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taxPhD

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Everything posted by taxPhD

  1. Congrats! Welcome to the other side.
  2. For an older applicant, it is even more important to effectively signal to admissions committees why you want to pursue a PhD. Fair or not, I think older applicants always have a bit of an uphill battle, but that doesn't mean you cannot gain admission into a high quality program. You have a great GMAT score, I don't think getting it to 750 will make a huge difference in admissions. So I would focus on crafting a good statement of purpose to convince admissions committees that you are serious about having a successful research career and that this just isn't a midlife crisis to get our of the grind of the "real world."
  3. I'd say that's a very unrealistic expectation. RAs are not co-authors. In fact, if I received an application from a perspective PhD student who was listed as a co-author on a high quality publication, I would do a little digging to try and figure out what exact role the applicant had on the paper. I most years, I would say zero percent of finance PhD applicants already have a top-3 publication. It's not even that common for job market candidates to have a top-3 publication at the time of graduation. So having one 5 years earlier is extremely rare.
  4. I would strongly advise against accepting a flyout invitation just to "visit" somewhere for free. If the school is not a school you can realistically see yourself attending, then you should no apply.
  5. Given you can research similar questions in either area, then in my opinion it really comes down to teaching. Would you rather teach strategy or managerial accounting?
  6. In my opinion, if you get a PhD from a strong experimental program, you'll place just fine. So get a PhD focusing on experimental methods from Cornell, Illinois, Texas, Indiana, Pittsburgh, Emory, etc. and you'll likely place at one of those schools also. I am not sure it's considerably more difficult to publish experimental work in a top 3. Slightly more difficult, probably.
  7. I made it through on $19,700....all those sound like great offers to me.
  8. First of all, those are all good to very good programs. Depending on the exact topics within financial archival one wanted to research would determine, to some degree, which school would be the best fit. But broadly (in terms of thinking 5 years down the line about what an average placement would look like out of said school), I would probably group them as follows. This was not a super easy task, one could easily argue that this grouping is not "correct." It's just one persons take. Group 1: Penn, NYU, USC Group 2: Washington, UT-Austin, UNC, Penn State Group 3: TAMU, Georgia, Illinois, Florida Group 4: Oregon
  9. If you're considering audit or tax research, I would strongly recommend work experience. It is not as necessary for financial or managerial. If applying straight from undergrad, I would say you can typically expect to gain acceptance at a school a tier (maybe two) below what you could get accepted to with similar GPA and GMAT + work experience and CPA. The most successful applicants coming straight from undergrad seem to have a math/econ background.
  10. A few things. First, behavioral tax is probably an area that I would not pursue unless you are truly set on it. I say that because tax is already a small field, behavioral tax (within accounting) is extremely extremely small. There are more behavioral tax stuff in economics, mainly focusing on individual taxpayers. There is very little of it published in A accounting journals, and I don't think any of the programs you mentioned would be interested in a behavioral tax applicants. If you want to do behavioral tax, look at South Carolina. Second, you mention you don't think you will be competitive at Texas, TAMU, or Arizona. Your chances would be better at those programs than the likes of the ones you list: Stanford, Harvard, MIT, etc. Though I would note that Arizona isn't as attractive for tax applicants as it was just a few years ago. I know they rank very well in the BYU rankings, but the students that are factoring into those rankings were students of Dan Dhaliwal's. Arizona will remain a solid program, but I think they'll be better for financial and audit going forward, more so than tax. I agree that the fact that you've minored in accounting does make you a better applicant than some of the econ/math type applicants. Many of them have no accounting background. And the fact that you passed quals at a decent economics PhD program should be a positive signal. But given your economics background, why behavioral? The economics background would seemingly give you a leg up as an archival researcher.
  11. I remember getting something like this from the University of Alabama when I was applying to doctoral programs. I think they buy contact information from the GMAC based on filters on GMAT score, etc. Common in the MBA world, not so common in the PhD world. But it happens.
