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NewBoston · 2009 June 27th, 11:07 AM

I think this may fall into the bad news category. As you must know, this community is rather small. If someone at the institution you apply to emails a friend/coauthor/acquaintance at your old institution, there could be problems. Although this may not be a huge issue for an incoming class of 20+ students, when only 1-3 are taken for an average Finance program, you have a problem as most schools really do their homework before sending out admits.

However, all is not lost. There is still the chance a school may not dig deeper into ‘personal reasons’ for leaving. Alternatively, you may apply to an Econ program or some other program with a large entering body where there simply isn’t a lot of time to do complete due diligence for every student. Unfortunately, since you have already done so much at the PhD level, you will still stand out from the rest of an applicant pool and that will bring questions. Alternatively, there are some industry jobs for people ABD in Finance which can be rather academic in nature. Some employers will not be pleased, but others will not care, especially if you get a CFA or aspire to get one.

At the end of the day, I am not on any ad com, so what I say is by no means the final word. You may want to contact a department or two and see what they think about taking someone with your level of preparation. You will probably want to sit down and figure out a few good answers to obvious questions they would ask beforehand. Most importantly, figure out exactly how much information you want to put out there about your situation and how exactly you want to spin it. Do not lie at any time…this is important. However, I am sure you can truthfully relate this story in a way that puts you in a good light. There will be a few departments who take the view that life is too short to make such a gamble. Do not bother applying to them. However, I am sure there are other departments out there who are willing to take the risk.

Finally, you might also look at a few Australian programs where the PhD is a matter of writing a dissertation with little to no coursework requirements. If you could demonstrate you could put a solid piece of research together in a reasonable amount of time, this may be sufficient for such programs.

Good luck.

2009 June 27th, 11:07 AM	#7 (permalink)
NewBoston Dynamic Optimizer Join Date: Feb 2009 Posts: 104	I think this may fall into the bad news category. As you must know, this community is rather small. If someone at the institution you apply to emails a friend/coauthor/acquaintance at your old institution, there could be problems. Although this may not be a huge issue for an incoming class of 20+ students, when only 1-3 are taken for an average Finance program, you have a problem as most schools really do their homework before sending out admits. However, all is not lost. There is still the chance a school may not dig deeper into ‘personal reasons’ for leaving. Alternatively, you may apply to an Econ program or some other program with a large entering body where there simply isn’t a lot of time to do complete due diligence for every student. Unfortunately, since you have already done so much at the PhD level, you will still stand out from the rest of an applicant pool and that will bring questions. Alternatively, there are some industry jobs for people ABD in Finance which can be rather academic in nature. Some employers will not be pleased, but others will not care, especially if you get a CFA or aspire to get one. At the end of the day, I am not on any ad com, so what I say is by no means the final word. You may want to contact a department or two and see what they think about taking someone with your level of preparation. You will probably want to sit down and figure out a few good answers to obvious questions they would ask beforehand. Most importantly, figure out exactly how much information you want to put out there about your situation and how exactly you want to spin it. Do not lie at any time…this is important. However, I am sure you can truthfully relate this story in a way that puts you in a good light. There will be a few departments who take the view that life is too short to make such a gamble. Do not bother applying to them. However, I am sure there are other departments out there who are willing to take the risk. Finally, you might also look at a few Australian programs where the PhD is a matter of writing a dissertation with little to no coursework requirements. If you could demonstrate you could put a solid piece of research together in a reasonable amount of time, this may be sufficient for such programs. Good luck.