Search the Community

Hi, I'm really interested in getting into the joint program in Financial Economics at the University of Chicago, I'm wondering if it's better, for any reason, to apply through one department or the other in order to maximize the probability of being accepted and getting funded. Are the admission committee in each department looking at different things? Is it background dependent? Or once I state that I want to apply to the joint program it won't matter anymore? Should I state that I want to apply to the joint program? Also, does the master conferred is dependent on the department you apply? Chicago Econ department is well known for sending unfunded offers, is this true as well for Booth? I've a bachelor's degree in finance and a bachelor's degree in economics both from a university outside U.S.A. that usually places students in the top 20, more in economics than in finance, but it happens as well, and I'm going to finish an economics master that is specially rigorous in economic theory. Thanks in advance

Hey guys, This is bit of a long post. I had a Bachelors and Masters in Business Administration from India (Not a lot of quant coursework). I got admit to a PhD Finance program at lower ranked (top 100) department in the US in 2016. I was there for 1 semester but due to a combination of factors (lack of good research opportunities, me not having clarity on what I wanted to study, and moving to be closer to my husband), I transferred to a Masters in Finance Program of a top 50 department and graduated with a lot of doctoral coursework (Probability and Stochastic Processes, Mathematics of Economics, Mathematics of Finance, audited Optimization, Theory of Finance all at the doctoral level) and a small research project under a tenured Prof. My research project did not turn out as well as I had expected it to (since I took it for just one semester) and I am not sure if I would be able to go to this Prof for an LoR. I have been working with a top financial analytics company in credit model validation and verification for almost two years now and I would love to get back to pursuing a PhD hopefully in 2021. I have matured more as a person, and have found the real reasons why I want to do research. I have never let go of learning - I have been taking up coursework in an Analytics masters program to get more hands on experience in research methodology and general data science which have been very useful. However, I am still not very confident of my quant skills and above all my ability to do Research. I was playing around with the idea of applying to PhD programs directly. However, I am concerned about: 1. LoRs from my professors - it's been two years and I am not sure if they would remember me. 2. Jumping right into a PhD after 3 years. I was wondering if I can gradually get my feet wet with a Masters. I would also like to expand the universe of schools to Europe, Australia, and Canada. I saw that some of these schools require a masters dissertation as a part of their application. Lately, I have been looking at schools that offer MPhil or MRes with both coursework and dissertation options which I frankly find attractive. I would love to beef up my quant and Econ along with getting some research experience. So far, I have come up with LSE, Bocconi, and Alliance Manchester. But some of these are so pricey. I was going through an older thread (here) where some people have said that there are departments with a track record of placing students in good PhD programs. I am honestly wondering how to go about finding a Masters degree that would be a good preparation for a PhD in Finance with a good mix of coursework and research. I am an international student and with already one Masters, I am now looking for a Masters program that is no longer than 1 year. So, my questions are: 1. Can you suggest Masters programs that are good preparation for PhD in Finance? I humbly request you to specify which university and which department. I know an MA Econ or Statistics is good, but I am trying to see if I can get specific recommendations apart from the ones that I have already shortlisted :) 2. I am 32 and while age is a just a number, numbers are everything where we are ;) and I want to get some honest feedback on whether it even makes sense to go for another Masters or just bite the bullet and apply for PhD programs directly? Thank you!!

Thank you in advance for your advice.

