My chances ?? (PhD finance)

[GradCanada]

BSc Mechanical Engineering (3.4 GPA)
MSc Engineering (3.9 GPA)
Two Journal Publications(one Co-author one Author) and two conferences in the States from my Engineering Research.

Second MSc: Finance at Sauder (UBC) (Straight A)(88%)
Just submitted a paper from my research (Corporate Finance) to an Economics Elsevier Journal. (Author)


Applying to some of 10-30 US and top five here in Canada.

Three References : Big names from Sauder.
GRE: 800Q, 400V, I know my Verbal is gonna kill meeee… I wrote this 4 years ago..!

Courses included:
CALC I and II
Diff. Equations
Partial Diff Eq. (PDE)
Numerical Methods
Statistics
Micro and Macro economics
Finite element method
Multivariate analysis (Grad level)
MicroEcon Theory (Grad level)
Contract Theory (PhD level)
Game Theory (PhD level)
Financial Math (Stochastic and Brownian Motion)(PhD level )
Advanced Corporate Finance (PhD level) and Asset pricing both empirical and theoretical (PhD level)

And of course a lot of MBA finance modules.

So what do you think?
Should I apply to schools ranked worse than 30 as well? Not a lot of time left for applying!!
I am freaking out now!

[walidreza]

I do not know why you are freaking out!!! If you do not get admission, who should they recruit? If I were you, I had applied only to top 10s.

Anyhow, would you mind sharing your research in the MSc in Finance prog? I guess corporate finance includes many topics.............

[GradCanada]

Sure, Capital Sturcture with Excess cash: Empirical studies testing Static Trade off, Pecking order and free cash flow theories, but instead of Debt ratio my focus has been on cash holdings! and then more and more on the spending patterns....(cross-sectional analysis on Capex changes, dividend payments, share repurchases for cash cows)......

I am freaking out because my GRE verbal is not high and do not have GMAT ! I should have written the GMAT! I dont know how much weight these schools put on the GRE verbal score!

[biswonath]

I am also wondering about my chance, but I am applying next year, most probably.

I have taken courses on micro, game theory, etc and got A or A-. My GRE is 1600/1600, AWA 5.0. But I have one blot: I got C on Real Analysis II. The professor was a son of a ***** (I had scored one of the top three scores in the exam, but what would he care? he rarely gives A, and he gave B to one guy). I am so devastated that I can't even think of applying to Stanford or Harvard business school, and awaiting for my chance. I also have a paper on application of game theory on cost benefit analysis. No corporate finance course yet, though.

what do you think of my chances? Don't want to apply to schools other than HBS, NYU, columbia, Stanford, Berkeley, UCLA, Wharton, MIT, Cornell and Yale for either finance phd or econ.