doriangray2009

oh hey there fellow new buckeye!

Congratulations to everyone this season! Looking forward to meeting all of you somewhere down the line and reading your research. I was turned to the dark side of the Force this year (or would it be the light side?). I will be going to Ohio State to study social psychology, focusing mostly on attitudes.

I went 0-8 in marketing two years ago. This time, I'm 1-10 for marketing (after preëmptive withdrawals) & 3-4 for social psych. We're of course in different positions, but we have the same goal: you've got to keep your eyes on that goal, which is on the scale of long-term, fundamental life decisions. My first academic mentor said this to me after I was rejected from every program I applied to: "Sometimes, if we aren't sure about a person's commitment to doing this PhD thing, we'll default to rejecting them. If they never re-apply, we were right." Yeah, it sucks. But if it's what you want to do, a year or two will be quickly eclipsed in the wake of your rising career in academics.

information check! I applied to 11 marketing (CB) programs... Stanford, Northwestern, U of Chicago, NYU, Columbia, Duke, Minnesota, USC, UCLA, Indiana, & Wisconsin. Of these 11... > 5 explicit rejections > 3 interviews (1 withdrawal, 1 acceptance) Pretty sure the other interview led to a rejection, due to the candor of our discussion. I'm assuming the rest are rejections, except for the ever-silent UCLA. [i applied to 7 social psychology programs too, but no one cares about that here.] If you want to know any details, just PM me. Just to throw this out there, you really never know who is going to accept you, who will want to interview you, and who will just reject you without further consideration. This process is really, truly, an absolute crapshoot.

Address a professor as Professor Last Name until invited to do otherwise. Pretty much all the professors I've ever met prefer the first name basis, but it's nice to be polite. The title of Professor confers greater professional status than the title of Doctor does. I think the Dept of Labor confirms this. The reason for this is that there are simply fewer Professors than there are Doctors, and all Professors are necessarily Doctors (except in extremely rare circumstances). If you've ever interacted with a non-research active lecturer who wished to be addressed as Doctor Last Name (I've had several), this distinction is partly the reason.

Hahahaha--blast from the past! So yeah, this is pretty old. But it has for the most part proved accurate, at least in my case. So far this year, I have three admits (incl. one withdrawal), another withdrawal, five interviews, two rejects, yet to hear from about twelve others (incl. many "soft" rejects). Some qualifers... > You don't need a master's. I went back for my BS (#2), got it in 2 years with loads of research and lab experience (plus with honors, a math minor, and multiple grad-level courses). > Standardized test scores (GRE/GMAT) can make or break your competitiveness for fellowship awards. If you think you can improve your score, do it. > A bachelor's in business is not the best preparation for a PhD in business. Get a science degree along with it that's relevant to your field. > What I wrote in reference to business PhDs is basically true of most non-humanities PhDs. More info when April hits. But it's definitely been a successful application season for me this time around.

When I was rejected two years ago, I spoke with my mentoring professors, particularly those who wrote letters of recommendation for me. Their input, and a large helping of perspective and humility on my part, were central to my planning for another application. Is your research experience consistent with the research you want to do? With the professors you want to work with? If not, why not? If it is, keep at it & work towards that publication. Research experience as a confederate is helpful, but it pales compared with experience as a primary author. Do you have well-defined research questions that will drive your academic & professional curiosity? Have you communicated them in your application statement, to professors that share your interests? Be patient & take a long view. Some people would balk at going back to school, getting in a bit more debt, "only" for the sake of strengthening your graduate application through added coursework &, crucially, more research experience. If you want to be a career researcher, putting in an extra year or two doing high-level, hands-on work is not a large cost if you imagine yourself ten years from now in a tenure-track position doing the research you love.

I am applying to both social psychology & marketing PhD programs. There are advantages & disadvantages to both that you must consider thoroughly as they relate to your research interests and career goals. I will be spending much of the next couple of months scrutinizing these factors as they relate to what I want to do with my life! To offer some additional flavor from my perspective, I have been admitted to / interviewed with four programs so far--two each from mktg & psych. I have not encountered any conscious resistance to my "diversity" of applications. I also have not offered any other details about my profile because I really, really want to avoid over-sharing. When the game is up in April, I will definitely be interested in coming back to the forums for Monday morning quarterbacking. But for now I'm going to err on being vague & lurk on. :whistle:

