Drmarketing

In short, possible_phd is saying impossible_Phd ? :p (sorry couldn't resist it)

I am just curious, what field do you want to do your PhD in? Generally speaking, "business" is not offered as a dissertation area in most schools. If I have to take a guess, I would assume from what you have mentioned that you are looking at finance or applied economics. Is that right?

Well, I can't help you with that. I am not sure if anyone can. The answer to that question is a very personal story, unique to you and your life experience. You have to note how you learned about the PhD in Finance, what you know/read about it, why you believe it suits you, what skills you think you have that make you good at it, and why you feel you will be a better contribution to the society as an academic in Finance (rather than, say, Mechanics). Essentially, it is the story of your life up to this point and going forward, how you envision your ideal future to be and how a PhD in Finance knits into that big picture. You will also need to specify why you need to be picked over (literally) hundreds of other applicants who also come from great universities. You have to think long and hard about all this and come up with a cogent, well thought-out, well reasoned-out explanations. And now is the time to start!

You have a good GPA, Anna Univ has a good reputation, and you are getting a LOR from an IIT faculty member, so that is all good. But I will stress again about Point 3 from my post above. Your GPA and test scores will take you through initial rounds of screening and will get you some interview calls. What you do with those calls, and what story you provide to the adcoms to convince them that you are best suited for a PhD in Finance is up to you. Before that, you have to be sure about it yourself. As a final note, applying widely never hurts. And I agree with joenobody0, if your papers have a math/quant aspect in them, it helps.

I have a very similar background, and I am from a top 10 school. Here are my questions/comments/suggestions for you- 1) GPA: From my experience, I know that the grad GPA is not really that important, everyone (I mean PhD students in top 10 schools) has a 4.0 or a very high grad GPA. Your undergrad GPA is much more important. I can tell you about IITM GPAs as well, if it is >9, you will definitely get a few interview calls. If you are in the 8.5-9 range, you will only get a couple calls at best. At 2) Minor: What was your minor at IITM? If it was the finance/business, OR, or IE you will have some advantage, since you will have some relevant coursework background. IF they are relevant to economics/finance, you have to leverage those four courses in your SOP and vita quite a bit. 3) Motivation: From what you have posted, I see that you have no background in economics/finance. No coursework, no research experience, only a pure engineering background. While this by itself will not take you out of competition, first be sure why you want to do the PhD. Convince yourself first, then the admission committee. This will, without any doubt, be your Achilles heel. You will repeatedly get asked this question in your interviews. Dedicate a big chunk of your SOP to tell your convincing story of why you want to make this shift. As for the convincing yourself part, go through some papers in the relevant journals, try to see what the coursework looks like, and try to get some reading done. Try to get as clear a picture as you can about what exactly you are getting into and if it is the right thing for you. 4) Test Scores: Coming from an IIT background, it will be a shame if you don't score 800Q on the GRE or a high 700s in the GMAT, so that part is just a formality and will not aid you much beyond being just that. 5) Competition: Finance PhD generally has the highest selectivity rate among all fields of business. If you are looking at a top 10 school, who will your typical competition be? Think economics/business majors from Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, Yale, Chicago. They would have at least as much math background as you do (and in all likelihood much more), they would have done at a minimum two years (in some cases may be 4 or more years) of coursework in economics/finance, and would have the same test scores as you do. What more? They can get LORs from top business school/economics faculty that everyone in the field will know. Now, I know everyone generally says the domestic/international admissions are not the same but if you have to make your way through the admissions, you have to keep your competition in mind. 6) Your research background: While your research background is not relevant to finance/economics, the fact that you have publications will mean you are familiar with the way publishing works, and that will be an advantage. However, if they don't have even a remote application to business, I am not sure how helpful they will be in your application folder. 7) Other points: I also had a national mathematics olympiad background and other such points that I mentioned in interviews and SOPs, I am not sure how important they are or if they have an impact at all. But be sure to mention them anyway. Good luck!

