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I was in the same position as you in Nov 2013. I decided to apply to PhD finance programs and I worked for about 9 years. Hopefully you are doing something strategy or management related. I contacted my MBA professors for courses that I got an "A" in. I anticipated that they would not remember me, so I sent them my resume and one even asked for my SAT scores (he was widely known for doing IQ and fund manager research) which I obliged and sent a scanned copy of my SAT in 1994. I got 2 recs from b-school faculty (who both didn't remember me, but I got an A in their class) and 1 from my boss at my job. I got into a top 40 school in finance, but I ended up at a top 80 school because the faculty was a better fit and it was better for my future. As an older candidate, you have different choices to face and different decisions to make. Good luck man.

There really is a shortage of American born and raised who can't handle the quant aspects. All the dumbing down of standards, making the SAT Math easier, etc... for political reasons (no one wants a child who is behind, so lets lower the ceiling) has come to bite America in the butt. Really.

Hello. My name is

Texas!

It makes sense, she makes a lot more than he does, the guy who quit PhD because his doctor wife had a baby. Most men I know would love to have a wife who can support them 100%. A lot of men I know complain that their entire goal in life is to make money for their family and they are very dissatisfied with their lives because of that. A lot of these men end up getting divorced once they lose their jobs or can't make money anymore. Thew few whose wives make more than them, their wives don't respect them anymore, and make all the financial decisions about investing, taxes, houses without their husband's opinion. Totally neutered. Its sad.

I actually grew up in California so my observations are pretty much from what I seen in the states. I am native Alaskan. I worked in Korea for a few years. I actually don't understand why Elizabeth Warren doesn't want to run. Just because of the Native American thing? Her self esteem is too low then. Plenty of men have ran having done much worse things in their past. One thing I can say about Korea though, not a single woman believes that being a woman prevents her from being President.

My cohort is me and all girls who are fantastic quantitatively. Frankly I have to try to fit in with them lol. Thankfully I am the guy with ideas and out of the box thinking or else I am almost useless lol. Before my program I was an expat working in a country that elected a woman president two years ago. I have experience that you don't in that regard. My issue here is that many men who just study have no clue when it comes to their emotional logic rights when it comes to women. Men are equal to women when it comes to an equal emotional relationship. Women usually have the upper hand emotionally in the home and that's wrong. In an academic setting it is not a relationship based on emotional logic. That's where I think you confused my opinion.

Sure, I get what you mean though. Thats why I said "IF your wife is like that". Nowhere did I say that "women are like that". If you are angry that there are "some" people like that out there, then make sure that the communicator is using a qualifier. There's a lot of guys/husbands who also are "bling bling" (cars, golf, country club) but usually husbands don't depend on a wife in a PhD program for that kind of lifestyle. If they were, then obviously women wouldn't list "stable job" as a top quality they look for in a man. Generally men leave PhD programs because they have to make more money to support their family, women leave PhD programs because they get pregnant. I don't say that with bad connotations, obviously I rather coauthor with a woman who is more quant focused than me who needs my ideas. For a man to not "drop out" he needs help from his wife, for a woman to not drop out, I guess her husband has to be okay with not having kids. But you do have a point about the second thing I said. I do know people from lower class neighborhoods and are overly materialistic who ALSO place a high value on education. But I stand by my main point which is who your wife's friends are and how they think is a risk to consider for sure. Hopefully she becomes friends with other PhD students wives which is the best result possible.

Thank gawd for Obamacare. I love him. Trying to explain to my wife who is used to universal coverage and doctors seeing tons of patients and charging little (i.e. working harder) in her home country that in America, she has to lower her standards i.e. - we have to make an appointment for a cold checkup instead of walking in and waiting 5 minutes, and get a referral to go to an allergenist we can't go otherwise, and then why the doctor will charge $1500 for a simple blood test to the insurance company so they can argue with each other was very tiring. But Obama at least made our healthcare better than a third world country so the dropoff in quality was not extreme. One thing that is great is that hopefully your wife's friends respect a PhD and what it means. If she has low class ghetto friends that don't and value their lives on bling bling 100% good luck with that. Women in general are more sensitive to what other people think, so your PhD may end up depending on who her friends are.

Tax background is more appropriate for Accounting Professors. Accounting is on fire right now and will be for some time. Starting salary for TT accounting is over 200K+ easily at business schools. Research requirements are lower in general vs. finance. Its a sweet life, as long as you are okay with teaching accounting. Someone in my program had 4 kids with a housewife and they made it on stipend, with owning their own house 100%. Of course, you need a wife who is mean with coupons or has a job too, but its doable in the South or Midwest.

All it really takes is one poor speaker in a phd program to ruin the priori for everyone after them. At a point committees realize writing, toefl, and rehearsed answers can be gamed. At least rehearsed answers show some potential. The math/english speaking function turns pretty convex at a point. I imagine the convexity starts in Feb/March

If you got interviews and you bombed them bc of English... then the answer seems obvious

#1 - NFL Football, usually cities without teams follow the team closest in geographical proximity. i.e. LA heads follow Raiders and Chargers. No one follows Rams. "National All American teams' to follow can be the Patriots or Green Bay. "Alternative" All American team is Seahawks. #2 - Baseball, especially popular with older folks. With academics, baseball seems like a slightly safer bet... especially with all of the excuses to use and manipulate statistical data... i.e. sabermetrics. I played both sports in high school or in leagues. With baseball you can sound like an expert with stats only and not playing.. NFL football... you're an expert when it comes to knowing plays and defensive formations. And you cant learn these unless you at least played flag football. But if you just wanna socialize without being an expert then yeah nfl. Fantasy leagues is probably the quickest most efficient way to learn.

I screwed up with one school when I turned them down. I politely a senior faculty that I would not be attending. But he did not convey this to the director of the program, and the director got mad at me for not telling him earlier The thing was the director was a really cool guy and I couldn't tell him directly. I imagine that is one school where I will not have a chance to be a faculty later. Another school, during the "waiting period", I sent a friendly email to the director because as I was cleaning out my textbooks, I saw that he was the main author of a textbook. It was a spur of the moment, "wow, I didn't even know this was your book!" kind of email, but he took that as a sign that I accepted the offer, and when I had to tell him I was not going to accept it, he got rather angry at me. The thing is it was really hard for me, and I imagine if you got along with the professors at that school you really have to handle it well. Looking back, it was also a problem I had with dating. I never liked to "close the door shut", which always led to terrible endings. Anyways, hope that helps someone out there!

Even Marxist countries had meritocracy ranking in the form of allocation of outperformers to science or athletic schools. Anyone who gets an offer has a right to exercise their time constraints to make a proper decision over someone on the waitlist who was simply not as qualified or desired as the one who got an offer. At a certain point, with extended bad behavior, their reputation will suffer. Someone on the waitlist, been there already. Everyone goes through hair-pulling difficult choices during this time of the year, in a year you will be in a much different place so all you can do is let the market clear and perhaps improve your own candidacy in the meantime if you are on the waitlist. Who knows, maybe taking the GMAT in a few days will help.