Sorry, Another Profile Evaluation.

[A Random Hopefu]

Hello, everyone,

 

 

I need some help in assessing my standing and prospects for a Ph.D. in Marketing (or potentially in Management). I will be applying to the Fall 2021 (Autumn 2021) terms. Here is my profile:

 

 

GRE test date: 10/8/2016

GRE quantitative score: 165 (89-90th percentile)

GRE verbal reasoning score: 163 (92-93rd percentile)

 

 

Graduate Degree: Master of Science in Petroleum Engineering

Degree GPA: 3.83 (will have a full-time course load with straight A grades, in the most recent 5 semesters)

GPA for all courses taken: 3.63 (Was originally planning to continue for a Ph.D. in petroleum engineering, but well......anyway, hence the additional courses)

Degree Institution: Texas A&M University, Arguably the best petroleum engineering program in the world

Additional Certification: International Petroleum Management Certificate, 4.0 (6 graduate business courses from Mays Business School)

 

 

Undergraduate Degree: B.S. Astrophysics/Astronomy

Degree GPA 3.62, Magna Cum Laude

Degree Institution A large state university, well known in the field but nothing special about the program

 

 

TOEFL Test Date 11/04/2016 (Expired, not needed because I got my undergraduate and graduate degrees from the U.S, but still might be relevant to post here)

TOEFL test score 118/120 (S: 28, L: 30, W: 30, R: 30) (99th percentile)

 

 

Publications & Presentations:

 

 

Current: Three publications with refereed/peer-reviewed conferences. These conferences are well known in the Petroleum Engineering and Mechanical Engineering fields. (ASME- American Society of Mechanical Engineers, SPE - Society of Petroleum Engineers). Received 5 citations and 150 downloads on one of the papers published in 2019. The other two are fairly new and published in 2020.

 

 

Future, at the time of application: Possibly a total of 4-5 conference publications with renowned engineering organizations, 1-2 refereed journal publications with the Society of Petroleum Engineers).

 

 

Invited research talks at Texas A&M, and two other little known international institutions.

 

 

Academic Research:

 

 

Have been working as a research assistant since Spring 2018 in the Petroleum Engineering department.

Research funded by the National Academy of Sciences, assisted significantly in securing funding from multiple sources.

 

 

Academic Teaching Experience:

 

 

Teaching Assistant for two graduate level Petroleum Engineering courses (Spring 2019, 2020).

Teaching Assistant for two undergraduate upper-division courses, (Fall 2018, Fall 2019).

Alternate Instructor for one upper division, undergraduate petroleum engineering course, (Fall 2017)

 

 

Notable Projects:

 

Pitched (along with a group of 9) a student project idea to NASA and secured a spot and funding for their HASP program. Successfully completed the proposed project by going through their notoriously rigorous review process. The project was launched in December 2017. (Tools used: Python, Raspberry Pi 3)

 

 

Successfully rebuilt, and re instrumented a 140 ft. tall flow loop at Texas A&M University. Ran experiments to collect data from this flow loop and currently trying to publish results. (Tools used: Lab View, VBA)

 

 

Built a miniature mars rover and won a competition where it had to follow efficiently, and take pictures of an unknown object. (Tools used: Python, Calico, IR sensing and imaging tools)

 

 

Leadership:

 

External outreach committee chair, AADE Texas A&M Chapter, (2019-present)

External outreach committee member, AADE Texas A&M Chapter, (2018-2019)

 

 

co-founder and current board member of a non-profit organization that helps visually challenged children

 

 

Professional Experience:

 

Credit Risk Analyst Intern (May 2018 to July 2018)

Transaction Advisory Services Summer Intern (May 2016 to July 2016)

Project Evaluation Summer Intern (May 2015 to August 2015)

 

 

University Shortlist:

 

 

Definitely Ambitious- MIT, Stanford, Chicago Booth, Wharton, Harvard (maybe a 1-2% chance I will get a call back?)

 

 

Maybe Ambitious: Kellogg-Northwestern, Cornell, Marylan-College Park, Yale, Duke

 

 

Good Chance: USC Marshall (Data Science), Georgia Tech, U Michigan, U Minnesota

 

 

Very Good Chance: UC Irvine, Texas A&M, UT Austin, UT, Dallas, UNC Chapel Hill, U Iowa (Data science or analytics, I forgort)

 

 

WHY AM I INTERESTED IN PH.D. IN BA, MARKETING, MANAGEMNT, DATA SCIENCE?