  12. Preeti was a PCAOB fellow, so she had access to data that most researchers cannot get their hands on.
  13. If you are interested in studying the dynamic between the client's management and the auditor, you may want to consider behavioral audit research. I say this because while in theory, the type of question you are interested in can be studied by an archival audit researcher, you have to think about how you would get data on the relationship. That is, how—as an outsider—would you observe whether management is more/less open to discussing accounting issues, etc.? Also, you cannot observe proposed audit adjustments, etc, so trying to get examine how managers and auditor reach an agreed upon final adjustment is difficult archivally. As far as your initial question, I believe you can find your way into a solid accounting PhD program with a 690. However, your list has a lot of variation in terms of quality. Schools like Kansas and Tennessee would probably acknowledge that they are decent, but non-elite. On the other hand, Iowa and Minnesota would not be particularly keen being labeled as such. In terms of audit, if you are thinking archival, then Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, and Tennesee would certainly be places to consider. In terms of behavioral, look at Alabama, UMass, South Carolina.
  14. 1. You should be aiming for a GMAT of 700+. Many schools use 700 as a "magic" cut-off for whether applications will be looked at further. Having said that, there are many schools that accept students under 700 (think 650-690 range). You can signal your willingness to increase your quant knowledge by taking online courses and such before you apply to the PhD program, even if these are MOOCs, it signals that you recognize that your quant background is maybe a bit weak and that you are trying to remedy that. 2. Absolutely. Practice experience often influences the choice of research topics that particularly researchers work on. The bigger issue is data reliable data that can be used to research some of the topics you mentioned. But big picture, assuming data was not an issue, if you could provide insight into questions such as "Does use of AI in tax corporate tax compliance increase or decrease errors?" or "Does use of AI in the audit improve audit quality?" . . . journals would be interested. But finding the data and setting necessary to cleanly test such questions is difficult.
  15. Always good to see another tax person! Places I would consider as a tax applicant, in no particular order. I made a pretty broad list because target schools will largely depend on what sort of GMAT score you get. Texas A&M (John Robinson, Connie Weaver, Brad Hepfer) UNC (Ed Maydew, Doug Shackelford, Jeff Hoopes, and Scott Dyreng nearby at Duke) UC-Irvine (contingent on knowing Terry Shevlin's 5-year plan) Nebraska (Tom Omer) Oregon (Dave Guenther, Linda Krull, Ryan Wilson) Texas (Lil Mills and Brady Williams) Indiana (Casey Schwab, Sonja Rego, Bridget Stomberg, Brian Williams) Georgia (Ben Ayers, Erin Towery, Paul Demere, John Cambell also does some tax) MIT (Michelle Hanlon) UPenn (Jennifer Blouin) Tennessee (LeAnn Luna, James Chyz) Wisconsin (Stacie Laplante, Fabio Gaertner, Dan Lynch) Florida (Gary McGill, Mike Mayberry, Luke Watson) Michigan State (Ed Outslay, contingent on retirement plans) Arizona State (Jenny Brown and Dave Kenchington) Arizona (would probably want to wait to see what happens in terms of tenure decisions this year) Connecticut (George Plesko, Amy Dunbar, Frank Murphy, Steve Utke, Dave Weber) Illinois (Pete Lisowsky and Mike Donohoe) Iowa (Christi Gleason, Jaron Wilde, Kevin Markle) Waterloo (Ken Klassen and Andy Bauer) Texas Tech (Kirsten Cook, Robert Ricketts, Ryan Houston) Kansas (Tom Kubick) I don't think nine years of work experience will be viewed negatively. Many very successful researchers had significant careers in accounting before getting their PhD (e.g., Mary Barth, Jennifer Blouin, Lil Mills, etc.)