Hello Urch, I want to apply for a Ph.D. program this year, but I have a lot of concerns regarding my chances due to my low profile. At the beginning of this year, I finished my master degree, and I was very excited to get a Ph.D. But after I read several profiles evaluation topics on this forum, I'm concluding that it would be almost impossible to get into any Ph.D. in the US or Europe. But I really want to get some opinions to move forward (to apply, to take another way or to give up). My Profile: Type of Undergrad: Public Federal University in South America in Business Administration. But, unfortunately, my university is almost unknown outside my country. In the positive side, the public federal universities are the best Unis in my country. Test Scores (GMAT/GRE): Planning to take the GRE in July 2019. Undergrad GPA: 3,12 (7,8/10 in my country). Type of Grad: Master at the same university in Business Administration (Corporate Finance Track). Graduate GPA: 3,4 (8,5/10 in my country). Research Experience: My MSc in Business was research oriented. So I have almost seven research papers/working papers: A paper published in a peer review national accounting journal; A paper published in the most recognized national business congress. Two papers in the most recognized national accounting congress. Two papers in the best finance congress and one working papers that I have to finish. They are all in my SSRN.com page. I think I can submit two of them to an international journal at the end of this semester. Teaching Experience: A semester as a teacher assistant (Corporate Finance class). Work Experience: Internship in a public audit office. Finance courses (Undergrad-level): Financial Management I and II, Financial Mathematics; Finance courses (Grad-level): Strategic Planning and Control, Asset Valuation and Corporate Finance. Econ Courses (Undergrad-level): Business Economics :( Math/Statistics (Undergrad-level): Introduction to calculus; Applied Quantitative and Qualitative Methods; Statistics for Business Research; Math/ Statistics (Grad-level): Quantitative Research I and II (Those classes covered subjects such as exploratory analysis, univariate and multivariate hypothesis tests, cross-sections and panel data analysis). I did a lot of accounting classes, but I don’t see how these classes will help me in Finance… LOR: I have 3 letters of recommendation, but all of these letters are from professors in my country: A LOR from my master supervisor (he is a decent researcher in my country), other LOR from the professor who accepted me as a teacher assistant and another LOR from a professor who is the chief of my university applied social science department. My question is: Sincethe GRE and the research papers are the only variables that I can improve right now, let’s suppose I can get a good GRE (>90% for Q and V), what do you recommend? Should I apply for a Ph.D. or a MPhil? I know that I have a bad GPA, a poor econ-related number of classes, a bad work experience, and that I’m from an unknown university/ country. But I have a decent research background and my plan is to work with empirical corporate finance research Also, due to the exchange rate conversion, I can’t apply for dozens of programs, so I have to choose carefully (10 or 12 programs) and I have to get financial aid too, since I’m not rich (all my savings are divided by 5 due to exchange rate conversion). I was thinking about the programs in Europe, because the majority of them offer financial aid: UC3M, HDHEC, ESSEC, IESE, ESSAD, HEC Lausanne (Léman, Lugano or Zurich), St. Gallen, CBS, Mannheim, and Frankfurt, or in Canada: Alberta, Queens, Toronto or McGill. I’m accepting more suggestions since some of those universities are the ones that I find because they have professors who publish papers that I used to read. 2. So, I really need some advice to move forward. Because, if I don’t have any chances to get a Ph.D. or MPhil, I will not expend my time (I’m studying 4-6 hours a day to take the GRE) and savings trying to do something impossible or something that I can’t pay for. Any help will be appreciated!

Hello Urch, I want to apply for a Ph.D. program this year, but I have a lot of concerns regarding my chances due to my low profile. At the beginning of this year, I finished my master degree, and I was very excited to get a Ph.D. But after I read several profiles evaluation topics on this forum, I'm concluding that it would be almost impossible to get into any Ph.D. in the US or Europe. But I really want to get some opinions to move forward (to apply or to give up). My Profile: Type of Undergrad: Public Federal University in South America in Business Administration. But, unfortunately, my university is almost unknown outside my country. In the positive side, the public federal universities are the best Unis in my country. Test Scores (GMAT/GRE): Planning to take the GRE in July 2019. Undergrad GPA: 3,12 (7,8/10 in my country). Type of Grad: Master at the same university in Business Administration (Corporate Finance Track). Graduate GPA: 3,4 (8,5/10 in my country). Research Experience: My MSc in Business was research oriented. So I have almost seven research papers/working papers: A paper published in a peer review national accounting journal; A paper published in the most recognized national business congress. Two papers in the most recognized national accounting congress. Two papers in the best finance congress and one working papers that I have to finish. They are all in my SSRN.com. I think I can submit two of them to an international journal at the end of this semester. Teaching Experience: A semester as a teacher assistant (Corporate Finance class). Work Experience: Internship in a public audit office. Finance courses (Undergrad-level): Financial Management I and II, Financial Mathematics; Finance courses (Grad-level): Strategic Planning and Control, Asset Valuation and Corporate Finance. Econ Courses (Undergrad-level): Business Economics. Math/Statistics (Undergrad-level): Introduction to calculus; Applied Quantitative and Qualitative Methods; Statistics for Business Research; Math/ Statistics (Grad-level): Quantitative Research I and II (Those classes covered subjects such as exploratory analysis, univariate and multivariate hypothesis, cross-sections and panel data analysis). I did a lot of accounting classes, but I don’t see how these classes will help me in Finance… LOR: I have 3 letters of recommendation, but all of these letters are from professors in my country: A LOR from my master supervisor (he is a decent researcher in my country), other LOR from the professor who accepted me as a teacher assistant and another LOR from a professor who is the chief of my university applied social science department. My question is: Since the GRE and the research papers are the only variables that I can improve right now, let’s suppose I can get a good GRE (>90% for Q and V), what do you recommend? Should I apply for a Ph.D. or a MPhil? I know that I have a bad GPA, a poor econ-related number of classes, a bad work experience, and that I’m from an unknown university/ country. But I have a decent research background and my plan is to work with empirical corporate finance research Also, due to the exchange rate conversion, I can’t apply for dozens of programs, so I have to choose carefully (10 or 12 programs) and I have to get financial aid too, since I’m not rich (all my savings are divided by 5 due to exchange rate conversion). I was thinking about the programs in Europe, because the majority of them offer financial aid: UC3M, HDHEC, ESSEC, IESE, ESSAD, HEC Lausanne (Léman, Lugano or Zurich), St. Gallen, CBS, Mannheim, and Frankfurt, or in Canada: Alberta, Queens, Toronto or McGill. I’m accepting more suggestions since some of those universities are the ones that I find because they have professors who publish papers that I used to read. Should I give up? I really have good chances to enter in the best Ph.D. programs in my country, where I can get financial aid, an incentive to do a fellowship in some USA or UK university and apply for good job market positions here. I do not need to do the GRE/GMAT here since our universities usually put more weight in research experience and interviews. So, I really need some advice to move forward. Because, if I don’t have any chances to get a Ph.D. or MPhil, I will not expend my time (I’m studying 4-5 hours to take the GRE every day) and savings trying to do something impossible or something that I can’t pay for. Any help will be appreciated!

