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The Columbia post might be fake.. in the past years they have called people for interviews later in the cycle.. I also heard that they are only now starting to look at applications this week

I am am not sure that getting a perfect Quant score on GRE is all that relevant.. my impression is that those serve as cutoffs in early rounds but cease to be relevant once the cut off is met.. unless there is a choice beteeen two practically identical candidates where the GRE serves as a deciding tie breaker.. for the record, my GRE are 163V / 168Q.. i feel like my profile won’t be compared to a typical applicant and given the length and the quality of my experience and the relevance that it might have towards identifying and developing meaningful research topics probably more than compensates for another 1-2 points on quant GRE.. GRE tests the native abilities and it also serves as a good benchmark for young people who have little experience and a fairly limited number of other objective attributes to judge them by. I also have an ivy MBA and an MS in math from a top applied math program - so these should count for something theoretically.. I’ve applied to 2 top 20 programs as backups.. and my general reluctance to get into second tier is the fact that I think my age could be a hurdle at job placement stage and going to a second tier program would only compound my shot at getting a solid placement it’s comfortint to know that there is less “age-ism” than i assumed.. my understanding is that it’s a bigger issue in the Economics programs.. i feel like some programs are more willing to take a risk on older candidates than others.. but i shall find out soon enough. in any case, the dilemma for me is whether approaching profs with relevant research focus now would help or impede my case.. another question is whether willingness to forgo funding for at least the first year would make a difference as far as admissions chances go..

Didn’t have any offers.. aimed high and i assume that being an older applicant was quite a hurdle in the end.. widened my range a bit this year.. i am a bit apprehensive though.. I think being an older applicant would represent a challenge in the job market if and when i am done with the PhD.. so don’t really want to compound it by going into a lower tiered program.. I think I have a pretty solid profile which would have played out well had I applied years ago.. The program in question, I have someone on the faculty who is trying to emphasize my profile internally but he is not involved in admissions unfortunately.. Would love to pick your brain some more via DM as I have followed your posts last year and have a lot of respect for your insights..

I was waitlisted at a top 10 school last year and reapplying again this year.. Was wondering if anyone has any insight as to whether last year’s waitlist spot is a strong signal for getting into one of the final rounds this year. Also, I wonder if it makes sense to try and reach out o PoI or the person who interviewed me last year and express my strong interest within the context of almost getting in last year.. would that be constructive or counterproductive?

I am pretty sure that you are being interviewed by the professors who seat on the admissions committee, which is a small subset of the entire faculty ( 5-6 people as a rule in my understanding ).. so unless the profs you mentioned in SoP also happen to be on the adcom, they are unlikely to interview you.. if you made it to a final round, there is a chance that adcom members might run your background by the profs you identified.. but the adcom is put together before the admissions process commences, so they won't randomly bring in other profs to be involved in the process just because prospective applicants have identified them

Does anyone have any idea as to what percentage of those that are offered interviews in Finance programs are eventually admitted ?

For those who've had interviews at Finance PhD programs, any tips on line of questioning and style of interviews.. thanks everyone for input !

Anyone had an interview with MIT Sloan Finance? If so, any tips on the style/questions in the interview ?

I am an older student looking to go into a PhD program after a caree on Wall Street.. I have a pretty strong profile as far as school pedigree, grades, graduate schools, GRE, research experience and LORs. However, I realize that being older than typical and being out of academic environment for a while is a shortcoming. I am comfortable funding myself for at least 2 years, provided I get into a strong enough program to rationalize it. I was wondering whether reaching out to PhD coordinator and letting them know about this factor would improve my admit chances. On one hand, the unusual nature of my profile creates a "risk" in the eyes of the adcom.. but on the other hand if I don't need to be funded, theoretically this mitigates the cost of this "risk". Any thoughts anyone ?

I wonder if some schools are accelerating offers to foreign students as a reaction to Trump's immigration restrictions but are still working on US applications.. this could certainly be a reason why Brown is sending acceptances early

I assume that just like interview invite decisions, rejections probably get sent out over the course of a week or so..

Looks like Wharton Finance sent out the first batch of rejections judging for gradcafe postings today

Any idea as to whether all Admits into PhD Finance programs are interviewed or some are accepted without having to go through one.. trying to gauge as to whether not being invited to interview means chances of admittance are 0 or not..

One of my recommenders sent through his LOR 4 weeks after the application was due ( December 1st deadlines ).. any idea as to whether this affects application review or are adcoms not even looking at apps until January ?

Well, if that info is public it helps to tailor SoP better for different schools for example, if you know the profile of people reading it

I was wondering whether the names of people running admissions committees or even the names of committee members is public knowledge and if so how to best identify them ?

I would assume that if you apply for a PhD in your MA granting institution, you might have a relative advantage provided you do well in the program and get to know the senior faculty in process

I think the cutoff is around 162-163 for 10-20 and 165 for top 10.. I wouldn't dwell too much of what the "average GRE" is since it's really not a deciding factor once you clear the threshold level

My sense is that the process is fairly subjective and that your best bet is to have 1-2 profs on the adcom who might see the work experience as somewhat appealing.. since you never know which individual profs might take this subjective view and stick their necks out for an older applicant, you are probably supposed to apply very broadly and hope for a law of large numbers to kick in

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/01/06/new-book-reveals-how-elite-phd-admissions-committees-review-candidates

Wondering if anyone has good color as to the typical structure and content of admissions interviews.. seems that most business school programs run an interview process for their finalists as well as some Econ programs too.. haven't really seen any threads discussing that experience as to what works and what doesn't

Yes.. probably need 1-2 professors on adcom who will find the non-vanilla nature of my application appealing.. so probably a crap shoot.. I'll post my outcomes as they roll in.. at this point I am applying widely in top 20 and hitting both, Econ and finance for good measure.. Do you mind sharing your stats?

Don't forget that the trade inflation is worth around 0.1/ decade or so.. so my GPA should probably get bumped by 0.15-0.2 to normalize against current graduates.. As for research experience, I wonder if it's as relevant.. someone a few years out of or directly out of school barely has any work experience and whatever experience they do have it betterbe research focused to demonstrate ability and commitment.. in my case, work in financial markets already demonstrates interest in economics and finance and additionally comes with a large component of research, even if it's more empirical rather than academic.. so it's clearly not apples to apples comparison but I am trying to figure out what's the proper way to normalize it.. e.g. Would 2yrs of macroeconomic research be superior to say 10yrs of running a macro investment strategy.. ? My guess is that this will be very subjective to the schools and the composition of the admission committees

that's what I figured as well, and have been applying to both.. However, the finance programs are much smaller.. And some schools like Yale and Berkeley only let you apply to one of the programs, and which case it's not a straightforward call. Do I apply to a program that admits 20 people or a program that might sympathize with my background more but only admits 2-3? hmmm

the MS in Math is the most recent but it's still around 10yrs old at this point.. I have seen plenty of successful profile on various message boards but just trying to figure out how mine would be looked at relative to something more typical.. a bit of an apples and oranges.. I wonder if there are stats of how many older students get into top 10 in the past 5-10yrs and what those profiles look like