Tod

Hey Brazilianphd, thank you for all your wisdom, I got into a couple of programs. Thank you very much for all your help!

Thank you for your detailed answers! It makes a lot of sense now. I will work on improving my application, thank you again for all your help!

Interesting. I never thought of sharing my story can hurt me in this way, thank you for pointing that out! I will think more about how to present this and not hurt me in the end. Thank you again! I did talk to my advisors, my application strategy right now is to show the schools I can do research and I can think like a researcher. To do that I have been focusing on the fact that I had some research experience. Not only as an assitant but also developing my own ideas and conducting my own research. On top of that, for each school that I think is a good fit for me, I would talk about one or two of their professors' work, ususally recent work. Then come up with relavent research ideas to show that I can also think like a researcher and I am interested in the work their professors are doing. I understand this is not necessarily your approach. My approach started with me then goes to each school. My understanding of your approach is more school oriented and more interest/topic specific. Could you give me some advice on my current strategy? Knowing my situation, if you were me, how would you change the strategy to fit "your approach"? Given that I don't have industrial experience and can't reference to seeing a problem in real life and become motivated to find out why. I worry that if I say things like " I am interested in researching on how motivation can change people's donation behavior, because I see when people have different motivations they behave differently and I want to know why," this wouldn't be a strong argument. Because it sounds more like an answer for google rather than the driver for going through a 5 years program. Or maybe I completely misunderstood you, please correct me if I did. Thank you for yout kind responses and your time. You helped me to realize my problems. I really appreciate that!

Thank you for the clearification! and thank you for taking the time to find an example, it did help me to understand your point! I understand your point of view of finding a research/program fit. I think you arguement makes a lot of sense. I do see how it can benifit the student as well as the school. However, I think your approach wouldn't be a good fit for me. I am not sure if this puts me into a disadvantage. But I think at my age (21) there is too much that I don't know about marketing and the world. So I don't think I am in the position to argue that I have a very specific interest or a problem I want to solve. But one thing I do know is my love for research. I enjoy the process, the thinking involoved, and the findings. This might sound geniric, but I just want to understand the world and people around me through research. At first, I thought psychology would be the way to go, then later I found that I don't enjoy the type of abstract thinking that's involved in psychology research and marketing (CB) provides a context to the effects we study, which helps me think much more clearly. For that reason, when I heard that there is a possibility of doing research for a living, I pursued that opportunity immediately. Put it in another way, I guess I am not pursing a phd degree to solve a problem, I am pursing this education to gain the skillset to conduct good research and have the qulification to do research for a living. After hearing from you, I understand now that this probably will put me at a disadvantage to some people. But I guess the best thing I can do is to communicate myslef better in my application (by being more specific, talking about my interest by listing a problem to make the topic more engaging, and avoiding "arguing with the professors" ) and keep my fingers crossed. Lol If I apply to your school and you are making the admission decisions, you probably wouldn't accept me. But I hope some schools will. Thank you for your advice and your help! You have provided me with informations and views that I have never thought of, so I really aprreciate you taking your time and sharing your wisdom with me. I will certainly think more about school fit going forward, especially on the elements you mentioned, and again thank you for your time! I really appreciate it.

Thank you for your advise! Your explaination about how to make my research interests more interresting does make a lot of sense! I agree and I will work on it to talk about my research interests in a more specific way! Thank you for your help! But I guess this causes another issue in my opinion. Since a typical student apply to somewhere around 12 schools, does this mean I should have about 12 very specific research topics in order to apply to the 12 schools? Based on my past experience, I did find that my interest is broad and if I tried to narrow down to one or two specific topics, I would only be left with 3 or 4 schools to apply to. For example, based on my past experience, I developed an interest in how consumers make sequential choices, this is a topic that not many researchers work on. Most of them, as far as I know, narrow down to one decision. So I was unable to find too many schools that have faculty work on this type of research. What I have been doing so far is to read the work of one or two professors at a school then in my SOP I would discuss how I can add value to their work. For example, what are my ideas to expand their findings or test theory with alternative explinations if the paper did not discuss an explination to the effect. Would you consider this to be a good way to show that I am interested in their faculty's work and I would be a good fit for them? Thank you explaining to me what the elements are in finding a school that matches with me. Some of these elements I have never heard of. So thank you for the information! Could I also ask you a question about one of those elements? You mentioned access to data and laboratories, could you expand on that a little? Does this just mean wether the school has a good participant pool or Mturk fundings? I am not sure that I understand this part and you said this was a big part of your interview. Thank you again for taking your time to responde to me! I really appreciate your help!

Thank you for getting back to me and thank you for answering me questions. I have posted elsewhere before and usually no response for a long time. So I was surprised when I received a comment. Thank you for your time and help! I wanted to ask you a follow up question, if that is ok, on my research interest and goals. I do understand your point that presenting a clear goal would be benifitial to the school and me. Just to make sure I understand you. For instance, since my interest is in decision-making, would listing "decision-makingin the context of charitable donation" be a more specific and more appropriate topic and research interest? Or is that still too vague? I started using phrases like "decision-making" or "prosocial behavior" after I read through some schools' websites and their professors' CVs. I found that these are the type of language they are using. Would it be a negative to use the same language? Or should I try to use the same language but also mention more specific contexts of for example, "decision-making"? Last question, from my past understanding, I though how I match with a school is primerily determented by whether the school have professors that conduct research on topics that interests me. But from your answer there seems to be a lot more elements than just that. Would you talk a little more on what are some other factors that an applicant should consider when considering whether a program is a good fit to them or not. Thanks again!

Is anyone here?

Any help would be greatly appriciated! Thank you everyone!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I’m planning to apply to Marketing CB Ph.D. programs and I’m a bit worried that I might come up short. I'm hoping you guys can give me some honest opinions on my profile and what range of schools I should aim for. But any comment is appriciated! Thank you in advance! Test Scores (GMAT/GRE): (Note: It often helps a lot more if you list the percentiles each of your raw/composite scores are associated with) GMAT: 700 (88%) Q51(97%) V33 (68%) Undegrad GPA: 3.76/4.00 Graduate GPA: None Research Experience: spent 2 years wroking in a psychology lab working on topics related to social memory. Working on an independent project on the topic of health decision making and licensing effect. Working on honors project on the topic of prosocial behavior and decision making. Teaching Experience: TA for one class for one semester. Work Experience: None Concentration Applying to: Ph.D. in marketing consumer behaviors track (Interested topics include things like decision-making, motivation, prosocial behavior and emotions. Number of programs planned to apply to: 12-15 Dream Schools: Harvard, Pittsuburg, Northwestern LOR: 2 marketing professors that I am currently working with, 1 business professor that I TAed for. Other Questions: Really not sure how I stand in the applicant pool. I don't have a good understanding of how competitive my profile is, I guess. I do not have any published work yet and I am not quite sure what range of schools I should aim for. What made you want to pursue a PhD? The biggest reason is to do research. I am interesting in understanding the reasons behind people's behaviors, especially the decision-making process. There are so many nuances that can make a difference on the final descision, understanding them better is my biggest motivation. Questions or concerns you have about your profile? The biggest concern is my GMAT is not very high, and I don't have any publications. Thank you!