Actually Rsaylors, it is not ITT, it is IIT. And yeah, it actually is a pretty big deal. No one, let me tell you, not one adcom in their sane mind in any top b school will look at an IIT degree and say who cares it's a degree. Want proof? Let's look at where some of these who-cares-IIT-degree holders are, just in the marketing departments, shall we? Now if I add in other departments I am sure it will take hours to compose the list, just for the top schools. HBS 1) Biography - Sunil Gupta 2) Biography - Vineet Kumar 3) Biography - Rajiv Lal 4) Biography - Das Narayandas 5) Biography - V. Kasturi Rangan Stanford GSB 1) https://gsbapps.stanford.edu/facultyprofiles/biomain.asp?id=93206009 2) https://gsbapps.stanford.edu/facultyprofiles/biomain.asp?id=37949209 Wharton 1) Jagmohan Raju - The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania 2) Raghuram Iyengar - The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania 3) Piyush Kumar - The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania Michigan 1) Faculty Profile - Stephen M. Ross School of Business 2) Faculty Profile - Stephen M. Ross School of Business Chicago Booth 1) Sanjay K. Dhar - Chicago Booth Faculty 2) Suresh Ramanathan - Chicago Booth Faculty Kellogg 1) Lakshman Krishnamurthi - Faculty - Kellogg School of Management 2) Mohanbir Sawhney - Faculty - Kellogg School of Management Yale SOM 1) Yale School of Management - Faculty - Ravi Dhar 2) Yale School of Management - Faculty - Subrata K. Sen 3) Yale School of Management - Faculty - K. Sudhir NYU Stern 1) http://w4.stern.nyu.edu/faculty/facultyindex.cgi?id=352 UT Austin 1) Faculty Expertise Guide 2) Faculty Expertise Guide I dont't know about you but I would definitely say that's on par with any Ivy League school. Granted, just because you are from an IIT does not mean you will get an admission right away, you still need a good GPA and GMAT score, and good LORs and preferably some research experience. However, the IIT brand easily already puts you ahead of several candidates and will definitely NOT be looked at as another guy with another degree. I know friends who have had interviews at some top schools and in their interviews the faculty members were disappointed and complaining about how more IIT graduates are not applying for business PhDs these days. That said, the brand IIT is really famous for its B.Tech degree and OP is not enrolled for that, and Roorkee is one of the lesser known IITs out there, so it may require more convincing effort on his/her part.

Behavioral, Sure, please feel free to use this information, I put it in one place so it is useful for such purposes. I had forgotten MIT Sloan in the list back then, here it is Thesis Titles - MIT Sloan PhD Program However, what possible_phd pointed to is obviously much more comprehensive and informative.

Brika, I thought Stanford generally doesn't conduct interviews for marketing !

Cerebellum, Is the source of your Stanford info reliable or is it just a rumor you heard?

I was told the Stanford results will be out by the end of February. GC postings from previous years shows the acceptances/rejects go out by Feb 20th. If you don't mind, can we use this thread as an official Marketing results thread? The title seems apt.

You mean 'met early this week'?

Kcowboy, Did MIT announce only CB marketing or all marketing (including quant)?

For anyone interested, I am putting together the recent (where possible marketing) placements from the top schools in one place... 1) HBS (all) http://www.hbs.edu/doctoral/pdf/recent%20placement%20summary.pdf 2) Stanford GSB (marketing) Marketing Academic Placements: PhD Program: Stanford GSB 3) Chicago Booth (all) http://www.chicagobooth.edu/phd/phdgradsjobs.pdf 4) NYU Stern (marketing) NYU Stern | PhD Placements 5) Columbia (very generic) Doctoral Program : Placement 6) Wharton (all) Wharton Doctoral Programs | Recent Placements 7) Yale SOM (marketing) Recent Graduates | Doctoral Program 8) Northwestern Kellogg (marketing) Job Placement | Kellogg School of Management | Northwestern University 9) London Business School (all) http://www.london.edu/assets/documents/programmes/Placement_List3.pdf 10) INSEAD (all) INSEAD - PhD - Alumni & Placements 11) Haas (marketing) Dissertations & Placements - Marketing, PhD Program - Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley 12) UCLA (all) Placement | UCLA Anderson School of Management 13) UT Austin (marketing, not exhaustive) Ph.D. Program - Marketing Department - Texas Marketing Ph.D. Alumni and Placements 14) OSU (marketing) http://fisher.osu.edu/supplements/10/8804/PhD-In-Marketing.pdf

Apple and Orange, Are you saying that HBS is not as good even for the CB side of marketing? And do you know why their program does not provide adequate research training, mentorship, and opportunities for publishing? I have noticed this too (especially the lack of publishing part), I am just wondering why it is so. And the final question I have is regarding case studies. I have read here many people mentioning the requirement of writing case studies. However, the HBS FAQs clearly mention and I quote "Are students required to write business cases? No. Doctoral students are not required to write business cases as part of their program." So my question is why do people still say that students are required to help with case studies? Again, I am not contesting your claim, I am just trying to understand why. And finally given all this, what would your top 5-6 quant marketing programs be, apart from Yale and Columbia that you have already mentioned?

The reason behind my question is that in my opinion, there are certain details that get washed away in the sea of information that is out there. For example, HBS seems to be very good in CB but not necessarily quant (not as many recent quant theses). Even the majority of current marketing students there seem to be in CB. Even though Wharton's marketing department is well published and highly prestigious, the recent overall marketing placement is not stellar as compared to other similar highly prestigious schools. Stanford and Chicago seem to have the best overall marketing placement records. MIT has the most "paradigm shifting" faculty. Again, London is mainly focused on CB and not quant. Given all this, my top 6 would be Stanford, Chicago, MIT, Columbia, NYU, Kellogg. Thoughts?