PhD finance : School feedback

[GoIllini]

Originally Posted by joetheplumber

I checked out his CV...looks like Edman's was an IB analyst at MS for 2 years. These jobs usually involve slaving over excel and powerpoint for 18 hours a day. Although a testament to work ethic, I think that such a position doesn't really prepare you much for academic research.

It really depends. Not all analysts at banks are investment banking analysts. My friends who were research analysts at a bulge bracket like MS certainly had a different experience- some of them were even working with the quants to help develop algorithmic pricing models for the firm's research clients. Also, if you're going into industry, a job as a professional is the kind of practice you want to get earlier in your career where mistakes are still tolerated a little more rather than when you're 30 and people assume you won't make 22-year-old mistakes.

Well I never said I have spoken to the people at Top5..I just emailed some people related to certain Phd programs and tried to find some info related to work-ex on the internet....and the "overwhelming opinion" and not the universal opinion is that work ex hardly count.The reason is that a lot of people who work in say technology or even finance are not doing any mathematical and theoretical work.They just doing good professional work. This is why we see a lot of Ivy league people straight out of school who are being accepted at some of the top Finance programs. Unfortunately, an Ivy league seems to matter the most if you look at the recent pool of admitted candidates.

Schools do accept a lot of people with work experience, but that's because these guys get a top league MBA after their professional life and they are accepted on the basis of their MBA.

Where I've worked, we've tried hiring PhDs with no work experience in the past and it hasn't always gone that well, so they now favor people with professional experience. The same is true for a lot of financial institutions. If I were applying to a Finance PhD program that didn't care about professional experience, I'm not sure I'd want to go there. It means that my school doesn't know what it takes to get its graduates hired into industry.

Finally, even if you graduate from a top-notch program, that doesn't mean every door will be open to you and work experience won't matter. If you want to go into industry, my view is that it's very good to get some sort of professional experience before you go back to school. That's not to say you have to work at a hedge fund or do IPOs before grad school; two years at the same job (you can be a bank teller) will do. The PhD tells them you're brilliant; the work experience tells them you won't flake out.

[dhr]

Well guys,

Lots of debate I saw here regarding whether work experience counts or not.

I can say with certainty that "Work Experience in Relevant Field Does Count"
I have received a umber of emails from various universities and I also have visited a few, and I found that work experience in "Relevant Field" counts.

[Elisa Pandey]

Originally Posted by dhr

Well guys,

Lots of debate I saw here regarding whether work experience counts or not.

I can say with certainty that "Work Experience in Relevant Field Does Count"
I have received a umber of emails from various universities and I also have visited a few, and I found that work experience in "Relevant Field" counts.

Thanks Dhr, u r saying with certainty that "work experience does count". The posts should be like yours, i mean post what u know, and don't post based totally on guess.

And also, I found in TM that, some people are trying to discourage others. So, nice GPA, good work experience in relevant field and GMAT 700+, still someone says that you can not get admission. Then think, for whom the Universities are?

[PhDCPA]

Actually, it's very common for people with nice GPAs, good work experience, and 700+ GMATs to get rejected from top schools. Many applications have these qualifications, and acceptance rates are well below 10%, sometimes even as low as 2%. So, there are no sure things.

[imran626]

Its not that you cannot get admission in a Phd Finance program. But so many people here talk about getting into the top 10-15 programs only, which we know are fiercely competitive. If you are not determined about getting into a solid program then you don't have to worry about competing against people with strong math/econ background. I agree with PhDCPA that so many people with good scores and academics fail to get into the good programs. Also, applicant numbers are up by around 40% this time.

However, I do think that one can get into some of the programs if one is not too fixated on the top ones and focuses on the medium to lower ranked ones.

[imran626]

The universities have a way of being so ambiguous so that they don't end up discouraging applicants. Even if you ask a school such as Wharton or Stern, they will always say "we take every thing about you under consideration".They want everyone to apply so that they get more application money and have a great admin statistic to boast of later by rejecting our a**.

The thing is what is "relevant work ex"? I would totally agree that a quant work at Goldman or a researcher at The Fed where one was involved in building financial/economic models(not the ones which blew away in the wake of the crisis) would have a great shot at one of the top programs.

However, I haven't seen folks like that at TM so unless they are hidden, most of em are not here. Most folks here have worked, like me, in a regular 9 to 5 job which won't add significant value to the app.

[PhDfinanceAspi]

Hi,
gave my gmat yesterday.. got a score of 700... do i have any chance in schools such as rochester, purdue, indiana, illinois-urbana, ohio state?