Profile Evaluation: PhD in Finance or Economics

[james333]

Hello. This is my first post. I need a lot of your feedback to make up my mind on something that has been bothering me for the last 20 years...

 

I have BA in Double Major in Applied Math and Econ from UC Berkeley, GPA of 3.76

MS. in Engineering Economic Systems (now Management Science) from Stanford, GPA of 3.82

I could have continued to study for PhD in program after my MS but decided to work due to lack of personal funding and a great job offer from a bank.

 

I've had a successful career in finance up to now as a derivatives trader in top investment banks and in asset management. However, getting a PhD and doing research/teaching was always in the back of my mind as my personal goal and a possible career for the second half of my lifetime. Considering my background, I have a lot of interest in asset pricing and portfolio managment and predictability of markets, and system trading etc... I have struggled whether to apply pretty much every year after working for few years and had some money saved up. However, time just flew by and now I'm already 45.

 

At current age, would there be any interest from top schools to look at me as a legitimate candidate? Certainly, given the opportunity cost, it would not worth it for me unless it is one of the top schools. But if it is one of the top10 schools, I wouldn't mind pursuing the degree. In addition, although schools might not think this way, my placement after the degree is less important to me personally compared to the young PhDs, as long as I can contribute to teaching MBAs or doing research in the field that I'm interested in. I'm pretty confident that if I review the materials that I learned in BA and MS for few months, I would be up to speed in quantitative subjects.

 

Given that it is Nov. already, I would be preparing to take GRE next year and applying next year. Am I dreaming on something that I would waste a lot of my time on or do I have a decent chance?

 

Thank you for any comments...

[YaSvoboden]

I am in accounting, but I have seen several people that started in their mid to late 30s. I also know one finance PhD student at a mid-tier school that was probably in her 40s with substantial European industry experience. Reading through here you will find a general theme of undervaluation of work experience. While it is true that work experience may not be as valuable as an applicant thinks it should be, in accounting the value is non-zero. I also think that there are probably increasing returns to the value of work experience in PhD admissions. i.e. a couple years doing entry level accounting or finance stuff won't do too much for you, but I have to believe that 20 years of industry experience gives you great credibility.

 

The obvious cost is that you are older, your academic ability may be in question after so many years out of school, your projected career is much shorter, so your potential research output is much lower. I think the crux of the problem is whether or not the advantages will outweigh the disadvantages in an admission committee's eyes. This is a very tough thing to judge. I think the best way to get some sense of it would be to look at schools that you may be interested in and check out their current students and the graduates from the last few years. This should give you some idea of who they admit. Obviously, finding someone with a similar profile to yours would let you know you have a chance, but not finding anything may not tell you too much.

 

Finally, while the opportunity cost is obviously high for you, I don't think that necessarily means that you need only consider the very top schools. If your end goal is to be in a solid research institution that has a decent MBA program that you can contribute to, I would look at placements through the top 30-50 PhD programs and see how you would feel about working at those places in the end. Your statement about initial placement makes me think that you may be totally happy at one of the good state schools.

[wittmic]

Certainly, given the opportunity cost, it would not worth it for me unless it is one of the top schools. But if it is one of the top10 schools, I wouldn't mind pursuing the degree. In addition, although schools might not think this way, my placement after the degree is less important to me personally compared to the young PhDs, as long as I can contribute to teaching MBAs or doing research in the field that I'm interested in..

 

I'm not sure I understand why you feel the need to go to a top 10 school if placement isn't that important to you? How is the opportunity cost of pursuing a PhD any different at a top 50 program if you get placed at the same school in the end?

 

I think it is admirable that you want to pursue your PhD after all these years in IB, and I honestly think you have a decent shot at ending up in a solid program. I also know students that started when they were around your age. But in reality, the chances of any one applicant (even a great one) getting offers from a top 10 school are very low. Feel free to apply only to the top, it certainly might work out, but there's a very real chance it won't as well.

[tradingplaces]

Go Bears!

 

You know back then Cal had a really really rough GPA curve. I am more amazed at your Cal GPA than your Stanfurd GPA.

 

Bottom line is if you were in your late 20's early 30's you would be a shoe in for some top 10 finance programs (assuming you have 720+ GMAT) . However, your age will make you drop about 10-20 spots.

 

Don't do econ, they don't like experienced candidates. Do finance where experience actually matters. Econ teaches undergrads, Finance teaches MBAs.

 

For finance, pretty much any top 75+ program (finance not econ) is guaranteed a teaching position at least (think SF State, you can look at their faculty), and depending on the candidate and ranking of the school you can add tenure track, MBA school, and PhD teaching schools. It seems to be common to mix up econ program prospects with finance program prospects. Think of finance as long leveraged econ position with a generous strike put.

 

My background is similar to you with a background in derivatives trading etc, except that I was probably too familiar with LBL. PM me if you have any questions.

 

I think its better to do it this year than next year.

 

Hello. This is my first post. I need a lot of your feedback to make up my mind on something that has been bothering me for the last 20 years...

 

I have BA in Double Major in Applied Math and Econ from UC Berkeley, GPA of 3.76

MS. in Engineering Economic Systems (now Management Science) from Stanford, GPA of 3.82

I could have continued to study for PhD in program after my MS but decided to work due to lack of personal funding and a great job offer from a bank.