 

 

Will not be writing the whole essay here, but just a few bullet points:

 

 

1: Had exposure to Data analysis and visualization through my research as a petroleum engineer, absolutely loved doing it. Want to keep doing it but the current situation with COVID and the oil markets makes that nearly impossible. I am particularly good at, and really enjoy analyzing data to recognize patterns, visualizing complex concepts, analytical modeling of complicated situations. I can support all these statements in the actual essays by relating them to my research work.

 

 

2: Experienced teaching to undergraduates and graduates as an alternate instructor and TA (had to teach classes when the professor left for conferences). Received an average rating of 4.8/5 from students, loved the experience, interacting with students. Also watched my advisor very closely for 3 years and I feel that a career in academia is a perfect fit for me. Already have a funded Ph.D. offer to continue in the department as a petroleum engineer, and was already leaning towards becoming a faculty member in a petroleum engineering program. Again, I am not sure if that will be a wise decision given the circumstances and the uncertain future.

 

 

3: Experienced the business school environment while working on my International Petroleum Management Certificate from Mays business school. I realized that I thrive in those settings where you have more freedom to express yourself. Also the exposure to the concepts of marketing, corporate accounting, management peaked my interest. The IPM certificate, which started as a resume enhancing exercise, turned into a passion project.

 

 

Please keep in mind that I started seriously considering a Ph.D. in BA/Marketing/Data analytics/Management about 3 days ago. So, forgive the rough ideas, obvious goals, and possibly "DUH!" statements. My ideas will evolve as I research more into the specific colleges, degrees, topics etc. After all if nothing else, I have time.

 

 

CAREER GOALS

 

 

Short-term (1-5 years after graduation: Stating the obvious here, joining a reputable school as a faculty.

 

 

Medium-term (5-10 years after graduation): Taking up the position as a director of a business school back in my home country.

 

 

Long-term, potential passion projects (20-50 years? maybe never!): Starting and building my own marketing/management consulting company. Founding an independent business school and developing it into a world class institution. Founding an international group of schools for K-12 children.

 

 

Any and all comments are welcome! Need help adding/eliminating universities, formulating my ideas properly for the essays, managing expectations, support, encouragement, reality-check?

[zshfryoh1]

This will be long.

 

First of all, do you actually have any idea what type of work is done on the academic research side of marketing or management? The academic research side of business is nothing at all like what is taught to MBA or graduate certificate students. Read through some recent papers in the top journals in those fields to get an idea of what academic research in those fields actually is. I think you might have some idea of what goes on in the quant side of marketing, but I honestly don't think you have a clue about the behavioral side of marketing or academic research in management and its subfields.

 

Second, you don't necessarily seem to actually want to do a PhD in marketing or management. Rather it seems that you want to be in academia, so you want to do a PhD in some field and you are using a B-school PhD as an escape from a different field that is in trouble now. Adcoms can usually sniff out that type applicant pretty quickly. Most B-schools have far more qualified applicants than spots and B-school PhD programs typically only matriculate 2-4 students per year per field. You seem bright and motivated, but most top tier, or even top 50 B-schools will likely skip you over for another applicant who seems more interested in their field. A lower tier school might be more willing to take a chance on you.

 

Third, letters of recommendation are the most important part of any PhD application and the best letters are from people who adcoms will know or recognize. You will not have that, which will hurt you in the application process.

 

Fourth, the teaching/T.A. experience will have almost no bearing on your application. The conference presentations in an altogether unrelated field may help a little at the margins, but unless the adcoms have familiarity with the relative prestige of those conferences it will not help much either. Similarly your research work may be interesting, but adcoms will be unfamiliar with your field and the quality of your research.

 

You probably have a better chance at one of the Data Science/Analytics PhD programs you mention only because those programs are very new and are taking students from a wide range of backgrounds, so long as they have sufficient quantitative and programming skills. Some of those are based out of B-schools, but some are not (NYU's is run out of an interdisciplinary Center for Data Science).

 

If you really want a B-school PhD, and you want a field where your petroleum engineering background is more likely to be recognized and appreciated in the application process, you might have a better shot at programs in Operations Research or Operations Management or Supply Chain Management. (Perhaps this is what you meant by "Management" but in B-schools when we talk about "Management" without prefacing it with "Operations" or "Supply Chain" it refers to the field known as "Management" which is roughly split into two subfields, Organizational Behavior and Strategy)