if portfolio algorithms could adapt to user risk preferences?
• What if ESF, geopolitics, or volatility indices could be baked in?
• How could crypto markets be accounted for using temporal models?

With our guidance, he connected this project to a larger vision: building a low-cost, AI-powered wealth management platform that could democratize financial planning - especially for those excluded from private banking.

We helped him refine his story.

He wasn’t just a tennis player. He was someone who’d fought for equity since high school-donating his AI competition prize money and internship savings to help a friend afford college. Later, watching retail investors suffer in the Luna/Terra collapse, he realized his purpose wasn’t medicine or theory. It was building tools that could protect everyday people.

We helped him frame this as systems-driven impact-where finance, computing, and ethics intersect.

MIT saw what we saw: Not just a coder. Not just a quant. But a visionary: someone ready to build the next generation of inclusive financial infrastructure.

We proudly placed the student at the University of Pennsylvania in 2023. Through our continued guidance and mentorship, she successfully transferred into the Wharton School in 2025 - one of the world’s permier undergraduate business programs, with internal acceptance rate of 10%.