Rank

[NeFall]

I have seen a lot of rankings for many programs but not finance PhDs. Does anyone know if or have a top 10, I do not mind if it is your own subjective rank, I am wondering.

[asquare]

You can get rankings based on publications in top finance journals here, and rankings based on publications in the top 24 business research journals here.

Both of the links I've provided come from econphd.net, which is a very good source for the type of preliminary inquiries into graduate programs that you are making. (And the econphd.net rankings page is the very first result that comes up if you do a Google search for "finance phd ranking. For these basic questions, you might start with Google before asking here, so that you aren't effectively asking TM posters to do your Google searching for you!)

[NeFall]

That is where I looked first but I was put off because most people say that Boston College is a top 10-15 for a finance PhD, but these sites have their program at 21 and econphd has them at 50 but 26 for financial economics.

[asquare]

Well, I don't know who "most people" are, but different people and different sources have different criteria for rankings. The sites I linked to are very clear: they use publications in top journals, and describe their methodology. If you disagree with the methodology, that's one thing, but it seems silly to disagree with the results. If you have in mind a particular order or think that Boston College should be ranked 10-15, then why look for rankings at all? If you don't trust rankings that disagree with your priors, then just go with your priors! But realistically, 15 isn't that different than 21, and two different methodologies rank BC relatively closely in finance (21 versus 26) so it doesn't seem like either of those rankings is producing some sort of crazy result that suggests unreliability.

[shootermcgavin7]

Originally Posted by NeFall

That is where I looked first but I was put off because most people say that Boston College is a top 10-15 for a finance PhD, but these sites have their program at 21

Since most programs outside of the top 10 enroll between 0-2 new Finance PhDs per year, there is virtually no difference between 15 and 21.

Job market placements are different, as well. The market is still dominated by T10 graduates, but not to the extent that the Econ market is.

It is not terribly unusual for graduates from schools ranked 20-50 to get placed in that same tier.

[macroeconomicus]

All of those rankings are very imprecise. For example, econphd.net lists UC Davis as number 34 in asset pricing. But UC Davis does not even have doctoral program in business (and their econ department doesn't offer asset pricing field). This really says that at best such rankings are saying that the top 20 are most likely solid departments, but you need to do research to find out, and the ranks of schools listed below are kind of meaningless. You have to do some research on your own to find out whether the school really fits you.

[Teazer]

What would be nice is a ranking based on phd placement, but little chance of that ever coming about!

[shootermcgavin7]

Originally Posted by Teazer

What would be nice is a ranking based on phd placement, but little chance of that ever coming about!

Would such a ranking mean anything if most programs are sending 2 students per year to the market?

[AstralTraveller]

Originally Posted by shootermcgavin7

Would such a ranking mean anything if most programs are sending 2 students per year to the market?

Maybe for one subdiscipline it doesn't make sense, but for entire b-schools it might be different. I know it's like mixing pigs with dogs, but I cannot think of anything better.

[Hocking]

The best way to rank PhD programs is to look at what each PhD Program's Graduates are publishing. Most rankings are based on journal publications coming out of the school rather than on what school the actual researcher attended. I could care less what school you work for when you publish your research, and this information tells me little about the program you work for and what type of training I will get if I do there (for all I know you don't have a thing to do with the PhD students going to that school). What I am really interested in knowing is where you learned to do your research, and this will give us a glimpse of what type of training I would get if I went there.

I know rankings like this are available, and the results can be somewhat shocking. You will see some supposedly "low-ranked" schools having PhD grads publishing in the top 4 journals consistently.

The bottom-line is that in Finance, if you can get into a top 50 school you'll do fine in the job market. If you get in a top 20 school you may get $20,000-30,000 more per year (and that is a big MAYBE), but you better be prepared to do lots of research that can land in the top four journals. Rankings just aren't as important for Finance like they are for Economics, and this is why you don't see as much information concerning Finance PhD program rankings like you do for Economics.