 

I've had a successful career in finance up to now as a derivatives trader in top investment banks and in asset management. However, getting a PhD and doing research/teaching was always in the back of my mind as my personal goal and a possible career for the second half of my lifetime. Considering my background, I have a lot of interest in asset pricing and portfolio managment and predictability of markets, and system trading etc... I have struggled whether to apply pretty much every year after working for few years and had some money saved up. However, time just flew by and now I'm already 45.

 

At current age, would there be any interest from top schools to look at me as a legitimate candidate? Certainly, given the opportunity cost, it would not worth it for me unless it is one of the top schools. But if it is one of the top10 schools, I wouldn't mind pursuing the degree. In addition, although schools might not think this way, my placement after the degree is less important to me personally compared to the young PhDs, as long as I can contribute to teaching MBAs or doing research in the field that I'm interested in. I'm pretty confident that if I review the materials that I learned in BA and MS for few months, I would be up to speed in quantitative subjects.

 

Given that it is Nov. already, I would be preparing to take GRE next year and applying next year. Am I dreaming on something that I would waste a lot of my time on or do I have a decent chance?

 

Thank you for any comments...

[james333]

Thank you all for your comments. To answer some of your questions: (1) I was thinking top 10 because that would be "worth" taking a different path from what I'm currently on. My thinking is that if the reputation of the school is "up there" with my undergraduate & masters degree institutions, then perhaps, I would be willing give up significant amount of opportunity cost to pursue what always had been a personal goal of mine (or more like, a bucket list item at current moment in time.) However, the value of "giving up" goes down significantly if it goes down to number 30-50 ranking type of schools. I might be asking "is it worth it" when the going gets tough unless it is a highly reputable school. (2) To provide comment on Cal, it was indeed a tough school. You are probably right about the level of difficulty in getting a higher scores in Cal vs. Stanford. Having said that, I will listen to your advise in focusing on Finance in Business Schools rather than Economics if the schools would value my experience more. However, some of the top schools do not have Finance programs...only Economics, in which case, I might apply as Economics for those. I think the deadline for most of the programs are in December and I have not taken any GMAT or GRE which makes this year impossible.

[tradingplaces]

You have to understand that from the professors viewpoints they want to hire a candidate who has a long shelf life for research. Relationships between professors lead to research papers. 15 years of output is different from 30. It's half the value.

In that sense there is a slight tradeoff between prestige and utility worth for older candidates. Which is somewhat offset by the value of insight and intuition from experience.

 

Btw a fair amount of schools have January deadlines... For instance u dub is jan 15.

 

Good luck. I started my application process end of last nov and took the gmats with 1 week prep.

 

I realized after 9yrs working at various hedge funds after my mba this is the only way i can do research into my 60s. I like coming up with new ideas... The main downside being that the markets give much quicker and honest feedback than academic journals i imagine... But the upside being that i can really do research that may change things

[XanthusARES]

Thank you all for your comments. To answer some of your questions: (1) I was thinking top 10 because that would be "worth" taking a different path from what I'm currently on. My thinking is that if the reputation of the school is "up there" with my undergraduate & masters degree institutions, then perhaps, I would be willing give up significant amount of opportunity cost to pursue what always had been a personal goal of mine (or more like, a bucket list item at current moment in time.) However, the value of "giving up" goes down significantly if it goes down to number 30-50 ranking type of schools. I might be asking "is it worth it" when the going gets tough unless it is a highly reputable school.

 

 

Alright so just to clarify because I think that we are coming at it from different directions. It looks like, to me, that your desire to go back for a PhD is dependent upon the ability to get into a top 10 program (i.e. you won't go to a program that is not in the top 10). While we answered the question of what type of program you have a shot of getting into. Really the difference is in motivation. For some of us lowly applicants and students, the desire to get a PhD, to spend a career doing research, to add something, anything to the realm of knowledge in our lifetime outweighs our desire to go to a top program. That is not to say we don't want to get into top programs, on the contrary, we would love to all be at Duke, Wharton, Stanford etc.., but our desire to get a PhD, eventually, wins out over our desire to get into a top school.

 

For you, however, it seems like a PhD is more of a theoretical construct. Like it's something that you've always kind of wanted to do, so your desire isn't particularly strong. So our advice isn't going to be great. Here's the thing, you need to ask the econ forum about those programs. My limited understanding is that econ programs really dislike work experience, and that will be a big issue for you. Again, though, I can't stress enough that this is hearsay, they would know more than I do. Second, your age will most likely keep you out of the top 10. That's just the way it is. Schools don't like investing in people who will not give them a solid ROI. The amount of time you will have to research afterwards before you retire will make schools skeptical of accepting you.

 

Alright so that's my official, cynical opinion. Here's my unofficial, heartstrings opinion: if you are only interested in going to the top 10 programs, then only apply to the top 10 programs. If you truly feel like you won't be happy anywhere else, then it doesn't really make sense to apply anywhere else. Your desire for prestige seems to outweigh your desire for a PhD, which, frankly, for your situation, makes sense. In an odd reversal of my normal opinion, I say go for it. Only apply to the top 10 schools and see what happens. Worst case scenario, you don't get in, and you'll at least have the comfort of knowing you tried. Also you can always retire and spend your life as an adjunct MBA professor. The pay isn't great, and you won't get to do research, but the students will love your knowledge and experience.

 

Good luck.