Hi Everyone, Need some help in exploring my options: Ideally, I would want to pursue PhD in Finance and have an academic role. However, for want of enough Finance/Math research experience, I believe getting into Top 20 Finance PhD programs would be tough. So, in such a situation, should I target Top 20-50 Finance PhD Programs? Or are there any Masters in Finance (M.Res. or M.Phil) programs which can help my cause in getting into a better Finance PhD program after? Or should I instead go for a Quantitative Masters of Finance Program and keep my options of working in the industry and going back to academia (if I still want to) What are my chances of getting in top programs given my profile: Indian, 23, Male Education: Mechanical Engineering from HKUST, Top 2 in Hong Kong. GPA: 4.1 out of 4.3 (1st in Class, Academic Medal, Dean’s List in all Semesters. Full Tuition Fee Scholarship for undergraduate) GMAT: 760 (Q50,V44) Recommendations: Fron Asst. Finance Professor who knows me well, from Final year engineering supervisor (still considering other options) Courses: Advance Mech. Engg courses (which I hope substitutes for Math requirements), Programming Courses (VBA, C++ etc. also proficient in Python) Broad fundamental courses in Accounting, Finance Work Experience: Working in Transaction Banking Graduate Program (2 years by Fall 2019) in Hong Kong. It will include 6 Months of work experience in London. Mostly sales, business analytics etc. related rotation. Research Experience: Undergraduate research experience. International Experience: (I don't think it matters much, but still putting it out there) High School- Singapore (2 years) Undergraduate- Hong Kong (4 years) Internship- United States (1 month) Full Time Work- Hong Kong (1 year) Full Time Work Rotation- London (6 months) Thanks a Lot

