arghya555

Hi Guys, please let me know about your opinions. I have been waiting for a week.

Thanks for the link. Any other feedback about the courses I have taken?

Hi Guys, thank you very much for your suggestions. During the last month, I have done the following: 1. Postponed my PhD plan to 2015. 2. Took admission in a distance learning math masters course. It is covering Multivariate calculus, real analysis, algebra, and probability theory and mathematical statistics in the first year and complex analysis, analytical geometry and a few other courses in the 2nd year. 3. Approached a few professors through cold email and reference and asked them about scope for volunteering in their research work. The responses from about a dozen are positive (3-4 of them are relatively well known and have published in international journals in the A- or B+ categories). I spoke to them about my predicament and told them about my PhD plans and most of them said they are willing to take assistance from an unpaid volunteer for 4-5 hours a week and based on the quality of my output will be glad to write LORs. 4. Taking my own initiatives and have started work on a few research papers (mostly backtracking existing literature and trying to fit them in the Indian context). In reply to 1. I did my Bachelors in engineering from NIT Silchar (one of the top 30 engineering colleges in India), but the GPA was not at all great (I cannot translate it into GPA but it was 55%) because I went through some personal problem during the phase. I had Math I-IV in engineering, including single and multivariate calculus, ODE/PDE, and a bunch of other stuff which I do not remember any more (last math course was taken in 2003). 2. Unfortunately not. It is a T70-80 B-School in India, known to the corporate but does not have a decent research program. I scored 68% in the program. I understand it is going to be a tough task given that Ihold a 9.00-6.00 corporate job, which is often demanding and makes me stay late in the office. However, the question is, given what I am about to embark upon, does my chance go up from the T50-100 to some higher ranked universities (as mentioned by daffodil5435)? Once again, thanks to all the members in the forum. Now a days this is the forum I visit more often than Facebook or LinkedIn.

Hi, many thanks for the response. By research I meant business and financial research report for the industry, for example writing industry focused policy papers based on Basel III, Solvency II, MiFID or the UK banking levy regulations. I worked for a company which was an outsourcing vendor for some of the big four and I wrote proxy policy papers on behalf of them (I prepared the reports and they were published in someone else's name). Problem is, these are inference based reports and owing to the non disclosure agreements that I the had to sign with my company, I can not disclose the exact policy paper name, only the topic that I covered. On the other hand, most of the PhD students in major business schools have stayed in the academic world and published original research papers. More over, the financial research reports that I worked on are derivative in nature as clients prefer to see already existing financial theory being incorporated in their research reports. So, I can do the following: Utilize some existing research articles on the US market and test their validity for the Indian market. These can probably be published in some Indian business journals (they do not feature among the top 100 journals in any ranking). If I can get the permission to use the methodology of these reports in the Indian context and publish them in some B- or C grade journal, will they carry any weight? How important is it to have published original research articles in your name to apply for a PhD course? B-Schools in India do not always encourage original research in the MBA course as students at this level are mostly trained to join the industry.

During the initial days of career, I was put into a financial research team, where I had to work on bankruptcy model (preparing research reports after designing the model) and reports on the performance of investment funds. I was completely in the dark since my specialization was marketing with a focus on business statistics. However, to pick up speed, I started going through finance books and with increased interest started going through finance journals. However, it was clearly evident that the actual market returns or the financial markets did not respond properly to the financial models we prepared, which were based on research articles, that intrigued me. I delved into advanced journals (JF, JFE, RFS, JFQA). Obviously, it was and still is tough for me to decipher high end financial journals (analytical geometry or heat equation and so on and so forth). The work and these subsequent studies made me interested in pursuing a PhD program in finance (especially financial economics). My problem is I am already 30 years old. I may not be able to try for more than 2-3 years to get into a PhD program. So suggestions will be highly appreciated. One more thing, the events leading to my interest in PhD (which I narrated in the 3-4 lines), do you think it will be an interesting point in my CV?

Situation: Planning to apply for PhD in financial economics or quantitative finance in the US for 2014 session. I have a 3.5 Indian GPA in my business management classes (68%). Specialization in marketing but with business statistics as a subject. Have 4 years of corporate experience with business research and financial market research. Planning to take GMAT in November-December. Mock test scores come in the 730-760 range. Query: 1. Am I eligible for PhD, since I have a break post studies. 2. Are corporate references valid if I apply for a PhD.? 3. Do corporate experience count? 4. What are my chances of getting into a top 20 college? (I know it is highly speculative, so any suggestion will be gladly welcome :-). )

Started this thread at the suggestion of rsaylors. Situation: Planning to apply for PhD in financial economics or quantitative finance in the US for 2014 session. I have a 3.5 Indian GPA in my business management classes (68%). Specialization in marketing but with business statistics as a subject. Have 4 years of corporate experience with business research and financial market research. Planning to take GMAT in November-December. Mock test scores come in the 730-760 range. Query: 1. Am I eligible for PhD, since I have a break post studies. 2. Are corporate references valid if I apply for a PhD.? 3. Do corporate experience count? 4. What are my chances of getting into a top 20-30 college? (I know it is highly speculative, so any suggestion on getting there will be gladly welcome :-) ) Problem: 1. Have poor GPA in undergraduate engineering (3.0 or 55%) 2. Studies marketing in masters but worked in the finance sector. Studies marketing because, I was interested in market research (mostly the statistics). 3. The work life was kind of a resurrection for me as I excelled and got out of a practically 7-8 year long depression. But these things do not show up in an academic transcript. Additional information: By business research and market research, I mean writing policy papers (such as what could be the impact of Basel III on the UK banking industry and so on and so forth), business strategy packs, competitive intelligence reports, industry reports, investment fund performance analysis and literature report search (this one does not involve writing). The CV is attached here. So you people can probably glance through and provide some important suggestions. Moderator please let me know whether should I keep or remove the resume.

I am not very sure whether do I need to post in some other threat, but here is my situation and query. Situation: Planning to apply for PhD in financial economics or quantitative finance in the US for 2014 session. I have a 3.5 Indian GPA in my business management classes (68%). Specialization in marketing but with business statistics as a subject. Have 4 years of corporate experience with business research and financial market research. Planning to take GMAT in November-December. Mock test scores come in the 730-760 range. Query: 1. Am I eligible for PhD, since I have a break post studies. 2. Are corporate references valid if I apply for a PhD.? 3. Do corporate experience count? 4. What are my chances of getting into a top 20 college? (I know it is highly speculative, so any suggestion will be gladly welcome :-). )