PhD in Business?

[lila1047]

I have JUST realized that a PhD in business was an option. I have an international relations undergrad major with minors in econ and english lit, GPA is 3.9. I would appreciate any kind of info/advice, but I do have a few specific questions that I hope someone can answer.

 

1. Does a PhD in business require as much of a mathematical background as econ? As in, can you not apply if you don't have a background in math? (I have taken no math courses in UG, but have a 800Q on the GRE and took advanced calculus in high school)

 

2. What are some good sites I could look at for more info? Law school has LSD and AutoAdmit, Econ has econphd.net..........anything for business PhD?

 

3. Is there a separate list for business PhD schools, or are the rankings the same as MBAs?

 

4. Why are there so few posts in this thread???!!! Is Business PhD unpopular or new? Just curious :D

 

Thanks in advance!

[EE570]

The level of mathematical background varies for the different specialties. But, I think that you would at least need a couple of courses in calc and stats (college level not high school) regardless of the specialty.

 

 

 

there is no list that I know of for business rankings, like law or econ.

 

 

 

I also wonder why there are so few people on these boards.

 

 

 

 

 

[mosfro]

im not sure why there are so few ppl on these boards - - it seems that the majority of grad school apsirees are either from economics or computer science.....not to say business phd isnt cool enough to get attention, it just might be on another board--i did go to another forum , but they too had a very small section for the phd, more about the mba and admissions related to that

 

as far as the math goes...if you want to do something like strategy or org behaviour....which are the least math intensive, u will still need stats and 2 sems of calc....however with a 3.9 and such, im sure if they really do require it, they will make u take it once u get there.

from reading phd biz websites, it seems making up deficiencies, whether it be math, or accounting courses, are a part of the program

 

so if no one on this board is really going for teh phd in finance, then better chances for me to get in....

[wolf87]

I think that one reason there is so little action on the business boards is that the programs are tiny; for example, at HBS, it's 2006 entering class across all disciplines was only 21 people. Finance is especially competitive.

 

On rankings, I haven't seen any. I work as a RA in a business school, and from what I have heard, the programs are rather heterogeneous. This makes consistent, meaningful rankings rather difficult.

[mosfro]

i agree that the programs are small, and they are heterogenous - which i think makes for a good education at almost any program, however once you step out of the top tier or two, most of teh finance work becomes heavily applied,

i am surprised why some of these schools dont pick up more grad students - - i mean think about it, Harvard Bus School....probably has a hell of a lot of MBA students, and a whole mess of undergrads...i doubt that they can;t afford to enter more, or there are not enough advisors..they could actually use the 3-4th year grad students to lecture, like most public universities do (yah im sure ppl wouldnt appreciate paying for harvard, and being taught by a novice).

 

Maybe its a big conspiracy that academia doesnt want a whole mess of finance phds, just to keep the salary high at b-schools.......

[wolf87]

mosfro - A couple of things. First, Harvard, and quite a few other top b-schools, do not have undergrad programs or courses. Thus, all of their students are either MBA or PhD/DBA. MBA students are typically not looking to continue their studies (see starting salary comparisons for business PhD and fresh MBA), so the pool is pretty small. As they are only teaching grad students, the demand for faculty is also relatively low.

 

For finance, IMHO, a lot of the competition is because you need to be good in a quite a few areas to excel in a finance PhD: especially math, but also econ (understanding if not formal training), programming, and business. Just my 2c on that point.

[user_name]

...if you want to do something like strategy or org behaviour....which are the least math intensive....

I think strategy is one of the most math-intensive (if not the most) among all business disciplines. You'll have to learn a lot of game theory, which many people would probably agree is the most math-intensive econ subdiscipline. Maybe you were talking about management being the least math-intensive one?

[mosfro]

thanks for the heads up...i was referring to management

[whiteshark]

http://citm.utdallas.edu/utdrankings/

 

good rankings site

+

use FT.com MBA rankings and choose doctoral rank in their interactive rankings ( or research rank)

 

 

I am also applying to a PhD in Finance.... with my 3.26 GPA (I am in my second year of econ PhD) and GRE Q790 I cannot target too high...

 

evaluative ideas for schools were I should apply are greatly appreciated.

so far, I looked for schools below top 20 but still in top 50. besides, metropolitan location also matters for me....

 

i'm new to the forum so I hope I can share interesting information about applying here... so far I am about to take the new internet based TOEFL... has anyone taken that? all info greatly apprecitated...

