IDWILTD

Hi everyone, I have a query regarding the academic associate job. I just want to know whether working as an academic associate can really help to get into a Ph.D. program. I would be very thankful if someone could guide me in this matter.

I'm a Ph.D. aspirant in the area of finance. I'm finding it very difficult to get RA work in my country. I just want to know how important is to have RA work experience in the relevant area and what if someone does RA in some other area, would that be helpful. I mean if someone does RA in let say strategy area which involves data collection, analysis and report writing using python and basic econometrics, would this RA be helpful in the area of finance. I would be very thankful if someone could provide me any suggestion?

I really appreciate that you took out time to share your experience. It's been really helpful to me. I have been giving GRE mock quant test regularly without any preparation and getting 168-169. I asked because I was not able to understand how GRE quant is good enough measure to understand the mathematical ability of a person. It seems too easy. I'm an Indian and we have to give CAT to get admission in bschool. There are three sections in the exam. Quant, Verbal, and DI and logical reasoning. The level of quant in CAT is higher than GRE Quant and I managed to score 99+ percentile in it given that Indians are generally good at maths. As far as maths department is concern the problem was the way marks were given. In my college there was no relative grading, everything was absolute. So grades were distributed in different bands from 0-100. The department was so strict that they used to check the answer of the question written in the answer sheet with the answer of the book and if it matches then you get 8 out of 8 otherwise 0 even if all the steps except the last one is correct. If the answer matches then also you should mention all the steps, even if one step is missing then they cut 2 marks for that. It is because of this many people in my college had to repeat maths subject. I believe I can handle maths but I was worried if they reject me solely based on the numbers I got which do not reflect my true ability.

I would be very thankful if someone could advise me on this? I'm interested in doing Phd in the area of finance. I don't have excellent acads though it is above average. My undergrad marks in calculus are not great due to very strict Mathematics department. I have mostly B grade. Should I take GRE Subject test in Mathematics to show that I can handle maths level in finance Ph.D. program especially calculus.

I'm an Indian and currently, I'm pursuing MBA. I want to P.hD in the area of finance from the US. I completed engineering in Information Technology. I will apply for the P.hD programs this year in 2018. By the time I will apply I will have close to 2 years of RA Experience, at least one conference presentation, and one paper in a peer-reviewed international journal (Second author). I'm interested in behavioral finance, corporate finance, and Macroeconomics. I'm also expecting a GRE score of 330+ One thing that I'm worried about is my not so good academics. I was in the top 30% by the end of the first year MBA and my graduate GPA is 8/10. I have seen the profile of students in top 25 programs and generally found people with very good academics. It is not possible for me to retake courses and improve GPA. I'm also thinking of applying for CFA level 1 but don't know whether it would help in getting into P.hD program or not. I would be very thankful if someone could provide suggestions for profile improvement and any way to deal with acad problem

I'm an Indian and currently pursuing MBA. I'm interested in doing Ph.D. in the area of finance and is expected to apply this year. I have done my engineering in the area of IT. By the time I will send my application I will have almost two years of RA Experience, at least one conference presentation, one published paper in a peer-reviewed international journal (Second Author). I'm also expecting a GRE score of 330+. The thing that I'm worried about is my not so good academics. I was in top 30% of the batch by the end of the first year MBA and my Graduation GPA is 8/10. I'm also thinking of writing CFA Level 1, but I will only be able to give exam in December and results will come by the end of January. My not so good academics is bothering me a lot. I have seen the profile of students in the top 25 programs and generally found people with very good academics. There is no way for me to retake courses and improve acads. I would be very thankful if one can give suggestions on improving my profile and how to deal with acad problem??