plasticities

If you want to get a job in the Operations Management department of a business school, you should absolutely go to Stanford and not worry about it being in engineering and not business. Most professors that I interviewed with at top business schools have PhDs from engineering departments (one from Stanford). One thing that they pointed out is that most engineering programs accept a lot of students vs. business schools accept only a couple of students each year so there are more opportunities to work closely with several faculty members. The business schools are also much more focused on getting good academic placements for their PhD students vs. engineering schools where some will end up in industry. However, if these are not concerns for you, then go for Stanford and don't worry about it being in engineering and not business. Good job getting into Stanford! If you are focused on publishing in business journals you will have no problem getting a business faculty position!

I'm in a different field and also applied this year, but I want to say that I couldn't agree with you more on the importance of reference letters. I was also accepted in the T-10 range and believe that this is due to having strong references from 3 professors (I have been out of school for a while and spent two years building these relationships before applying, so this is possible to do even if you've been working for years). The profile evaluations on here seem to be of limited value because it seems that many qualified candidates apply and then being selected for an interview will ultimately come down to your references. To add to your great post, I will say that things I would change (after applying and knowing what I know now): - Completely agree to focus more on references and less on other aspects (like GMAT score) - Prepare for interviews well in advance (i.e. when putting together applications). All of my interviews were completely different and most were not based on the traditional format that is posted on here. As well, I had about 1 day to prepare for each interview and my first interview came mid-December (two days after the application deadline). I expected to have more time to prepare and I also expected the interviews to be a casual conversation. As a result, I did not perform very well on some of the ones that asked specific questions. All of the questions I could have answered if I had more time to prepare, so I wish I knew that I would get essentially zero time to prepare so I could have done it well in advance of getting the interview request.

What are you studying? In Operations Management, faculty in business schools are often hired from engineering departments. However, I don't think this is the case for any other business discipline. I would suggest looking at placements from that program (have any PhD students been hired in business schools?) and also look at faculty backgrounds at your target placement schools (do any have PhDs from engineering departments?).

I think that the QS World University Rankings are most often referenced, although there are several other rankings as well. The QS ranking is also available by subject (i.e. business). You can typically find a list of rankings on the Wikipedia page of each university and this will give a good indication of the general ranking. In general I would consider your list of universities ranked as follows (but the advice above about looking at other factors is important as well): Columbia - Top 20 UNC Chapel Hill & Boston University - Top 100 Western and Minnesota - Around Top 100 (or just outside of this) Florida State - >200

You will need three strong academic references and some research experience and/or clear research interests to be accepted into a PhD program (of course there are some exceptions). You can absolutely achieve this with just an undergrad degree; however, if you are almost done your degree and don't think you'll be competitive for your target PhD program, a masters degree can help you improve your profile. Aim for research based masters degree and ideally at a school where you might want to do a PhD. Your goal in the masters degree is to get some research experience and strong reference letters, in addition to high grades. I have an MBA (my goal at the time was not to enter academia) and this did not help my PhD applications at all, but it also didn't hurt. I would not recommend this route if you know that you want to do research since it is expensive and you will have a hard time finding the time to do anything outside of coursework (i.e. research / working directly with professors).

Thanks for the tips. Asking a current PhD student to check out potential rental units is a great solution!

I'm in a similar situation and I don't have an answer to your question but I am following this thread for advice. I have a few related questions, so instead of starting a new thread I'm hoping that they can also be answered here as well. TIA! I will likely be moving to a major US city and I am not an American. My first question: where are the best places to look for rental housing (off campus)? I will likely visit campus in early March and then won't be able to return to the city until I move there in August. I'm assuming that March will be too early to find housing, so is it possible to secure a rental later if I am not in the city? Has anyone done this?