Silviatx

My school will send out new offers next week, because 2 of the original offers have been declined. It's not too late to get in, however we are not a top ten school. The story might be different for those schools.

Don't let age deter you from applying to PhD programs. It is not the all deciding factor at most schools. I was probably the oldest applicant here in the forum last year and received several offers. I am sure some schools will reject you because of your age but it is not the most important number on your application. I am serious! We will see how hard it will be for me to find a job after I graduate. One of our graduating students this year was 42 at graduation and had no problems finding a job. I will be a few years older when I am done.... we shall see.....

Yeah, this is actually an exciting time for applicants because the hard work is done and now you just have to stay positive and wait for the results. In one year from now you will be stressed out and overwhelmed as a first year student thinkink back to this time when it was all calm and quiet. ;) Good luck!

All schools I interviewed with asked all of these questions: Why a PhD? Why our school? Where do you see yourself after you have completed your PhD program? And then the other questions varied a little bit. They asked about previous research experience and what I am currently interested in. It sure helps to know about their program and about the faculty members from each school, at least the ones you want to work with or the ones who you will be interviewing with. I can't remember the hardest question I was asked. I don't think there was a very difficult question that tested my knowledge about anything. Maybe I was just lucky. I do remember one of my interviews didn't go as well as the other ones though. This was actually with a school I was quite interested in. For whatever reason I was very very tongue-tied and it seemed like I just stumbled over my own words throughout the whole interview. After I was done I was convinced that I must have sounded like an idiot to them. I didn't receive an offer from that school, but as it turned out that school decided not to accept any applicants that year at all - so my bad interview didn't hurt quite as bad after all. I think I wasn't prepared as I should have been for some of my interviews. Oh I don't know if you need to know details about their offered courses. It seems more like a question you could ask them instead of having to answer it. They are supposed to tell you about their courses and workshops. Make a list of questions you want to ask them and always be prepared for answering "Why a PhD?" first. What is the field you are applying to?

Just wanted to wish all of you good luck. It is going to be a nerve-wrecking 3 months, but it will be over before you know it. I had my first two interviews in December last year before the holidays. Some schools move incredibly fast through their application process and want to make offers as quickly as possible, but the great majority of schools doesn't start the interviewing process until January/February. I remember that January was also very very slow. It's also a fun time actually. You most likely have done all the hard work already (GMAT, sent out applications, etc) All you have to do now is wait and try not to drive yourself crazy. :monkey:

One more thing that may give hope to future applicants: I found out about the stats of our applicants this year. (for all business departments at my school). The number of applicants was much lower than I I would have expected and it was also about 10% lower than the year before. Last year a friend told me (she is at a T10 school) that in 2016 they had fewer applicants than in 2015) So this could be some kind of trend at all schools? I am at a T50 school and I was really really REALLY surprised to see that we had only about 100 applicants this year. So I think chances may actually be pretty good to get into a program if you are willing to also apply to lower ranking schools.

I agree with Bizz. One of my recommenders said to me that letters of recommendations actually don't matter that much unless they are from someone who is well-known in the field. If they are unknown or unrelated to the field their letters may not even be read. What is also very important, and this falls under "relationship building" are the informal recommendations. Ideally you would have a mentor who knows someone at the school you are applying to and who can talk to that person and make sure they will at least look at your application. These "informal recommendations" can be the most important part of your application if they come from someone influential in your field. Seriously. If you have a person with a strong reputation on your side .... that really works wonders! I mean that's how you get jobs in the industry and that's how you might just get an acceptance as a PhD student in academia when it comes down to a decision between you and another candidate.

