MBA = Ph.D. ???

[Majid]

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Hi all.

Doesn't it sound strange? Of course it does. But this is what an expert student advisor said to me. I still do not believe it that is why I am putting this in front of you.

I am 21 years old, Pakistani Nationality holder, male, resident in Pakistan. I completed my HSSC (Higher Secondary School Certificate) in 1999. After that I did Bachelors of Commerce (1999 - 2001, CGPA 3.4) from the most famous Pakistani university: University of the Punjab. That was the completion of my 14 (10+2+2) years of formal education.

After my B.Com., I completed 2 years' BBA (Hons) at Muhammad Ali Jinnah University, Islamabad earlier this year with CGPA once again 3.4. Now I am about to get my MBA degree by January 2004 from the same university.

My advisor, an experienced man working in American Center Education Desk in Islamabad, said that after almost 17 years of formal education, including 5 years of higher commerce and business administration studies, I am eligible for applying for Ph.D. programme of a good American university if I score well in CBT TOEFL and CAT GMAT.

What do you say? What if I do not complete my MBA here, do I have chances of admission in MBA in North America? (I have been thinking so to concentrate on some other short but urgent projects).
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[myun]

hi majid, you are young with lots of potential! As far as I know, toptier B-school in USA would want you to have a few years work experience before you apply to their MBA programmes. Other than that, I don't know much about MBA admission process. When it comes to PhD programmes, you don't need work experience, but a prior graduate degree (MS or MBA) with a focus on quantitative subjects would be a plus. Of course, there is a big difference between MBA and PhD; PhD is for academic research/teaching.

[Majid]

Do you think that a 5 years experience (this year full time, earlier just helped) of personal business would be acceptable?
Anyways, I intend Ph.D. in E-Biz or IT. That will run in the track of MBA but win like a Ph.D.[}]

[myun]

majid, as I said before, your work experience will probably not affect your chance to get into a PhD programme, but your MBA transcript + research experience + recommendation letters will. For MBAs, I think I heard that part-time experience does not count in the admission process.

As to your actual chance to get into a PhD programme in the US, that depends on lots of things, especially what levels of schools you want to apply to...

[thaiva]

Hey Majid,

I fully agree with myun's advice. That your actual chance to get into a PhD programme in the US, that depends on lots of things, especially what levels of schools you want to apply to...

Best Of Luck,


Tim

[Majid]

Thank you myum and thaiva. Your advice is definitely cool. I am working on finding institutes that could accept my burden. My details are given here, could you please suggest me an institute or two?

[myun]

hi majid, I don't know much about MBA admission. But in case of PhD in business and management, you would be better of having had a strong background in econ + math with high grades in these subjects. I feel that the info you gave is not enough for me to make a suggestion on the kind of schools you should shoot for. But if you want to see the range of schools purely based on your GPA against the average GPA of admitted PhD students, then you should see the individual websites of the schools and look for the admission stats there, or look up some book on Bschool admission stats.

Beware that PhD stats are not easily available, but they are normally higher than MBA stats and very competitive. For eg, admitted students at toptier B-schools routinely have average undergrad GPA somewhat higher than 3.5 and graduate GPA even higher! And I can only believe that their econ and math average GPA's are significantly higher than that. BUT then again these are simple stats, and there may be a wide spectrum of admitted students there, and it depends on the specialisation and your research experience + referece letters and of course GMAT score.

Good luck!

[kedar_a]

Hi Myun,

I just read that u got accpeted at INSEAD and UCLA for PhD. Congrats on that.
I tried to access various school websites for PhD candiate profile but I cant get information from website. The only possible way is to email the candidates and take their opinion but I am not sure how that will go[V] ? So can u suggest me some place where I will get this information.
About my preparation, I am planing for GMAT in Oct first week. I hope i will score better.

Thanks for Help

Kedar

Originally posted by myun

hi majid, I don't know much about MBA admission. But in case of PhD in business and management, you would be better of having had a strong background in econ + math with high grades in these subjects. I feel that the info you gave is not enough for me to make a suggestion on the kind of schools you should shoot for. But if you want to see the range of schools purely based on your GPA against the average GPA of admitted PhD students, then you should see the individual websites of the schools and look for the admission stats there, or look up some book on Bschool admission stats.

Beware that PhD stats are not easily available, but they are normally higher than MBA stats and very competitive. For eg, admitted students at toptier B-schools routinely have average undergrad GPA somewhat higher than 3.5 and graduate GPA even higher! And I can only believe that their econ and math average GPA's are significantly higher than that. BUT then again these are simple stats, and there may be a wide spectrum of admitted students there, and it depends on the specialisation and your research experience + referece letters and of course GMAT score.

Good luck!

[myun]

For those interested in PhD programmes in B-schools, here is a list of sites which quote the admin stats from some of the toptier Bschools:

http://www.haas.berkeley.edu/Phd/apply_1.html
http://www-1.gsb.columbia.edu/doctor...ions/faqs.html
http://www.fuqua.duke.edu/admin/phd/phd_facts.html
http://www.wharton.upenn.edu/doctoral/faqs/index.html
http://www.stern.nyu.edu/phd/admissions/stats/
http://www.kellogg.nwu.edu/doctoral/...statistics.htm
http://www.hbs.harvard.edu/doctoral/...ons/index.html

As you can see, a couple of them do not give the actual numbers and half of them do not mention the average GPAs. But they all seem to share similar profiles; in fact, the admission statistics (of scores) does not seem to vary much from one school to another, although there is occasional deviation (probably within a standard deviation, i.e., statistically not meaningful) since ALL of them enroll only about 15 to 30 students per year out of 600 to 1000 applicants. Again, there are many other factors that are hidden behind the statistics, and the high GPA and GMAT scores alone is not enough in most cases although there is a general correlation between competitiveness and the GPA/GMAT scores. I would assume that high GPA/GMAT works as an eye-catcher for admission committee, but after that, the decision depends on other non-quantitative quality of the applicants such as SOP/reference letters/research potential. Hope that helped.

[myun]

Oops, I missed the most important site :

http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/program...d/adm/faqs.htm