Hi everyone, I’m a 32 years old international applicant from South East Asia. I’m preparing to apply for a Ph.D. in Finance/Financial Economics in Fall 2018. My profile is given below. Could you please evaluate my profile? I understand that evaluating an international applicant is quite difficult. Any help would be appreciated. Undergrad: B.S. in Corporate Finance from top economics university in my country – South East Asia. GPA: 8.53 /10, graduate with excellence, top 5 in my class and top 1% of all students graduated (approximate 3,000 students) Graduate 1: M.S. in Finance from a U.S. university (private, unranked). GPA: 3.97, with high honors, an outstanding student of the finance department, rank number 1. Graduate 2: M.A. in Economics from a U.S. university (overall ranking 23, economics department ranking 22). GPA (until now): 3.67 (overall), 4.0 Economics courses Test Scores (GRE): 166Q (92%) / 152V (54%) / 4.5 AWA (56%). Toefl Score: 101 Awards and scholarships: - Winner of the outstanding student awards of the year 2012 from the Dean of the university. - Certificate of Merit for excellent students, class of 2007, for top 1 percent of all students from the Dean of the University. - Academic scholarships for excellent students in 4 continuous years: 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007. Math courses:Advanced Math I (10/10), Advanced Math II (9/10), Theories of Probability and Statistics (7/10), Principles of Statistics (9/10), Corporate Statistics (8.8/10), Mathematics Methods (7.2/10), Financial Mathematics (9.7/10), Regression Analysis (A), Mathematics for economists (A), Real Analysis (B-), Probability and Statistics for Economists (Ph.D. level, will take in Fall). Finance courses: - Undergrad level: Financial accounting, Public finance, corporate finance, financial analysis, financial and monetary theories, international finance. - Graduate level: Derivative markets, M&A, Working Capital Management, Capital budgeting, Financial strategies, Financial modeling, International corporate finance, Financial reporting analysis, Financial markets and institutions, Investment, Corporate finance. (All A and A+) Economics courses: - Undergrad level: Macro, Micro, Econometrics, Development Econ, History of Economics theories, - Graduate level: Micro (A), Applied Econometrics (A), Macro (will take in Fall). Research Experience: 1 semester for an Econ Professor (top 5% ideas list), will be 10 months at the time I apply. We're doing a research regarding the Bond market. Teaching Experience: None Programming: STATA, MATLAB, R, Python, Advanced Excel. LOR: - 1 from the Professor I’m RAing (Yale Ph.D.top 5% IDEAS lists), should be strong as my Professor encouraged me to apply for a Ph.D. - 1 from the Microeconomics Professor (UCLA Ph.D., not many publications), should be standard. - 1 more I haven’t decided yet. All 3 Professors should be from my MA Econ program. Work Experience: 9 years, mostly in finance positions (CFO, finance manager, project manager) Concentration Applying to: Corporate finance, and financial econometrics (I’m very interested in econometrics course I took at grad school) Number of programs planned to apply to: about 20 Dream Schools: I will apply to almost T30-T75 and I’ll be happy for any admission. For Ph.D. Finance, I'm thinking about UT Austin, ASU, UC Irvine, Texas A&M, George Washington University, Washing State University, Indiana University, U of Colorado, U of Connecticut, U of Oregon, UT Dallas. I also apply to 5-10 Ph.D. Economics programs that are pretty strong in financial economics and rank widely from 20-75 (UTAustin, USC, UCI, UCSC, UCSB, Texas A&M, etc). What made you want to pursue a Ph.D.? First and most important, I love teaching and sharing knowledge with everybody. My dream job is to be a Professor in Finance. Second, I love doing researches or any research related jobs. Third but not too much related, my family has a studying tradition with many Masters and Ph.D. holders, thus makes a Ph.D. my dream since I was a high school student. I understand that my decision to quit my current job to chase my Ph.D. dream will cost me a lot, but following my dream is the happiest feeling I’ve ever had. Questions or concerns you have about your profile? Low GRE quant score, I will retake in Summer, my target is to get 168Q. Don’t have a strong math background, lacking advanced math courses such as cal III or multivariate analysis. I only got B- for the Real Analysis I took in my MA program. The reason is clear, I left the academic environment for almost 10 years and failed with the first half of the course but I catch up pretty quick in the second half and become near the average of my class, which had almost senior math major students. No publications. My undergrad GPA will be low if it is converted to the U.S. scale, but in my country, it’s tough to get near perfect GPA and my GPA is in top 5 of class and top 1% of all students. 9 years working experience would be a disadvantage to my profile as I’m quite older than other applicants and haven’t done too much academic research related jobs in that time. Thank you so much. Best!

Hi All, I'm a working professional in the US and am targeting Finance PhD programs for Fall 2017. Here's my profile: GRE: Q-170/V-161 Undegrad GPA: 8.59/10 BS-Engineering from India Graduate GPA: 3.64/4.0 MBA Finance from USA. It's from a 70-80 ranked university. Research Experience: Worked as a Marketing Research Assistant for one year during my MBA. No publications though. Teaching Experience: None. Worked as a Graduate Assistant for a Business Information Systems Course for one term during my MBA. Work Experience: Have 8 years of experience. 4 Years before and after my MBA. Software Programming before my MBA, Data visualization and analytics involving Statistical packages like R, regression modeling, predictive models using time series analysis, NPV analysis for operational spend management, financial statement analysis etc. I've also done a Credit Risk Management internship during my MBA in one of the Indian banks. That gave an understanding of Basel frameworks. Courses: Undergrad: Mathematics I (grade A), Mathematics II (grade A), Engineering Mathematics (grade C ), Probability and Statistics ( grade B ), Engineering Economics ( A ), Statistical Theory of Communication ( B ) [This was related to the application of statistics in telecom engineering) In my MBA, I've got A in all my Finance courses although I see from the forums that MBA is not considered very significant. Had a Statistics Pre-req but that was more of basic statistical concepts. In addition, I've also taken a couple of online decision analysis courses at Stanford which involved lot of probabilistic and statistical analysis. I've also done a couple of descriptive and inferential statistics courses on a couple of MOOC platforms. Regarding my research areas, i'm interested in corporate finance - banking and role of financial intermediation, credit risk esp. in emerging markets. Letters of recommendations: I can ask one of the marketing professors for whom I was an RA and another finance professor to speak on my academic abilities and one from the industry to speak on my data analysis skills. I'm interested in getting into Academia and Research after my PhD. What range of schools should I target for my profile? I plan to apply for fall 2017 admissions. What are my chances at top schools (NYU/Stanford/Berkeley/etc)? Appreciate if members could give some suggestions around safety schools. Thanks much!

