Do You Have To Go To A Top School?

[chartreuse]

Well, getting into the program is not the end of the story. You see, there are also lots of dropouts, although that is really not advertised. Who cares if one gets into Wharton and drops out after the 3rd year? It'd be better to go to Yale SOM and perform fantastically there, no? But I digressed a bit.
To answer your question, the program must be VERY good to have a higher probability of getting offers in academia. I think it is about rephrasing your question about the probability of securing an academic position rather than assuming it's a done deal. Unless you have very strong connections, there is no guarantee nor solid chance of landing anything per se. Keep in mind that the teaching market is at least 10X harder than the real job market (private sector) and even that is not so easy.

Now if we were to talk about the factors that increase the probability of getting an academic position, there are some such as 1) where you went to school for your PhD 2) your academic performance there 3) how many papers you published/publishing 4) the quality of your research 5) your advisor's recommendations 6) your ability to market yourself as an asset to the school. Other obvious qualities unfortunately have to do with your gender and your race but these are factors not really officially measured but do play a critical role in the process in any case.

It's a gamble and nothing in life is solid or sure!

[YoungEconomist]

Originally Posted by chartreuse

To answer your question, the program must be VERY good to have a higher probability of getting offers in academia. I think it is about rephrasing your question about the probability of securing an academic position rather than assuming it's a done deal.

Can you give any advice/info about the probability of various situations? Such as, "Going to a school in the
20 - 30 range gives one a ___% of getting an assistant prof job at a school in the 50 - 100 range."

Also, how much do academics in business schools make at various schools?

[chartreuse]

Originally Posted by YoungEconomist

Can you give any advice/info about the probability of various situations? Such as, "Going to a school in the
20 - 30 range gives one a ___% of getting an assistant prof job at a school in the 50 - 100 range."

Also, how much do academics in business schools make at various schools?

I am unqualified to provide actual numbers. This question merits some research. For your 2nd question, I remember seeing $85k as average figure. THe top schools should be over $100k.

[doubtful]

for what I know.. much more than 100k in a top school.

[lcappa]

Friends, the text below is part of a email I got this very week from a management school invinting me to apply for admission at their Phd program (the first Phd contact I received after subscribing when I took the GRE).




According to the 2006 AACSB salary survey (available here: http://www.aacsb.edu/knowledgeservices/home/ss-rpt-desc.asp)

In 2006 (the latest year for which data is available) the average salaries of new doctorates in Economics was $71,900, which is a slight increase of 1.3% from the previous year.

At the same time, the salaries of new doctorates in Finance was $111,000 (Marketing was $89,300, Management was $88,900, and MIS was $87,400 see page ix of the executive summary).

[Hocking]

The differences between an Economics PhD and a Finance PhD is like the difference between night and day. I know because I almost made the mistake of going the Economics route. You are correct when you say that you need to go to a top rated school in order to land a good Economics Tenure-Track position. There are Economics PhD's running around everywhere looking for a job. I work at a low ranked public university who recently had a tenure track faculty position open. There were over 180 people who applied for it, and they interviewed people from top 10 programs, and will probably hire from a top ten program. The salary will be $75,000 tops. Go look at Universities Economics PhD program websites and count how many people they have entering the job market. You will normally see about 12-20 per school, per year, which makes sense because most Economics PhD programs start about 20-30 people per year.

As far as Finance, the complete opposite. We also had a Finance Faculty position open at my university, and there were only about 50 people who applied. Most of these applications were automatically generated, and the people applying weren't even interested anyway. My low ranked school ended up hiring someone from a top 50 Business PhD program, and their starting salary will be around $130,000. I also know someone from this same top 50 Business Program who is going to a top 25 Business Program, and their salary will be around $150,000. Again, this only makes sense when you look at how many people are entering the job market from Finance PhD program on an annual basis. You are lucky to see 2 to 3 people enter the job market from each program, and you only see about 2 to 3 people start a program each year.

Finally, you can publish yourself out of your low ranked school so to speak. If your dream is to go to a top 10 program somewhere as a faculty member, you can publish yourself to that level if you work hard. There is alot of moving around of Finance Faculty getting better opportunities at other universities.

The hard part is getting into a Finance PhD program. Once you are in one, regardless of their rank, you pretty much have it made.

[Hocking]

The differences between an Economics PhD and a Finance PhD is like the difference between night and day. I know because I almost made the mistake of going the Economics route. You are correct when you say that you need to go to a top rated school in order to land a good Economics Tenure-Track position. There are Economics PhD's running around everywhere looking for a job. I work at a low ranked public university who recently had a tenure track faculty position open. There were over 180 people who applied for it, and they interviewed people from top 10 programs, and will probably hire from a top ten program. The salary will be $75,000 tops. Go look at Universities Economics PhD program websites and count how many people they have entering the job market. You will normally see about 12-20 per school, per year, which makes sense because most Economics PhD programs start about 20-30 people per year.

As far as Finance, the complete opposite. We also had a Finance Faculty position open at my university, and there were only about 50 people who applied. Most of these applications were automatically generated, and the people applying weren't even interested anyway. My low ranked school ended up hiring someone from a top 50 Business PhD program, and their starting salary will be around $130,000. I also know someone from this same top 50 Business Program who is going to a top 25 Business Program, and their salary will be around $150,000. Again, this only makes sense when you look at how many people are entering the job market from Finance PhD program on an annual basis. You are lucky to see 2 to 3 people enter the job market from each program, and you only see about 2 to 3 people start a program each year.

Finally, you can publish yourself out of your low ranked school so to speak. If your dream is to go to a top 10 program somewhere as a faculty member, you can publish yourself to that level if you work hard. There is alot of moving around of Finance Faculty getting better opportunities at other universities.

The hard part is getting into a Finance PhD program. Once you are in one, regardless of their rank, you pretty much have it made.

[VGC]

Last fall, I went to an informative session at Chicago GSB. They told me that the salary for their last year graduate going into academic possitions was $200.000

[EE570]

I think that 200K out of Chicago is probably pretty reasonable. There will be high expectations (read JoF, JFE and RFS pubs) from you in a short period of time though.

[doubtful]

I have heard about the same amount for Chicago GSB...

anyway Hocking has convinced me... if I will ever get an offer from a Business School..... another month to wait.. eheheheh