 

anyway, if someone has any questions about school choice, I am ready to share my "research"...

 

see ya'll... :)

[econdude]

NY is not too stingy with their stats:

 

 

"For Fall 2006, we received over 900 applications and will enroll 25 new students. We evaluate the quality of the undergraduate and graduate schools, grades earned and courses taken, letters of reference, and test scores. In addition, we may interview final candidates to be sure that NYU is the appropriate school for them.

The average GMAT score for the Fall 2006 entering class is 721. GMAT scores are mentioned because they are an easy number to summarize. As stated earlier, test scores are only one of the elements we consider. We accept the students whom we feel have the aptitude, background and motivation to produce first quality research in the future.

We receive about 300 applications in Finance and enroll 4-6 students per year. In each of the other disciplines we receive 40 to 100 applications and enroll 2 to 4 students per year. The business schools with the top doctoral programs regularly exchange admission statistics. Stern’s admission data are typical of the top five programs in the country."

 

From Northwestern/Kellog:

 

About 25 new students are chosen from more than 600 applicants. The program is full-time on the Evanston campus; part-time or distance-learning study is not available.

[lila1047]

How math-intensive would a program like Int'l Business & Business Econ at UMICH be?

 

Yes...sadly, econ and finance seem to be the most competitive at business schools. They pick a few more students than other programs, but the number of applicants is several times larger. :(

 

Another site for a list of business schools is: http://www.ascenteducation.com/US-higher-studies/GRE-GMAT/GMAT/topusbschools.shtml

[kov]

Thanks all of you for initiating and sustaining an interesting discussion .Here are two more links where you can find some kind of ranking of schools for Ph.D in finance based on several parameters.For AAU Schools-www.aau.edu/aau/members.html and for Research 1 Schools -wwwwashington.edu/tools/universities.html

[Sam]

Hi, we developped with a bunch of other PhD candidates a ranking for PhD programs in business schools: PhD in Business ranking | Business Phd in Paris

The ranking is still not perfect (based on FT data) but provides a good overview on doctoral programs level.

 

Admin edit: Links removed.

[stagename]

Just a thought, but according to the outline of your criterion ("the number of faculty publications in the top 40 research journals, to the number of yearly doctoral graduates and their placement in the top business schools, and the proportion of faculty with a doctoral degree"), you might over-represent Faculties with a high number of professors, if you don't take into account publications/faculty, and take only publications into account.

 

Also, Rotman and UBC before Yale, Stanford and Harvard is, well. You get the point.

[rthunder27]

Just a thought, but according to the outline of your criterion ("the number of faculty publications in the top 40 research journals, to the number of yearly doctoral graduates and their placement in the top business schools, and the proportion of faculty with a doctoral degree"), you might over-represent Faculties with a high number of professors, if you don't take into account publications/faculty, and take only publications into account.

 

Also, Rotman and UBC before Yale, Stanford and Harvard is, well. You get the point.

I wouldn't bother putting much of an effort into responding to that post. The poster is spamming for their site, reviving in this case a nearly 5 year old thread, and also posted the same exact message in another years old thread.

[stagename]

Haha good point. Didn't see that at all. Well, well ,well =) Thanks for letting me know!

[Sam]

Hi, not really spaming, just don't really know how forums works. Thanks for your feedback. In fact we recently created the association of Business PhD candidates in Paris (with HEC, ESSEC, INSEAD, ESCP and Polytechnique). We are trying to create a kind of ranking as I realized no such thing really existed and though it could be usefull to future candidates. The methodology I took is extremely simple. I took data from the FT ranking of Global MBA related and did an average of:

- Schools rank in research (number of publication from faculty in the FT 40 journals weigted by the faculty size)

- Schools rank in Phd programs (calculated on the number of PhD gratuates a year + additional points when they got a job into to 50 full time MBA schools)

- Schools rank in PhD Faculty (calculated on the % of faculty with a PhD)

 

This methodology is quite basic but still seems realistic. I would be interested in any feedback (this is in fact why I posted the first link)? Regarding the ranking we obtain does it seem relevant to you?

 

Thanks in advance

[Sam]

By the way what do you mean by: Also, Rotman and UBC before Yale, Stanford and Harvard is, well. You get the point. You think Yale should be before Rotman and UBC? (remember that the ranking take into account all specialisations in management)

 

Just a thought, but according to the outline of your criterion ("the number of faculty publications in the top 40 research journals, to the number of yearly doctoral graduates and their placement in the top business schools, and the proportion of faculty with a doctoral degree"), you might over-represent Faculties with a high number of professors, if you don't take into account publications/faculty, and take only publications into account.

