mulrich

You have a good GRE but you should take the GMAT. A 700 on the GMAT should be competitive at many top 30 schools but obviously the higher the better. Their is a point of diminishing returns though; if you score a 730 there isn't a huge incentive to take the test again to get a 750. Many schools use the GMAT as an indicator to see if you're 'smart enough'. If you score in the 700's you're 'smart enough' for a lot of programs. Once you're 'smart enough' the rest of your profile will determine where you get in. I don't know how competitive HEC and ESSEC are to get into. HEC is highly ranked so I imagine it's tough. I would email students at both schools to ask about getting in. You could try faculty but they may be less likely to respond or aren't involved in admission decisions. Figure out the schools average GMAT and GPA since those are the most quantifiable ways to judge an applicants profile. If the adcoms sense that you are passionate about OB and research you will get more interest than a super high GMAT. You will live and breathe this for the next 4-5 years so it needs to be something you're obsessed with (or at least make the adcom think that:) ). Try to attend some OB/Management conferences; this will show that you are committed to the field and academia (and then talk about the conferences in your statement so they know you attended). Attending conferences will also introduce you to more topics in the field. The more familiar you are with the discipline the better. Most programs don't expect you to have firm research interests when you enter a program but you should have some broad topics you want to study. You should have no problem getting into OB as long as you have a compelling story behind why you want to study it. I did my undergrad and masters in statistics so had to really explain why I wanted to jump into OB. Your statement of purpose should be very clear about why you are now interested in OB and why you want to do a PhD. I found the programs I applied to liked that I knew the type of work I'd be doing in a program (reading tons of papers, research, etc). Be familiar as possible about what's expected of you; talk to students to get a good sense of what you're getting into. And don't get turned off by people that say you need to put in 80+ hours per week. If you want to put in that much time you certainly can. Most students I've talked to say they work about 50-60 hours per week (sometimes more, sometimes less). Your background and cognitive ability will dictate this. If you need to learn a lot of statistics you'll need to put in more work. If you catch onto theory quickly you'll need to put in less work. If you already have some background in these things than you should be in better shape. Where do you want to end up when you're done? If you want to stay in Europe you should look around at more European schools. If you want to move to the US you should try to do your PhD in the US (unless you can get in a top school in Europe). Figure out a few schools that you want to teach at and see where their faculty earned their degrees and target those (or similar) programs. If you don't want to go into academia there are programs that are more accepting of this. The majority of top programs expect you to go into academia and will toss-out your application if they think you'll peruse a different career. This isn't to say that you can never leave academia but don't let this creep into your application. Despite what many people think a PhD can be very beneficial in the business community and is more useful than an MBA for some jobs. Ultimately your job placement will be based on what you publish, who you know, and who your advisor knows. If you go to a low ranked school and publish in top journals you'll get good job offers. This is generally easier to do at a highly ranked program but not impossible for low-tiered programs. I concur that you want your references to be academic but recognize that this may not be possible. In my opinion it's better to have a recommend from someone who knows you really well and can say how amazing you are than a professor who you took one class from two years ago who doesn't know you from the next student. If you can find a world-famous OB academic to say you're the greatest person ever that's even better. I would also consider applying at schools where your references have connections. This got me an offer from a program I would have otherwise not received. I don't think age is as big an issue as rsaylors is making it out to be. When I look through student profiles at schools I applied to many students are in their late twenties or early thirties. OB students tend to be a little older than other business programs. It's not unheard of for entering students to be in their mid-thirties or forties. I'm 28 and will be one of the younger students in my department. I would apply to at least 12 schools but quantity isn't the only thing that matters. You'll want to personalize your statement of purpose to each program; identify faculty you would work with and why you think each school is the greatest program ever and that you would rather study there than anywhere else. I would say that 80-90% of your SOP will be identical for each program, it's the 10-20% that shows you really care about the school you're applying to. And apply to a range of schools. I've heard of many instances where students get into highly ranked programs (where they are under-qualified) and get rejected at lower ranked programs (where they are over-qualified or fit pretty well). Sometimes it just seems random and something about you just clicks with a faculty member. How well you get along with the faculty will play a large role in how successful you are in your program. If your personality doesn't fit in a department you'll be miserable for a long time. I think it's better to be happy and enjoy your program (even at a lower ranked school) than to drudge through a highly ranked program. If you're happy you'll be more productive and people will like you (which makes coauthoring much easier). The above is basically everything I know (sad, eh?) but if you have any questions feel free to ask.

I have a friend that recently went through the residency assignment process. He interviewed at most of the programs in January (either fly-out or by phone) that he applied at. After interviewing both he and the programs made their lists and decisions were made in March. This could work in b-school setting since you and the schools could create your lists after interviewing and determining how well you fit with the research interests of the program. The biggest complication that I see is that most b-schoos only admit 1-3 students per discipline whereas residency programs admit dozens. I'm not sure if the algorithm would hold up with such a small admit rate. This would also require academics from dozens of schools to not procrastinate their decisions until March, something that may be impossible. In the residency process you have to submit lists by January/February (can't remember which).

What programs did yo turn down? Where did you decide to attend? Congrats on being done with the process.

Have you considered applying to less cut-throat departments? If you're not 100% set on finance you could consider strategy or OB where your profile would really stand out. You could try finding strategy/OB topics that have financial connections and focus on those. You would have to rework your SOP and you may be really into finance but it's something to consider.

Has anyone accepted an offer yet?

When my dad was doing his PhD his program didn't have the required B- minimum for a class. He showed up to the first day of one of his classes and told the professor that he would not be attending class for the rest of the semester but the professor shouldn't remove his name from the class list. All that was required was taking the class, it didn't matter if he passed or even showed up. He spent the extra time writing and graduated the program with more publications than any classmate and got an offer at a top 10 program while his classmates couldn't find jobs. I know this isn't possible today but a fun story.

I'm actually in a good mood about the admissions process. I've had some good interviews with a few really good programs and hope to get offers next week. Indiana was just one of my top picks going into the process. If I get offers from any program I've interviewed with I'll be extremely happy.

I like to hope they're just behind but I'm beginning to realize I'm just not in contention. At this point I assume programs have made their initial interviews.

I wonder if Indiana is just really behind this year.

Things have gone really quiet in the OB area. Has everyone heard from each of their schools?

Has anyone heard from Indiana, Minnesota, or Cornell? I've heard something from most of the other schools I applied to.

My two cents… SAS is best for large data sets; for everything else I use R. Whenever I run into a situation where I need to run large simulations I would probably use some variant of C (although with ever improving processors I may stick with R).

I agree with Granny and hedge. I just wish this whole thing would be over so I wouldn't have to check my email and these forums 532 times a day. I would almost rather be rejected by everyone tomorrow than wait around in ambiguity for another 6 weeks hoping for an acceptance.

Lots of postings (and rejections) for UNC and Northwestern on TGC.

I just noticed that someone was admitted to Washington - Seattle. They posted in admissions/rejections forum. Has anyone else heard from them?