  16. 1. Math camp at the University I attended used Simon and Blume - Mathematics for Economists. We had to turn in a problem set (of around 100 problems) over Chapters 2-9 on day 1 of math camp. Then in math camp itself, we covered chapters 10, 11, 12, 13, 14.1-14.8, 15.1, 15.3, 15.4, 16, 18, 19, 20, 23, and 30. I did not use all that much of this material again. I had only had Calc 1 and Calc 2 prior to the PhD program, so math camp was a struggle. My cohort mate had only had business calc, so it was an even bigger struggle for him. 2. Ask senior PhD students what the expectations are. At my University, the PhD students in the years ahead of me told us that getting a C or two in the PhD econ courses was not uncommon. As far as I know, none of the faculty in the accounting department knew what grades we got in the econ courses, besides maybe the PhD program director, but I do not even think he looked. But this will vary from school to school. I can say that my cohort mate, who only had business calc entering the PhD program, got Cs in a couple of the PhD econ courses. I did not get any Cs. He has 7 A publications and went up for tenure early. I have A pubs (nothing close to 7) and am certainly not going up for tenure early. So at least in this anecdotal case, performance in the economics coursework had little correlation with our eventual publication success. You are going to be time constrained. When faced with a trade-off of whether to put a few extra hours into an econ PhD course problem set or into your discipline's doctoral seminars, put the extra time into your seminars. I believe you will get more return on the extra time spent familiarizing yourself with the literature of your discipline vs. spinning your wheels for a few more hours on a problem set.
  17. I probably wouldn't retake. 720 is high enough that your application is unlikely to get cut from consideration based only on GMAT. In addition, if a school is going to make you an offer with say a 740 GMAT they are probably also going to offer you at a 720 GMAT. Plus, there is always the possibility you do not improve, or maybe even score a bit worse the second time around. Once you're above the schools self-defined GMAT threshold then the marginal benefit of a few more points on the GMAT is very low, in my opinion.
  18. It is hard to know just from a job title such as "academic associate," what does this position entail?
  19. Yes, I think a 700+ GMAT score would make you a competitive applicant at programs such as Mizzou and KU. Mizzou has been stronger the past decade, has had some really nice placements. Kansas is probably stronger historically and has recently added another great audit researcher (Mike Wilkins) to their faculty. Another nearby program, Arkansas, is also a strong audit group. If you are ranking PhD programs, you really need to dial down to a specific area. If you are thinking archival audit research, then Missouri, Kansas, and Arkansas would all be good choices. If you were say thinking capital markets, then I would probably not recommend those programs, so it really depends on research interests.
  20. While it's certainly a good goal, It should probably be noted though that it would be extremely rare for an applicant to a PhD program to have a publication in an outlet like JCR. If an applicant has a publication, it is generally from work during a masters program in say psychology or something in which the said applicant did work in a lab that resulted in a publication, often with 6-7 authors. It's a bit of a different game in those fields than in business school disciplines. I am not in marketing, I am in accounting, but I would actually be very skeptical of an accounting PhD applicant with a publication in one of our top journals and would need very clear evidence that he/she substantially contributed to the effort of said publication. The majority of accounting PhDs do not have an A pub. at graduation, let alone at application to PhD programs.
  21. A good GMAT score can certainly be used to overcome some of the concerns of GPA. But yes, neither your undergrad nor your MBA GPAs will impress admissions committees. PhD admission is very competitive, so while a good GMAT will overcome some GPA concerns, it is likely that many of the schools you are applying to will have candidates with similar GMATs and also strong GPAs. However, with a good GMAT and your professional accounting experience, I think you can find admission somewhere. It is very hard to recommend a target set of schools though without knowing what the GMAT score is. Not sure where you are working now, city wise, but if you are close to a school with a PhD program, try to see if you can take advantage of that. Try and talk to a faculty member about pursuing a PhD, and see about attending some of their research workshops. This could allow you to potentially get a reference from someone that is research active. If you're still in the Missouri area, both Mizzou and KU are strong archival audit shops, which would seem to fit with your interests.
