PhD in Marketing: low supply? / what type of demand?

[chartreuse]

Hello,

 

I am curious about the Marketing PhD. It seems like there is a plethora of people trying to get into the Finance/Business Economics PhD. I have not really seen too much on the Marketing. (Sorry if I haven't done enough scavaging).

 

1) Is it less competitive to get into a PhD program for Marketing ?

 

2) Where are the top PhD Marketing programs?

 

3) Relatively, it appears that the supply of such is low. But what is the demand for top-notch Marketing Profs like when it comes to placement and tenure tracks?

 

Thanks for your input - it would be great to get a discussion going!

[GRE_Kickboxer]

Hi buddy. My feeling is that we live in a "numbers" world. Facts and information run rampant.

 

Even though true marketing analysis does involve quite a bit of number crunching, there is always ambiguity and creativity involved in the world of marketing. As a result, there is a lot of risk taking involved in hiring marketing majors both in companies and even in the academic world. It's not an exact science.

 

I think the Northwestern University has one of the best Marketing programs. You can find out more here: USNews.com: America's Best Graduate Schools 2008

 

 

I think Finance degrees are safer both for the student and for the employer. The programs are more competitive and readily applicable. With a Finance degree from a great University you will be in high demand. Although theory is involved, there is a lot of linear analytical analysis that can only be done by people with high mathematical aptitude and strong logical reasoning skills. This means that there are only a select number of people that can actually do the work. It's hard to B.S. your way through a top Finance school. Companies and academic institutions know this.

 

With marketing majors companies and academic institutions may or may not get what they anticipate or anticipate what they get. It's not always easy to differentiate between the king of B.S. and the king of insight. People can appear to be creative or even brilliant, but when they actually try to apply that ostensible creativity, nothing good happens.

 

Ramin

[GRE_Kickboxer]

By the way, here is a list of the top marketing programs according to U.S. News:

 

1. Northwestern University (Kellogg) (IL)2. University of Pennsylvania (Wharton) 3. Duke University (Fuqua) (NC)4. Columbia University (NY)5. Harvard University (MA) University of Michigan–Ann Arbor (Ross) 7. Stanford University (CA) University of California–Berkeley (Haas) 9. University of Chicago 10. University of California–Los Angeles (Anderson) University of Texas–Austin (McCombs) 12. New York University (Stern) 13. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Sloan) 14. University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill (Kenan-Flagler) 15. University of Wisconsin–Madison 16. University of Florida (Warrington) University of Southern California (Marshall) 18. Dartmouth College (Tuck) (NH)19. University of Minnesota–Twin Cities (Carlson) 20. Indiana University–Bloomington (Kelley) Ohio State University (Fisher) 22. University of Virginia (Darden) 23. Cornell University (Johnson) (NY)24. Emory University (Goizueta) (GA)25. University of Maryland–College Park (Smith)

[chartreuse]

Thanks a lot - I will delve further into this! Make sure to keep us posted on some happy news! Cheers!

[desimba]

Chartreuse: My 2 cents to your questions-

 

1) Is it less competitive to get into a PhD program for Marketing ?

Maybe just a bit but marginally so. The department needs to get fewer applications than the finance PhD program at the same school but at the same time, it also has fewer spots than the finance PhD program. The net result is that admission rates end up being comparable-in the 2- 8% range at any of the top schools. e.g. Look at Columbia's stats: 5 out of 219 admitted in the finance program (2.3%) versus 3 out of 100 in their marketing program (3%) (Admissions & Costs)

 

2) Where are the top PhD Marketing programs?

 

Already well answered above

 

3) Relatively, it appears that the supply of such is low. But what is the demand for top-notch Marketing Profs like when it comes to placement and tenure tracks?

 

To the best of my knowledge, it is comparable to most other departments. Fortunately for marketing PhDs this is one sector where they don't have toi compete for tenure-track positions with PhDs from other disciplines unlike some of the other departments in the business school. e.g. Finance attracts applicants from Econ programs; Operations Mgmt attracts applicants from fields like Industrial Engg & Operations Research & Org Behaviour attracts candidates from Psychology, Sociology, etc. Thus I believe that getting a faculty position at an university becomes somewhat easier even though it is not a slam dunk.

 

Thanks,

SB

[macroeconomicus]

Chartreuse: My 2 cents to your questions-

 

2) Where are the top PhD Marketing programs?

 

Already well answered above

 

 

I wouldn't trust that ranking. I believe GRE_Kickboxer posted the ranking of MBA programs, which has little relation to the quality of doctoral programs. There is basically no ranking for marketing and most other business specialties at doctoral level. Looking at who is publishing what, talking to your professors, etc, is basically the best way to identify the top programs.

[desimba]

Yes macroeconomicus I agree with your comment but only kind of. There is an advantage of speaking to professors but the problem with that is that they won't be able to give you a rank ordering of the top 20 or 30 schools in any field. They will have sporadic information about certain programs and from the stand point of being complete & thorough, you may well want to use these rankings, imperfect as they are.

 

Putting it in a somewhat different light, the top MBA programs are Harvard, Wharton, Stanford, Kellogg and Chicago. And how about their PhD programs? Well everyone of them has a super-duper PhD program which are extremely good. Now whether Harvard is #1 in the MBA rankings but only #5 in the (hypothetical) PhD ranking is a moot question because the key point is that all of these places have great PhD & MBA programs. Just as Indiana, Purdue, Pittsburgh, OSU have reasonably good MBA and reasonably good PhD programs. The point is that with the information we have, MBA rankings are an usable enough proxy.