Hello forum members old and new, I have been wanting to write this post for months but kept putting it off and I am afraid that it is now too late for me to remember everything I initially wanted to share with you. Let me try: I will "officially" start my PhD program in MGT tomorrow with my TA training and orientation. Unofficially I started one month ago when I moved to my new city. 1100 miles away from the town where I spent the last 14 years of my life. I can't believe the new application cycle for programs starting next year will begin very soon. It's almost fall. Some of us have talked about putting a list of things together of things that we thought may or may not be helpful for the next applicants. You can start right here if you want: https://myphdtales.blogspot.com/search/label/Before%20a%20PhD BrazilianPhD wrote an excellent blog and I agree with most of what he wrote. Spot on! Xanthus also wrote many helpful things somewhere here in the forum. I am afraid you will have to look for them yourself. I wasn't able to find them that quickly. :livid: Here are some things I learned, in random order: 1) Age matters very little. I think I am probably the oldest one in the forum. I am in my 40s and I am about to start a PhD. There are a few others here who are close to my age. Of course, it's your decision whether you want to take on such challenge later in live... working long hours, making little money and so on.... but I can assure you... and I am speaking from my own experience here, many schools will NOT reject you because of your age. This was my experience. I sent out 14 applications and I had interviews with 11 of those schools who knew how old I was at the time of the interview. When I started this journey I was very worried that I would have no chance getting into a program because I was an older applicant. WRONG! Age played no role in my case. Sure, there may be schools who will prefer 25 year old applicants, but like I said, many schools will make their decisions based on other factors. Will I get a tenure-track job once I am done? I have no clue, and I really don't want to worry about that right now. I am glad I got accepted at a great school. If I do well and finish with a good publication record I may just get a good job, who knows. So don't let age deter you. You are NOT too old and crazy to get your PhD when you are in your early 30s! 2) GMAT blah blah blah .... I hate the GMAT I probably also had the lousiest GMAT score here in the forum. I applied with a 630, and no it's not like I didn't try. I invested a lot of time and money in this darn test. I will shamefully admit it: I failed miserably at the GMAT 3 times with my highest score being 630. This is pretty painful for a straight A student like myself. There is no logical explanation really except for: my brain was not cut out for the GMAT. Believe me, I wish I would have had a 700+ score like most of you, but I just couldn't do it. This also made me believe that I would never be able to get into a program. I was wrong about that too. I am not saying the GMAT doesn't matter. It does, but it is NOT the only thing that matters. I really think people put way too much emphasis on this silly test. I knew several professors at my old school who were able to make it through their program despite low GMAT scores and some of them are great and well-known scholars today. I know someone is probably going to lecture me again that the GMAT is a very good indicator for someone's academic success in a PhD program... well sure but so are many other things. I am just mentioning this to encourage you to apply anyway even if you have a low GMAT score. You probably will get desk-rejected at all top 20 schools with a score like that, but I am living proof that it is possible to get accepted by a decent school with a score in the low 600s. 3) GET RESEARCH EXPERIENCE before you apply. I was really stunned to read how many of you have had research experience prior to their application. This seems to be the norm now for a successful applicant. You have to get your hands on some kind of research experience. Most won't have a publication prior to a PhD program but you have to be able to put something in your SOP and talk about something when you interview. Work as a GRA for your department, try to go to a conference, maybe get a conference presentation... anything! People at my school talk about my previous research experience (even though it was very little!) a lot more than my GMAT score. In fact they never EVER mentioned my GMAT score to me. NEVER! But I am the doctorate student who has a little bit of research experience.... that's what they keep saying. This is going to be crucial for your application. Get your hands on research!!!!!! 4) Build relationships! You have to start doing this while you are still in school and you still have access to professors. It's hard to reach out to professors once you have left the academic world and nobody remembers you anymore. I have read here from a few people who emailed professors they didn't know and asked if they could work for them and then they were disappointed because these professors didn't reply. Well, that didn't surprise me. Professors are busy. Why would they reply to a random person who reaches out to them and who is of very little or no interest to them? Build your relationships while you are still in school. Tell your professors about your plans. Ask them if they can introduce you to other people who are working on some research you could get involved with. It's always better to get introduced by someone you both know. I was introduced to the person who became my mentor by the professor who I worked for as an RA. 5) Waiting sucks! Some schools interview really really early! I sent out all my applications before December 15th and I had my first two interviews on December 16th and 17th. I was shocked! Then nothing happened so I thought... "ok,, holidays".... then the January 15th deadline passed and nothing happened and everyone here sort of went crazy because nothing happened. Then everyone at gradcafe went crazy because nothing happened or because all of a sudden some people posted interviews and most of us still had not heard a thing. So my experience: Nothing happens in January! Don't drive yourself crazy! You may have schools that are fast movers that interview before Christmas but don't make a decision quickly, but most schools don't do anything until February. Wait until February before you freak out! By the way, I did not get my offer from my school until early March. I was on their waitlist and they did not know until early March that the other person wasn't going to accept their offer. So yes, it happens all the time that people get picked off from waitlists. If you are high on a waitlist, that is very good news. So that's actually all I can think of right now. Anybody else want to add anything? Good luck to all of you!