Hello Urch Community, I would like to thank you all for taking your valuable time out in helping applicants. I have been going through the forum for quite some time now, though this post is my first one. Once I have gone through the admissions process, I would like to help other candidates in their applications. I want to pursue a PhD in finance from the 'best possible' university in US. I am interested in the area of International Finance, specifically, Foreign Exchange, and Market Micro-structure. I would request the Urch community to shed some light on my chances of admission to the top programs and also recommend few schools where they think that I have a good chance of admission. Here is my profile: 1. Graduated last year from M.Sc. in Management - International Business program from the No. 1 business school in Canada. GPA - 82% (above average) 2. Currently working (after graduation) in a famous Management Consulting firm (Not McKinsey but close) in Canada. 3. GMAT Score: 750 (Q51, V40) 4. Bachelors degree in Engineering - Computer Science from one of the top engineering schools in India (not IITs but close). Here is one of my concern, though my maths skills in general are very strong, my maths grades are average (even had to retake few courses which is very common in this institute but I was also going through tough times) and my (undergrad) GPA is also just above average. I do not know how the admission committe will view this. Any ideas on how I can explain this part? GPA - 69% (First Class); last 2 year GPA: 74%; WES converted GPA: 3.24 and WES GPA of last 2 years: 3.5. 5. Research experience: I have kept myself engaged in research in finance for past 6 years (since sophomore year). I have published 3 research papers in finance (1 in undergrad and 2 in grad school). Two of the papers (published during grad school) are sole author papers. All 3 papers have been published in well-regarded journals (nothing top but nothing obscure) published by major publishers in the field. I have also presented in a well-regarded finance conference (nothing top, again) and done about 3 research internships (in finance) during my undergrad as Research Assistant during summers. I worked on data collection, writing programs to fetch data, literature review, writing reports, etc) My goal is to become a research professor in finance and publish in the top journals in the field. My three recommendations are from professors who taught me during the M.Sc program. I am sure they will be good as I was the most enthusiastic student and contributed the most to class discussions. I look forward to hearing from the Urch community. I really appreciate each and every comment you make. Thank you very much. Thanks, Urch member

Hello all, first post in Urch- I was unexpectedly admitted to Bocconi's PhD program in Finance without an interview and was hoping to gather some more information about the program. Is it a solid program overall with good placement, and how does it compare to Tilburg? They had limited placement data online. I will of course be doing my due diligence/research about the program, but I wanted to see if anyone could shed more light on the program in general, such as its reputation, in the meantime. Would appreciate any replies :)

Hi, I am a candidate from India. I have done business administration at both undergraduate and graduate levels specialising in Finance (BBA and MBA). I have also completed two levels of CFA. I am planning on pursuing a PhD in Finance but I do not have sufficient math background. After speaking with several people (past and current PhD students, and Professors) I have come to the conclusion that I need to do a Masters in order to bring my math skills up to scratch. I have gone through a lot of posts and have a fair idea of the kind of quant courses that are required of PhD finance students. Although I have taken courses in Statistics, Econometrics and Probability, I understand that the level at which these courses were conducted is not considered very competitive, especially to do research. I have no college level Calculus at all. So, my question is, which Masters should I pursue? I could not see a lot of MFin courses that taught the kind of math courses that were required of a PhD candidate. Should I go for an MS in Stat or Economics? Are there colleges that offer specialised courses for this very purpose? I saw that TAMU was one. Any information on this would be very helpful. Please keep in mind that I am an International candidate and options like taking courses in the evening at a local US university is probably ruled out because I would need to be enrolled full time in a course to get a student visa. 1) MS in Stat or Economics or anything else? 2) Any university or college that offers specialised courses for people like me? Thanks!

Hello everyone, I will apply to a Phd in Finance program this year. Please find a short review below, and any help or suggestion will be highly appreciated. Originally from Turkey, graduated as top student from high school and ranked in top 0.01% in the National University Entrance Exam. Test Scores (GRE): 318 (V148+ Q170) Undergrad GPA: 2.9/4.0 Electrical & Electronical Engineering, Koc University but graduated among top 10 students. My GPA of economic courses (which I took during bachelor) is 3.33. And I have a really strong reference from Bachelor, from an economist (however he is no longer teaching, but a Chief Economist in one of top 3 banks in Turkey) MSc GPA - 3.60. MSc in Economics, Bocconi University, two references who are Carlo Favero (Head of Finance Department and President of IGIER in Bocconi University), and Francesco Giavazzi (prof of economics in Bocconi, former president of IGIER, graduated from MIT E&E Engineering, publish papers mostly with Harvard scholars) Research Experience: MSc graduation thesis, worked with Favero, with 8/8 max credit. No publishments. Teaching Experience: none Work Experience: currently working in ING Bank, have 3 years of experience in finance. Concentration Applying to: Phd in Finance. Interest: Asset pricing (both empirical and theoretical) Number of programs planned to apply to: 15-20, actually I have a shortlist: LBS, LSE, INSEAD, SFI, Texas-Austin McCombs, UC San Diego, Rochester, CMU Tepper, Purdue, UFL Warrington, HEC Paris, Tilburg, PennState, Mannheim. I cant apply more because one of my referees can only give me 7 referances because he is very busy. Dream Schools: Standford GSB, Upenn Wharton, UC Berkeley What made you want to pursue a PhD: I am quite curious. I like intellectually stimulating environment. I will write elaborately later in my SoP. Concerns you have about your profile: 1- Will my bachelor GPA be a serious problem given that I explain it as aforementioned? 2- Will my GRE verbal be a point of concern even if I take >105 from TOEFL? 3- Will my letter of recommendation (bachelor) from a former professor be a problem? Any additional specific questions you may have: 1- I already wrote to many scholars from the universities I will apply and do you think this will help or improve my chances of admission? I have a very positive responses from many of them (especially from Turkish professors). 2- What can I do to increase my chance further? 3- Can you please comment (subjectively) of my chances of being admitted to my short list? And also what do you think of my chances of being admitted to top 20-25 schools? 4- How can I improve my short list? Any suggestion will be appreciated. Thank you all in advance for your attention.

