Profile Evaluation PhD Marketing 2015 Admisions

[Maria7]

Hi There,

 

I am an international student and currently applying for PhD programs in marketing. Hope you guys can help evaluate my profile.

 

 

Research Interest - Consumer Behavior: e.g., how surrounding events influence our purchase decisions

 

 

Undergrad - B.E in Electronics Engineering GPA: 3.55/4.00 (top 5% out of 300+ students)

 

 

Graduate - MBA, marketing concentration (not from a business school in USA) GPA: 3.4/4.00

 

 

GRE - 312 (V:154 Q: 158)

 

 

Research Experience - I have done research during my MBA on 1> Marketing strategy to improve customer footfall and sales; 2> Developed a market entry strategy for new product launch - Mobile TV within the Indian market.

 

 

Work Experience - Overall 8 yrs of work experience; 6 yrs in Service Management Consulting - developing customer processes, designing workflows to create smooth handoffs between different business units; and 2.5 years as software engineer.

 

 

letter of recommendation - Getting two letters; One is from a professor of Engineering in my graduate program, the other is from my supervisor in one of the firms I worked as a Process Research and Consultantancy.

 

 

I am worried that my GRE is too low for a university to even consider me. Also my profile is not striking enough. Please give me your advice. Which universities should I target? Your help will be greatly appreciated.

 

thanks in advance

[sb29]

1. Yes your GRE is low. I think it is 63 %ile for V and 71 %ile for Q. You need to hit at least 90th percentile (an equivalent of 700 in GMAT) to be even in the consideration set.

2. Your MBA research is not relevant to the kind of research done in academics. Read a lot of papers from Journal of Consumer Research and Journal of Consumer Psychology to understand what the field is all about.

3. LORs should *always* be from professors (preferably research active professors).

 

Finally, why do you want to do a PhD? If it is to get into academics and teach, your experience and profile is well suited for an FPM from IIMs. The placement that you will get after FPM will take into consideration your long work experience. If your main focus is to do research, you should take care of the above points. Additionally, you may consider spending a year doing RA kind of tasks for some research active professor at ISB or IIMs. but even if that is not possible, take care of the points I mentioned above before applying.

[XanthusARES]

My opinion: There are a lot of programs out there, so if you are applying to lower ranked programs, (outside of top 75), you may get in somewhere, however you need to have 3 LOR's preferably from academic references. See below for a more detailed review.

 

I'm going to assume that your GPA from your MBA is either miscalculated or that there are things about it which I just don't understand. With that being said, if it really does translate to a 3.4, that will keep you out of a lot of programs.

 

Your research interests seem broad and that's fine for this point. Make sure you speak specifically to the type of research you want to do in your SOP (i.e. experimental, field studies, qualtitative, modelling). Your previous "research" experience won't count for anything, but honestly I would argue most people don't have specific research experience before applying so you're not out of the loop from that perspective.

 

As Strong Bad mentioned you need to have LOR's from academic references. More importantly, though, most schools ask for 3 references, so you'll need to get another one. There is ongoing debate about having an industry reference, my two cents is this, if you have two academic and one industry, it probably won't kill your application. However, it is always preferable to have 3 academic.

 

It is also imperative that you answer the question of why you want to do a PhD? My honest feedback is that nothing stands out from your application. I don't quite understand why you want to do a PhD, and I'm afraid that may come across in your applications. Obviously there is a huge difference between writing a random post online and writing your SOP, so I assume that you have more clearly articulated your interests in your SOP.

 

If SB's %ages are correct in relation to your GRE, yes it is too low for most top programs. You'll need an overall around 90% to be competitive. Nothing is definitive, though, and if you don't get that 3rd rec, your application won't even be looked at.

 

Oh yeah and if you are applying this year please post your profile HERE. Keeping the forum updated with the most up to date information will help future applicants.

[Maria7]

thanks sb29 and XanthusARES ..

I checked online how to calculate GPA...accrodingly my GPAs are as follows:-

Undergrad - 3.7

Grad 3.42

 

guess that still doesnt make much of a difference. Good points regarding why PhD, I havent been succinct out here, i will work on it.

where could i get a reliable list of college ratings?

[sb29]

There are no such rankings/ratings when you are looking for PhD programs because it is mainly a question of 'fit' with the professor and the department. But if you want to see a ranking based on output in the top journals of the field, you can start with the UTD Top 100 rankings. Use this with caution and make your selection based on whether you like the work being done in a particular school instead of the school's ranking on this list.

[Maria7]

Thanks SB, I was looking for rankings cause it was mentioned I should target 50-70. hence trying to find out which colleges would fall in that range.

[Maria7]

I need your help - reality check!. I researched for people / colleges doing research with which my interests are aligned. However they seem to be high up in ranking or have requirements of GRE which I dont seem to meet. I have shortlisted Pittsburg, Yale, CMU - Tepper, Boston. Is this unreasonable? Which other colleges should I target?

[XanthusARES]

Yep, your chances at Yale and CMU are extremely low (plus CMU is more quanty anyway). Pitt is going in a quant direction and your chances there are low as well. I don't know about Boston.

 

Schools you should be looking at are schools that are accredited, but that don't have great name recognition. For instance Florida State University (where Winston is the quarterback, not the University of Florida) I would consider that to be a school that would fit your profile. However that is based solely on stats, not research interest, so find schools of a similar caliber with professors you want to work with. Anyway I hope that helps some. I don't want to discourage you, but you need to be realistic about your chances. If you have unlimited funds and time (which if you are applying this year you don't), apply everywhere. If those 4 schools you mention are the only schools you can find professors whose research you are interested in, then only apply there, but don't be too disheartened if you don't get in anywhere.

[evergreen]

Everyone has provided really good advice.

 

I would just add that you need to be a bit more specific about your research interests

Consumer Behavior: e.g., how surrounding events influence our purchase decisions

Not really sure what you are referring to by this.

 

Hopefully you are just keeping it vague because this is a public internet message board, but I hope you can go into more details when you are writing up your SOP.

[Maria7]

thanks guys! Really appreciate it.