 

Also, Rotman and UBC before Yale, Stanford and Harvard is, well. You get the point.

[joenobody0]

By the way what do you mean by: Also, Rotman and UBC before Yale, Stanford and Harvard is, well. You get the point. You think Yale should be before Rotman and UBC? (remember that the ranking take into account all specialisations in management)

 

I think Stanford should be higher ranked than Rotman or UBC by a large margin.

[stagename]

By the way what do you mean by: Also, Rotman and UBC before Yale, Stanford and Harvard is, well. You get the point. You think Yale should be before Rotman and UBC? (remember that the ranking take into account all specialisations in management)

 

Yes this is what I meant. I think it's unrealistic to think that Yale, Stanford and Harvard have a worse program than UBC or Rotman, at least reputation-wise.

[Bloomsbury]

UBC and Rotman are commonly underrated and Yale has a very small program.

[Sam]

Hi, Thanks for your feedbacks. I modified the methodology with those features:

- Took into account the FT scores and not rank to calculate schools level in research, PhD program and faculty (i.e Top ranked schools are advantage as the variance increases with the rank)

- I added a reputation score to compute the final score

- I weigthed the different measures as follow:

 

School Reputation score* 20%

Faculty with doctorate score 10%

Doctoral Program score 30%

Research score 40%

 

Here is the new ranking, Stanford and Harvard rank well before UBC and Rotman but Yale score in Research and Doctoral program is too poor and still lag behind. Does it seems more relevant to you?

(PS: not sure I can put the link, if not please suppress it)

 

Hi, not really spaming, just don't really know how forums works. Thanks for your feedback. In fact we recently created the association of Business PhD candidates in Paris (with HEC, ESSEC, INSEAD, ESCP and Polytechnique). We are trying to create a kind of ranking as I realized no such thing really existed and though it could be usefull to future candidates. The methodology I took is extremely simple. I took data from the FT ranking of Global MBA related and did an average of:

- Schools rank in research (number of publication from faculty in the FT 40 journals weigted by the faculty size)

- Schools rank in Phd programs (calculated on the number of PhD gratuates a year + additional points when they got a job into to 50 full time MBA schools)

- Schools rank in PhD Faculty (calculated on the % of faculty with a PhD)

 

This methodology is quite basic but still seems realistic. I would be interested in any feedback (this is in fact why I posted the first link)? Regarding the ranking we obtain does it seem relevant to you?

 

Thanks in advance

[phdhope]

No this seems pretty irrelevant. I have long argued on this post any sort of ranking like the one above is useless because you are lumping business school departments together. Who has the best accounting, marketing, finance, supply chain, and organizational behavior departments? Even wonderful schools like Harvard and Wharton are rarely people's first, second, third, or even fourth choice in accounting.

 

Beyond that, combining factors into one measure creates inherent weighting problems that will just confuse users. Why weren't more variables included? Why were they weighted the way they were? Rankings of faculty productivity or reputation or doctoral program placement are more effective because you are only using one measure for the rankings and not confounding the interpretation with multiple others variables.

 

I still don't know why this has to be done since US News/FT do their irrelevant lists. In short, I really don't see how this could help anyone serious about a business PhD. (This isn't to say that I don't see value in rankings. It just means there are already better ones for PhD students to use in their own respective disciplines).

[joenobody0]

Hi, Thanks for your feedbacks. I modified the methodology with those features:

- Took into account the FT scores and not rank to calculate schools level in research, PhD program and faculty (i.e Top ranked schools are advantage as the variance increases with the rank)

- I added a reputation score to compute the final score

- I weigthed the different measures as follow:

 

School Reputation score* 20%

Faculty with doctorate score 10%

Doctoral Program score 30%

Research score 40%

 

Here is the new ranking, Stanford and Harvard rank well before UBC and Rotman but Yale score in Research and Doctoral program is too poor and still lag behind. Does it seems more relevant to you?

(PS: not sure I can put the link, if not please suppress it)

 

It looks better but MIT

 

The points about lumping all Business School groups into one ranking is very valid.

 

On edit: UNC

[rsaylors]

UTD does a better job because I can chose the journals that are relevant to me; now uf we had a utd like list that listed particular faculty, more journals, number of phd students in that department per research active faculty and average time in the process of getting a PhD the information would be much more relevant to me.