In applying to CB-marketing, I have contacted at least one professor from every program to which I'm applying (>10), & all but two have responded. All replies were warm, kind, &/or enthusiastic. I highly recommend doing this, & I wish I had done so the first time I applied to PhD programs two years ago. In justifying this tactic, I take a simple lesson from social psychology. Familiarity and positive regard are positively correlated, & changes in one cause like changes in the other. By taking the 30-60 seconds to respond to my email, the professor becomes slightly more familiar with me. When the professor examines the list of names applying to their PhD program, s/he feels a degree of processing fluency when encountering my name. If the professor positively evaluates the content of my message, all the better. On more conscious routes of understanding, sending a thoughtful message before the admissions process (& perhaps during, if you're not cloying) communicates maturity and preparation about your application that goes beyond the assumptions made of all doctoral applicants. That is to say, you have read enough of the professor's research in advance, or about the school's particular program, to send an intelligent message to the professor regarding details about one of these aspects of the PhD experience. Of course, don't send a superfluous message: "I really like your research! :D ". Be specific, e.g. "How much interaction is there between the marketing and psychology departments?" I would say if you have any questions that arise while researching the programs you're interested in, ask someone who knows: the professors! While I agree with the above poster (phdhope) that the benefits can be hard to measure, I would argue that the potential detriments are even more difficult to identify. The worst that can happen is that the professor does not notice or does not respond to your email. The best could be a research dialogue that develops before New Year's (hint hint).

The list of schools is a fair inclusion, though admittedly I was hoping to avoid outing myself so directly. :whistle: Probably far too late for that, haha. You're right, as a PhD applicant in consumer behavior, I was going for broke with my selection of schools, Top 20ish or back to the drawing board. I would caution against "casting a wide net" simply for the sake of "admission insurance", however. Sure, a doctoral graduate from Florida has the same title as a doctoral graduate from, say, Clemson**. But if you are applying for the Florida PhD, I would argue that you're wasting your time applying to a Clemson. Factors such as research intensity (what journals? how much?), teaching expectations (you want to teach? or is it an obligation?), general stress (more prestige = more pressure), salary (related directly to research output), & general lifestyle (jetsetting to conferences? consulting? living quietly around an LAC?). The schools you choose to apply to communicate as much info to the adcoms about your aspirations as the rest of your profile. Then again, if you want a PhD regardless the career path, then you know what you've got to do. ** Clemson does not even have a PhD program in marketing, & so will not be offended at my hypothetical comparison.

To answer your post's topic-question, the answer is a solid yes, you have a chance. Just beware of falling in love with any one program, or any one professor for that matter. My favorite marketing CB professor of all-time happens to be at Stanford (I even read this professor's original dissertation). It's my dream to work with this professor, but I'm still going to feel just dandy working other solid researchers if the opportunity arises elsewhere. I hope that you would feel equally blessed simply to be accepted at a good program!

Perhaps this is where programs with more quant orientation (such as modeling in marketing) veer away from less quant-focused programs (like consumer psych). With my 730 & 48 quant, I was told by three different professors that "you have proven that you are plenty smart", with one professor using these exact words. At one school (not a slouch, either) I had the 2nd highest score of all marketing applicants. In yet another adcom, the professors put all the application folders on the table, with the GMAT printed right on top, & review them in descending order of scores. After this initial review, GMATs are dumped. So maybe I just need to eat my own words here & reiterate that each adcom is distinct from all the others. Likewise, more competitive programs in quant-heavy subjects may use the GMAT more shrewdly. In the end, I think my personal, romanticized opinion is that the GMAT is not the greatest indicator of research potential & should be used accordingly (read: sparingly) in the admissions process. Too bad I'm not the one making decisions. ;) I absolutely agree, entering into an MA/MS program this fall would be a far more direct path to, & better preparation for, the PhD that I am seeking eventually to attain. But with a BS in business, there are very few relevant graduate programs to which I could apply - maybe a 3rd-tier MBA, or law school (yuck). Neither is good for PhD route. Thus, I am returning for a 2nd bachelor's in psychology & math, where in a year's time I will have plenty of coursework in both to apply for mostly psychology programs, & possibly statistics programs. I plan on getting involved in psychology research before classes begin in August, so I'm gunning for RA work by next summer, which will allow me some flexibility in my 2nd year to research with a number of professors. So goes the plan, at least. On a brief tangent, I am not the typical business student. This 2nd bachelor's degree is probably what I will consider my real degree once it's completed. Like a good 'BS in BS', I love case competitions & meeting people & talking shop about business ideas. What I do not love are the reams of phony people, the trifling entry-level positions offered to 22-year olds, the meaningless companies, & the inflexible lifestyle. So in short, I really don't mind at all going back to undergraduate studies, & in fact I'm pretty excited about it. I think I'm going to be a much better-prepared applicant in four. years'. time. :p