Hello, Reading the posts from well-prepared candidates from all around the world, I thought I could give a try and hopefully, I hope I would get some useful advice from you! I am a senior student in Korea Univesity, majoring business administration. My GPA until now is 3.95/4.0. My mathematical background is Calculus, Linear algebra, PMA, Real analysis, Mathematical Analysis, Stochastic process, and DE. Though inadequate, I did take micro, macro and econometrics, international finance. Since it deemed appropriate, I plan to take linear regression, probability, multivariate statistics, elementary computational statistics, and two more courses to get a minor degree in Statistics. I know how to use MATLAB, R, SAS, C/C++ pending:) My GRE score is 160/170, but since my writing score is so frustrating that I plan to take another test... I plan to enroll for the PhD in finance, but it never seems enough to get prepared for the place. I already know that I need to supplement my resume with research experience, since I would only have a research experience as a RA under a professor in the college when I apply. What would you like to recommend for me to increase my chance to get accepted, given that I aim for finance in top 20? Or top 10? My second goal is to apply for Econ, since it was also fun to study in economics department. Could you recommend me some advice on this as well?

I got two admissions of PhD program. I want to know which one is better with respect to the training of program, especially placement. It seems that French students graduated from ESSEC could get placement in French business school, I don't know if a Chinese student could have a good placement in France. For HKU, most students go to China mainland. Don't know if it is possible to stay in HK or go to Europe after PhD. Thank you.

Hi, Myself Manistesh Anand, I am planning to pursue PhD in Finance in US University but am unable to decide where to apply. Will be very kind, if you guys can suggest few colleges which will be good fit for my profile. Since, I don't know in particular how to map ranking to colleges and specifics about colleges would be obliged, if you guys can write college names along with the rank. Thanks Bachelors in Engineering; IIT Kharagpur (top 5 engineering college in India) CGPA: 8.5/10 (Rank 5/51) GMAT: 770 (51Q 42V 7-IR 5-AWA) Passed: Level 1 FRM, Economics Actuaries Paper and Level 2 CFA Work Experience: 2 Years: Trading Analyst, Treasury Tata Steel (one of the big 5 corporate treasury in India) 1 Year 6 Month: Junior Analyst, Fixed Income Research; Bank of America (Quantitative Modelling, trade idea generation, research recommendation for Latin America region) Past 9 Months, during weekends I work on research projects (Infrastructure Financing) with a professor at IIM Calcutta (top 3 business school in India) Recommendation: Mostly average (since, I wont be taking from my employers) Research Paper: none in finance (1 conference paper in metallurgy) Warm Regards Manitesh

Thanks Urch for the forum.

Given below is my profile: Undergrad: Computer science engineering (74%) from a decent university in India. >70% in all math courses that include Linear algebra, calculus, numerical methods, prob and stats. Postgrad: MBA in banking and finance from University of Wales, UK. 2:1 Honors degree with distinction in dissertation thesis. GRE: Yet to take, targeting 165+ in Quants, 160+ in verbal. Prior research/teaching experience: Nil except for dissertation in MBA (Studied Capital Structure determinants of companies listed in London Stock Exchange). CFA Level 3 Candidate Referees: Corporate finance professor (Phd in Econ, MBA from LBS) and Banking project professor (Phd from China)- both are working in UK universities currently. PhD Stream interested in: Quantitative Finance (Asset pricing, and forecasting models) Post PhD aim: Haven't decided yet. I am also a practitioner and would be interested to work in banks in Stats modeling. Work experience post MBA: 2 years as Quantitative Research analyst. Worked on Asset price forecasting, and statistical analysis on multi asset portfolios in Indian KPO. Proficient in R, S+, SQL, MATLAB, and VBA. Does work experience help in the application? I'm targeting schools in Europe and Australia considering I would have poor chance of getting into good PhD programs in the US/UK region. However, I am worried if I will be considered at all even in Europe and Australia due to my not so great academics and graduation from schools of poor reputation (especially my MBA). Given below are the schools that I would be targeting. Please provide an honest feedback (okay if it is insulting) of my chances of getting into these schools. Also if there are additional schools that you think I should be targeting at, I'd be glad to take your advice. Graduate School of Economics, Finance, and Management- Frankfurt, Germany (Pros- close to European Central Bank etc) ESADE, Spain IESE, Spain Swiss Finance Institute, Switzerland Australian National University, Australia University of Melbourne, Australia Bocconi, Italy University of Toronto, Canada. McGill, Canada. Nova, Portugal. Ambitious ones: EDHEC, France (pros- good in Risk management and Quantitative Finance) HEC, France ESSEC, France