  22. Accounting prof here, not marketing. But if you are thinking CB then it seems like a masters degree in psychology, human behavior, etc. may be the most useful. They will almost surely be more research focused than pretty much any masters degree from a business school. I have a friend who did a masters in psychology from a so-so directional state school, she applied to psychology PhD programs and did not get in anywhere. However, she applied to marketing PhD programs and was accepted into a top 10 CB program. Those that are closer to the field may have better advice, again, I'm accounting, not marketing.
  23. Finance may be different, but my experience in accounting at both my doctoral institution (T25), as well as the Universities I have served as a faculty member at, has been that the faculty members teaching these courses are generally understanding that an accounting PhD student will generally not have the same quantitative background as an econ PhD student. Thus, if the student clearly puts forth an effort, turns in all the work, comes to class, makes use of office hours and TA hours, etc... then he/she is unlikely to fail the student. I have even seen these faculty grade non-econ PhD students on a different curve than econ PhD students. Again, speaking primarily about accounting, but my experience has been that students who do not complete the PhD program almost always self-select out, versus being failed out. But everyone's experiences are probably different, I can only speak directly for the three universities I have been affiliated with. Your best knowledge source will be the older students in your own program. In my doctoral program, we did not have to take the econ prelim because we did not minor in economics. While we had 15 hours of graduate economics coursework, we all took minors in finance. So I cannot directly speak to the experience of taking the econ prelim.
  24. The papers are probably using a principal-agent model in some sort of game theory or contract theory context. Just glancing across my bookshelf, I do not have any books that really break it down into layman's terms. Maybe look to see if your University has a game theory course at the undergraduate-level and then look to see what text they are using. Hopefully, someone has a recommendation here, as I would be interested in knowing as well. But some books I have found useful are the following: A Theory of Incentives: The Principal-Agent Model The Theory of Incentives: The Principal-Agent Model: Jean-Jacques Laffont, David Martimort: 9780691091846: Amazon.com: Books Contract Theory Amazon.com: Contract Theory (MIT Press) eBook: Patrick Bolton, Mathias Dewatripont: Kindle Store I will also say unless your professor for the seminar has expressed otherwise, the intuition is the most important part. Unless you are planning on being an analytical researcher, I would focus on understanding the basics of the model and the author's thought process. Also, pay attention to assumptions explicitly and/or implicitly made in the paper, as you can probably assume the author's math is sound. However, the assumptions he/she may have had to make to arrive at a closed-form solution may not be the most valid assumptions. In terms of the quantitative rigor of econometrics courses, I really like "A Guide to Econometrics" by Kennedy. It explains everything in layman's terms and leaves the proofs to the appendix. That way you can read the explanation of what a particular test/model is trying to achieve, and then if you so desire you can go and try to understand how that is being shown through the proof. It's a good book to use as a complement to a text like Greene or Wooldridge.
  25. To some extent, it will depend on your program and University. However, in general, the first year is certainly rigorous. My PhD is in accounting, so much of our first-year coursework was taken with the economics PhD cohort. Micro theory, probability theory, econometrics, etc. Even though I had done some prep beforehand to try and get up to speed, I was woefully underprepared in terms of quantitative skills. So I invested a lot of time in the first year getting up to speed. I'd recommend making some econ PhD friends if you can and making use of the course TA if they have one (which will typically be a later stage econ PhD student). In terms of research, during the first-year of my program, we had an accounting seminar in each semester. Both of these seminars required the front-end of an original research idea to be written up. Thus, we had no choice but to jump into the research waters. Overall, it'll be a whirlwind. Having days you want to quit is quite normal, but you just gotta push through. You need to realize that at most schools, the econ faculty members are not trying to fail out the students from other disciplines that are in their courses. They are just trying to sort the econ PhD students. So try and learn as much as you can in those courses, but unless your program director tells you otherwise, you typically do not need to worry about getting an A in those courses.
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