Rejected too? Sucks, doesn't it? Not to worry. If you're determined to go the business doctoral route, if you're bright enough, & if you're young enough, there is not much in your way to getting in the next time around. I've scattered some of my experiences throughout this forum, but I thought it would be useful for future applicants to see what a rejected profile looks like, to take what I've learned from my personal experience with rejection into their own self-assessment, & to share in the advise of my own advisors for improving my chances in the next round. So here goes. I'll re-post my full academic profile at the end. === (1) There exists NO applicant that will get in everywhere s/he applies. What does this mean exactly? For starters, each doctoral program admits its candidates on distinct criteria. You could have the 800 GMAT, research experience since you were 7 years old, & glowing, posthumous letters of recommendation from Carl Jung, Kurt Lewin, & George Washington, but one professor on one admissions committee somewhere in the world will say, "Yeah, he's got a solid application, but I just think Lewin got change psychology all wrong," or something else completely arbitrary. You will be rejected, God knows why. So take this process with a grain of salt. The biggest grain you can find, preferably. Rejection is inevitable, for reasons beyond your control or understanding. Don't forget: the key is to impress just one adcom out there! (2) Doctoral admission is based essentially on how well your profile addresses this question about you: Can this person conduct high-level academic research? This point is most useful when deciding who should write your letters (professors, not managers), on what character traits to write about in your statement (diligence, intelligence, curiosity), and on what sort of experience you should be seeking to notch on your profile (skip that internship & work in the lab for pennies all summer with your advisor). The single greatest thing you can do to improve your profile is to have a paper of original research that you authored. Of course, the irony in this is that you are applying to a program which is designed precisely to teach you how to write original research. (3) Age matters. Adcoms apply a Laffer curve to admissions with respect to age. The age window of maximum confidence for admissions into PhD programs is roughly 24-29 years old. > If you are applying right out of your bachelor's degree (21-23), adcoms will suspect your maturity, your commitment, & your experience. This is natural. They will also reject your application on these matters with a light heart, because in their minds, you will simply re-apply in a year or so "if you really want to do this". > If you are in your 30s, they will suspect your ability to commit to the impoverished life of a grad student, your desire to have a family life, your reasons for the dramatic shift at this point in your life. You won't achieve (associate) tenure until your 40s. In general, adcoms worry you about being "too mature", or too set in your ways. It's more difficult to overcome this discrimination, but it can be done if you, say, return to grad school for an MA, make a few academic connections, & so on. (4) The GMAT is not that important. The GMAT gives adcoms their only "objective" measure of your intelligence. For this reason it has a degree of usefulness. In the elite programs however, I have been led to believe that the GMAT is a non-factor after the initial cutoff of applicants. If you make 700 or better, stop worrying about it. If you make better than 650, you are still probably fine. Your academic record - grades + courses taken - is far more important than the single GMAT score. Want to impress them with your quantitative ability? Get an A in calculus, or some other tougher math course. Increasing your GMAT-Quant score by a few points does not pay dividends. (5) Continuing that last note, quantitative skills are absolutely essential in every business discipline. Even in the worlds of consumer psychology, organizational behavior, & strategic management, math is crucial. Your record must show - beyond the simple GMAT - that math is no obstacle for you. More mathematical research streams - marketing modeling, financial economics, operations management - obviously require a love of these skills, but this point is not really intended for applicants in those subjects. === I hold these opinions with confidence, from my personal experience, from my fellow applicants' experiences, & from the advice of my mentors & advisors. Now that admissions season is over, I'm not going to be very active here, but all the same I welcome differing views or supporting stories or additional content to the points I've made here. As a fully-rejected PhD applicant for consumer behavior in marketing, I was consistently given two reasons why my application was not successful: my age (then 22) & my research experience (heavy in the preceding year, non-existent before then). If I do the right things... get older & spend the next few years involved in research... there would not seem to be anything preventing my successful admission. So with that ultimatum, I am returning to school for a BA in a field more related to my research interests (psychology), & after two years I will plan to enter into an MA program, also in psychology. Yes, that's four more years of non-PhD schooling. Good thing I'm sure about this doctorate thing, otherwise this might be seen as a waste of time. :p Good luck to you all, I hope this massive letter is helpful for someone out there. & of course, my full profile (copied from a previous thread): Age: 22 (now 23) Program: Marketing - Behavioral GRE: 770Q / 590V / 4.5W (not submitted to programs) GMAT: 730 - 48Q, 41V, 6.0W Undergrad GPA: 3.61 - BS in business (marketing / intl bus mgmt). Public university, top 10 school, top 5 program, graduated with departmental honors. Graduate GPA: No graduate school. Research Exp: (1) thesis in marketing strategy (unpublished, but on track), (2) research assistant on 'A-' journal article in marketing strategy (paid), (3) research assistant on dissertation work in marketing strategy (paid). Current Work: No relevant work experience. Letters of Rec: Three primary, one secondary. (1) Thesis advisor, marketing strategy professor (tenured), (2) consumer psych teacher, marketing behavior professor (tenured), (3) personal mentor, marketing behavior professor (tenured).

Ahh, I see. I'm working on the same assumption under the same circumstances. Didn't hear that rumor, but maybe they'll reply to my little email with the final word.

LennyBee, When did you get your rejection from Minnesota?