I can't really say much about admissions to a Finance PhD. I would think a mathematical background is more important for Finance than for Management as others have pointed out already. One of your concerns nobody really addressed is the fact that you mentioned you are Iranian. Given all the political crap that is going on in the US right now this may actually be a problem. Or are you planning to apply to European schools? This may be easier, I am not sure. One of the schools I visited had one PhD student from Iran as well and they told him it would be better not to leave the country right now to go visit family during the winter break. Actually this was an official statement from the university that was posted on their website. They recommended that all the students coming from "specific countries" should not leave the US. It's a mess right now. :( The advise you got from others here should definitely be helpful. Good luck!

For all of us who will start a program this fall and have some doubts (like myself) about whether we will succeed, here are some encouraging words a friend sent me a few days ago. I mean this is something we all know already, but I thought it was great to have someone outside of academia sum it up like this: (So this is for all of us here!) "Schools, especially one like where you are going, have a reputation. They're winners, and they are because they have a system of selection that works. They selected you because they know, based on what you provided, and their proven experience, that someone like you HAS what it takes to make it. They base this on all that data that you gave them: transcripts, test scores (well, not so much the test scores in my case), letters etc. Together, those things are a blueprint of someone that will succeed in their program, and as such they selected you."

Fantastic news. Congrats!

Very sorry to hear that Algo. If I were you I would do both: look for an industry job AND a research position. You never know what happens until next year. Maybe you will like your new job so much that you won't even be interested in getting a PhD anymore, or maybe you will get married and don't want to move.,,, or maybe this or that. A million things can happen in a year. I think it's important to NOT put your life on hold right now. It doesn't mean you have to give up on your "dream." You can always re-apply. Look at your application and think about what can be improved. I don't even think you have to apply to lower ranking schools. From my own experience I must say that applying to a lower ranking school is no guarantee that you will increase your chances. I was admitted by the second highest ranking school I applied to. (T40-ish) and rejected by schools that rank much lower. I don't know exactly how schools make their decisions. It can't be all based on test scores or GPA. I being a good fit in terms of research interest is important and so are relationships you have. Who can help you get in touch with people at that school? I have also heard that this year's application pool was extremely competitive. Almost every school told me that, but now I am starting to think that they say that every year and this statement is just supposed to make us feel better when we get rejected. I think every year is going to be competitive. It's not going to get less competitive. I understand your disappointment, but you tried, and you can try again next year. If it is meant to be it will happen.

I can't believe this application cycle is over. I received my last rejection per email today. Time to unsweat for a short while. Congrats to all of you who got accepted somewhere. My personal advise to those of you who didn't make it this year: just take a few weeks off, clear your head, try to figure out how bad you really want a PhD and if you want to try again next year. I actually thought about this at the beginning of this year already. What would I do if I didn't get accepted? Last fall I was sure I would not try again. This year I was sure that I would give it another try although for me this would have meant to take the GMAT one more time and go through the grueling prep work. That test was such a nightmare for me. I think it's really worth it trying a second time as long as you can improve something about your application. Like I said, in my case a 700+ GMAT score would have looked really pretty on my application. :fox: I am felling very fortunate that I got in the second highest ranking school I applied to. It's a great T50 school and I am very happy with my choice. Interestingly most of my "back-up" schools (except one) rejected me. In summary, it's really hard to tell what a committee sees in your application and how they evaluate single components of it. It definitely helps to know people. My biggest piece of advice is: if you are currently still enrolled in college classes, build relationships with your professors. Go talk to them about your future plans. Academia is really a small world in which people know each other. Find someone who has a well-established reputation in his/her field. I still want to write a more detailed summary about lessons learned but just wanted to post a quick note and a thank to everyone here for their support during these last 4-5 months. Stx

By the way, I would never advise anyone to just "forget about a PhD" without having tried to get into a program somewhere, but you definitely have to lower your expectations.

To be honest, I think your undergraduate GPA might be a big problem. Even an incredibly high GMAT score (above 700) might not be able to make up for this "weakness" of your application. The graduate GPA of 3.8 is pretty much "average" for applicants I would say. I think very few people write an undergraduate thesis so don't worry about that, but you should try to get your hands on some research experience. If I were you I would not aim at Top 20 programs. I don't think that's a realistic goal with your profile right now. Unfortunately you can't improve your undergraduate GPA, but you can definitely work on other parts of your application.