I am planning to apply for a Phd in Finance. I currently have a PhD degree in Financial Economics from Turkey with some teaching experience (8 months) and afterwards worked for 1 year as a researcher. I have published 2 sci papers, 2 papers in other indexed field journals, and 1 contributed book chapter published in NewYork+some conference activity. I took the GRE, my unoffical results are about average (V+Q=300). So,I hope that the GRE score won't play a central decisive role in the selection. My purpose for applying to a second PhD are job prospectives in Europe or USA. What do you think will be my admission and funding chances? Thanks for your responses and advices.

Hello everyone Thank you for reading this. I plan to apply as much as possible(many letter writers) to both Ph.D. econ and Ph.D. finance. I know this is Econ forum but i will talk abit about my interest in phd finance just in case if any of you would kindly give my some advices PROFILE: Type of Undergrad: Top university in one of east asian countries Undergrad major: major in Economics minor in math Undergrad GPA: Overall 3.6/4.3 econ 3.95/4.3. math 3.3/4.3 Type of Grad: US Top 10, and Top 5(or 6) in my field Grad major: financial mathematics Grad GPA: N/A I just started this fall so I have not finished a semester (graduate in may2014) GRE: 168Q, 152V, 3 Awa :( Undergrad Math Courses: Cal1,2 Linear Algebra 1,2, Diff Equa, real Analysis1, discrete math and programming Undergrad Econ Courses: Intermediate macro/micro, statistics for econ, intro to econometric, international trade, labor econ, econ and law, financial econ, financial management, investment Grad Econ Courses: N/A plan to take some of them next semester Grad Math Courses: stocastic calculus, time series, probability theory(phd level) Letters of Recommendation: for each application, I plan to submit 1 from my RA supervisor(strong), 1 from my undergrad econ prof(strong) and 1 from my grad prof(normal) Research Experience: Interned as a RA for two months in my country's best economic research institution. I did research in labor economics (unfortunately not my research interest), wrote a paper that will be published sometime later(it is a still working paper, i wrote some part of it) Research Interests: econ : Macroeconomics, international trade/finance, financial econ finance : asset pricing, market microstructure, behavioral finance SOP: talk about my career plan(become a professor), my passion in research, academic background, my paper in undergrad (not relevant to my reseach interest but i got very good feedback about it) and abit about my interest research Concerns: Low undergrade math GPA, low GRE in AWA, my previous work is not relevant with my intended field Applying to: econ: Harvard, MIT, Columbia, Yale, NYU, UCB, Umich, UNorth corolina, Wisconsin, UCL, Boston U, John Hop, Cornell finance: MIT, Columbia, Yale, NYU, Umich, UNorth Corolina, Wisconsin, LSE, UToronto, McGill, British Columbia, UZH, imperial college, Cornell, UCLA I am applying many high ranked universities because I want to increase my chance as much as possible. But, I still want to get into one place. please give me some advices Thank you in advance:drunk:

Hi All, Thanks in advance for your thoughtful comments. My cycle is nearly complete, and it will likely come down to Stern or Booth (with very similar funding) I love both programs, and have listed out a few pros Stern Pro: 1. Xavier Gabaix - this guy is just too cool 2. Access to the Courant Institute 3. Recent strong placements - even slightly better than Booth from what I can see (what do others think?) 4. NYC! Booth Pro: 1. Too many legendary professors to even list out 2. History of strong placement 3. The rigor of the program (I view this as a great thing) 4. Prestige, legacy, and reputation of the Econ department, and Booth itself. 5. Lower cost of living For those that are familiar with one or both of these programs, what are your thoughts? Have I missed some very important considerations? Thank you once again

