Texas schools - Finance PhD

[oldprogrammer]

Does anyone have an opinion on Finance PhD programs at the following Texas schools? Has anyone heard good things or bad things? What about academic placement?

UT-Dallas
UT-Arlington
Texas A&M
Texas Tech

[appler]

IMO the top one on that list is Texas A&M(in terms of reputation, quality, etc). Mays Business school is well-reputed. I don't know much about the others but I think UT Dallas and UT Arlington will be quite a sharp drop off from Texas A&M. You might want to consider UT Austin too. My own ranking will be UT Austin>Texas A&M>>UT Dallas and UT Arlington.

Texas A&M will be better than Texas Tech too, but not by so much as the others. As for placement just check their websites. The schools usually have their placements on their websites. Or at least they mention some of the places they placed their students in recent years.You should also consider personal fit too(research interests, etc).

[oldprogrammer]

Thanks, appler. I excluded UT because their reputation is well-known. Would you place Texas Tech above UT-Dallas?

When I look at the faculty at the schools, UT-Dallas is very impressive, especially compared to UT-Arlington.

I did try looking at the websites for placement, but found that these schools supply very little information on that.

And I'm definitely considering personal fit.

[Prawler]

1) Texas A&M
2) UT Dallas
3) Texas Tech
4) UT Arlington

Would be my list.

[oldprogrammer]

One that I forgot was University of North Texas. How would they rank with UT-Arlington and Tech?

Does any one have an idea of how hard it would be to secure an academic placement with a PhD from UT-Arlington or Tech? How much harder would the job search be than coming from UT-Austin or A&M?

[calchas]

Can someone comment on Univ of Houston as well? I see a lot of PhDs from top 15-20 schools being recruited by them.

Thanks.

[desimba]

If I were to make a swag at it, I would say
1) UT Austin
2) Texas A&M
3) UT Dallas
4) U Houston
5) Texas Tech
6) UT Arlington

Academic placements from the lower schools I would guess would be difficult even though that partly depends on which field we are talking about. In marketing for instance UT Dallas has a pretty good reputation.

[shootermcgavin7]

Originally Posted by oldprogrammer

Thanks, appler. I excluded UT because their reputation is well-known. Would you place Texas Tech above UT-Dallas?

No.

UT-Dallas has a great research faculty.

[Prawler]

I agree with shootermcgavin.

[oldprogrammer]

Since I've been out of school for 8 years, I'm thinking I need to do a MS program in Finance before starting the PhD. I'm torn between UT-Arlington's MS in Quantitative Finance and UT-Dallas' MS in Finance. I'm torn because UTD is clearly the better school for a PhD and I would likely secure better LORs, but UTA's MSQF program requires a lot of additional math and economics that UTD's program does not. The MSQF seems evenly split between finance, math, and economics. It just seems like better preparation for a PhD.

And what about admissions? Would it be difficult to get into UTD's MS program? Would being in that program help my chances of getting into their PhD program?