I really appreciate all of your replies. I want to apply for some Finance Ph.D program in 2009. I have contacted some people who told me that the competition is fierce. UIUC only admitted 6 out of 250 applicants and OSU admitted 4 last year. I am really worried about my background.
Under: Biology, non-us university
GPA: 3.7/4.0 (2nd in my department)
Grad: Ag.Econ, some university ranks 80 in the United States
GPA: 4.0/4.0
I took Microeconomics, Finance Management, Corporate Finance, Econometrics, Decision Making, Linear Programming, Managerial Economics, Marketing in the past two semesters. I plan to take some Ph.D level finance/econ courses such as Seminar in Finance, Math and Economics, Time Series Econometrics and Asset Pricing in the next two semesters before graduation.
SOP: I could write a good one
Recommendations: I will get someone who knows me well and will highly recommend me. However, they are not well-known.
Research: it contains some finance elements, but not real finance. Most of the time, I use simulation and linear or non linear programming. I hope something could be published before I graduate.
Due to not so strong background, I really want to improve my profile before November. I guess the reasonable and achievable options would be to do more research and get a higher GRE/GMAT score. Guys, do you have any suggestion for me? Thanks.