Hi, I am planning to apply for a Finance PhD for the fall of 2013. My profile is given below - Undergrad - B Tech (Mechanical) from Indian Institute of Technology (GPA- 8.67/10) Post grad - PGDM (MBA equivalent) from Indian Institute of Management (GPA - 3.0/4.0 (4.33)) I have done a lot of Maths courses both in undergrad as well as at IIM (with generally A & B grades mostly) (Stats, Multivariate calculus and PDEs, Numerical methods - FEM,FVM,FDM, Linear programming, etc). Had Econ electives in UG, as well as compulsory courses at PGDM. I also have 2 research publications in international journals (Microfluidics & Nanofluidics, Springer) in Computational Fluid Dynamics during my UG days. I passed out from IIM in 2009 and have been working with a credit rating agency in India since as an Analyst. I was wondering what my chances are for admission to Top B School Fin or Business Eco PhD program. I do understand that my GPAs are not exceptional (specially the IIM one is a little on the lower side for comfort). I shall be appearing for GRE in early November. Some schools that I would fancy to get into - HBS, Wharton, Stanford, Chicago Booth, but the question is do I really stand a chance of getting into Top 10 or 15, specially given my low GPAs. Also, I keep on hearing about safe schools. Which would be 'safe' schools? INSEAD, Yale & Cornell (despite their fame) seem to be pretty low in the UT Dallas PhD rankings. Would it be too foolish to consider them as safe schools or should I go lower the ranking lists? What about USC Marshall? I was also considering Maryland (not as safe bet) but seems they have a rather strict GPA requirement it seems. I took the decision to apply very late and hence, the research for schools has been very rudimentary. Would definitely like heads up on schools that might accept me but I have missed. I am looking for schools with a good schol offers (I know its too early to even keep that a criteria but have some financial commitments). Also, was wondering if Princeton Economics would be a good option to apply to (they do not have any Finance PhD) given that I do not have any Econ degrees at all Really looking forward to suggestions/ tips. TIA Regards.

Dear All, This is my first post here. Hoping for your support. I would like to apply for PHD in Finance next fall in US B schools and would like you to suggest me the schools I should be targetting. My profile - GMAT- 690 (Quant 50 Verbal 34) MBA Finance- From top 15 Institute in Asia (As per Economist Ranking) GPA- 87.5% (Rank 1 in the batch of 100) B.Tech- Electrical Engineering- From a top 20 Institute in India GPA (72.3%) I am a certified FRM and have appeared for Level 3 CFA. I am currenty working as a RA with a professor in India and most probably wouldn't have any research publication by the time I send application. please suggest which schools or class if schools I should be targetting. Thanks

Their website notes that the Business Economics PhD program "includes Finance." I am particularly interested in Finance, but can't find too much information about the Finance track of the PhD. What can I expect of this program as someone who is more interested in Finance? Would it be OK to directly state in my personal statement that I more interested in the Finance aspect of the program or are they expecting candidates who are equally interested in Finance and Business Economics? How does this program compare to MIT's/Chicago's/Stanford's PhD in Finance in terms of the admissions and curriculum? Thanks!

There is this popular blog on disadvantages of grad school: 100 Reasons NOT to Go to Graduate School However, its focus is on the humanities and social sciences. My question is how relevant and realistic are these reasons with respect to PhD in Economics and PhD in Business? Are most problems the same or is it a completely different story?

Hi everyone, I plan to apply for Finance PhD beginning from Fall 2012. Here is my profile: Undergrad: BBA Marketing (GPA: 3.53) from small Oklahoma university Coursework: Calculus I©, College Algebra(A) Grad: MBA from small Oklahoman university (GPA:4.0) Coursework: Advanced Financial Management (mostly Corporate topics), Managerial Economics, Business Statistics MS in Quantitative Financial Economics from top 50 school (GPA:4.0) Coursework: Numerical Analysis(A), Linear Algebra(A), Math Stats(A), Probability(A), Mathematical Economics(A), Intro to Econometrics(A), Fixed-Income(A), Derivatives(A), Risk Management(A) Worked under 2 professors as Research Analyst but without many meaningful assignments. Competed in Tulane Trading Competition and Rotman International Trading Competition but without much success. Enrolled in CFA (level 1) but failed this June. Planning to write again next June. Also considering the PRM since it's more closely aligned with my goals. Work Experience: 1 summer with Citigroup in New York + 3-year internship with business development office helping firms develop business and marketing plans, business evaluations, SBA loan assistance GRE: 790(Q)/690(V)/5.0(W) Research Interests: I'm looking to refine this more but so far I'm interested in risk management, asset pricing and market regulation. I would like to consider working in the industry after PhD so want to make these as practical as possible. Recommendations: one from adviser (will be good), one from research professor (good) and possibly one from math econ. prof (should be decent) I realize a lack of math background will limit my choices of University but I only have a single semester to go until graduation and 1 free class to choose so not much I can do about it now. Do you have any opinion on research areas? Are these reasonable for my level. I'm looking at: University of Rochester, University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, University of Florida and University of Texas-San Antonio. Looking to add about 5 more to this list. -Thanks