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Applying Abroad to a Business School

An Article by Mr. Rik Sen

This is an option that a typical ISI'ian would never consider. Perhaps because it does not match the interests, but I think it is because of lack of sufficient information.
This section therefore is an attempt to provide some information about the potion of applying to a business school. In my opinion, a career in research or teaching in a business school after a PhD in a management area provides challenging and rewarding opportunities especially for someone who is interested in an applied field.

So what is a business school? What do they do?

The focus in a business school is to do research in areas that are relevant for business applications. In fact any practical real life application. However this does not mean that the problems being tackled are too shallow and not sufficiently intellectually stimulating. There are lots of good minds from mathematics, statistics, economics, physics etc in management fields. However there is still is a lot of scope for more people having strong quantitative backgrounds to move into this area. This therefore should be an interesting option for an ISI'ian.

How different will doing research in a business school be from researching in pure mathematics?

Well, quite a bit. The research is likely to be application oriented. You would be able to work on something like abstract mathematics only as long as the application is clearly known. So you can work on stochastic calculus and martingale theory because it has applications in finance. There are many areas of probability statistics that have an application in finance.

What are the different areas of management in which one can do research?

Within a business school typically there are the following departments: Some business schools have some other interesting (and usually small) departments like Insurance & Risk Management. Out of these the areas of Accounting, Finance, Economics, Marketing, OR / Statistics and Insurance & Risk Management are the kind of fields where a lot of quantitative methods and ideas from mathematics, statistics and allied fields are getting applied today. Hence these departments can be interesting places for an ISI'ian.

Does one need to have done a management course before going for a PhD in a business school?

NO and the answer is a BIG NO. What these schools require is usually a strong quantitative background (which any ISI'ian possesses, in my opinion.) Here is the requirement of a high ranked business school for a PhD program:

Although there are no required courses to begin a doctoral program, it is highly recommended that applicants have a strong background in quantitative methods. Depending on your individual field of study, it may also be beneficial to have a good understanding of the basic principles of your chosen field; for example, psychology or sociology, if you are pursuing graduate work in organizational behavior.

Note that the stress is on quantitative methods first. An extract from the webpage of another high ranked school:

We do not require that you hold a degree in business; we're very interested in those with a strong undergraduate background in economics, mathematics, engineering, sociology, psychology, or physical sciences. Our personalized program builds upon the foundation of valuable skills that you've established by study in these fields.

But... If you are still not sure and have doubts like - I do not know ANYTHING about finance, or marketing... That is ok. In all good schools you have a couple of years of coursework, which will give you the chance to acquire sufficient domain knowledge. Remember that finance, marketing etc is just the context in which the ideas and tools from stats, or math, or even quantum physics (yes you read it right) get applied. You already have some idea of these things. In the beginning of the program you would get deeper into this and gather some idea of the context in which you would be applying these tools. A large proportion of the students accepted in business schools have NO background of management education! Don't believe me? Look at this the statistics of admitted students of GSB Stanford:

Students Entering in Fall 2003
Number of applications 748
Number enrolling 29
Countries represented 8
Men/Women 20/9
International 50%
Advanced degrees 45%
Undergraduate Majors Graduate Majors
Business Communications
Chemical Engineering Computer Science
Computer Science Economics
Economics Engineering
Engineering Industrial Engineering
English Management Engineering
Industrial Engineering Management Science
Management Science Mathematics
Mathematics Mechanical Engineering
Mechanical Engineering Psychology
Philosophy Sociology
Physics Statistics
Psychology Statistics

http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/phd/admissions/preparation.html

[I recommend having a look at this page and the links there to get an understanding of the prerequisites in the various fields, and the aim of a PhD program in a business school. This is a fair reflection of what all other schools also look for and aim to do.]

How are the prospects after finishing a PhD from a business school?

Here is an extract from a webpage a high ranked business school.

The academic job market for holders of doctoral degrees in business remains strong. The AACSB estimates that there are twice the position openings as there are graduates. The opportunities open to a particular candidate at *** depend, of course, on that candidate's field and personal qualifications. A Ph.D degree in business does open up numerous job opportunities. Depending on the field of specialization, an average new Ph.D can choose from two to eight job openings in American or international academic settings and many more openings in government and industry. Starting salaries have risen over 30 percent in three years.

Another point is that the salaries (in the US) of the faculty of professional schools at the entry level are often higher than their counterparts in the graduate school. This is a reflection of the fact that currently the demand for business school faculty is higher than supply. As a result, if one has done a PhD from a good place one can be virtually assured of a decent faculty position immediately (without a post-doc).

So where is the catch?

The number of students accepted for PhD in the business school is quite low. For example the website of Stern school of Business (NYU) says that the size of the Fall 2004 class is 23. And this is across all disciplines! This number for GSB Stanford is around 25 according to their website. And this, in fact, is one of the contributors to the demand-supply mismatch situation. This does mean that getting an admit will be difficult, but one should remember that the number of applicants are also lesser than in economics, statistics, maths etc. And usually at least half of the admitted students are ÒinternationalÓ i.e. applying from outside the U.S. Typically the field of finance accounts for more than a proportionate share of the total admitted students to the business school (around 20% to 30%), which is probably reflective of larger number of applications received when compared to other fields.

So what can one do to increase chances of getting in?

If you have written a paper, do send it along with your application. It shows your ability to do serious research and that you understand what doing research involves. If you havenÕt, but think you have enough time to write something, then I would strongly recommend you to do so. Your paper does not have to contain some great original idea. It just has to reflect a good understanding of the subject and that a fair amount of hard work has gone into the paper.

Contact with professors. I never managed to do it. But some people say that it might be useful. In fact some forms ask specifically whether you have been in contact with any professor of the institute and if yes, name them. I guess some feedback is taken from the professor about what is his/ her impression about you in case you mention a name on your form.

The essays in case of applying to business schools, in my opinion, are more important as compared to applying in PhD in Stats, maths, economics. Essays are a very crucial criterion for MBA entrance and this tendency perhaps carries over to the evaluation of PhD applications to the business school. So try and write a good essay. At the end of this write-up is an article that should prove useful while writing the essay (SOP).

The other standard things - Try and get good recommendations. Try and see to it that the recommender gives it personal touch. There should be some things mentioned which cannot be generally written for everyone.

Try and see to it that there are absolutely no errors in the application (spelling mistakes etc). This might give an impression that the applicant is casual and laid back and therefore perhaps not suited for a rigorous PhD program.

Is applying to a business school any different from applying to a graduate school?

Standardized tests: The requirements from applying to a business school are GRE or GMAT, and TOEFL. Depending on which discipline one applies to one has to take the GRE or GMAT or has the choice of taking either of the two. For PhD in finance, almost all schools leave the option of taking GRE or GMAT to the applicant. Some specify that they prefer one to the other, but would accept either. Some marketing departments will accept only a GMAT score.

Essays / SOP: Some schools (very few, actually) require specific essays to be written instead of a general SOP. One example is the Stern School of Business at NYU.

Resume: Many schools ask for a copy of resume along with the application. Some others say that it is optional. It is advisable to include a copy of the resume even if it is optional. Do not leave any opportunity to be able to portray yourself in positive light. It is not possible to write the story of your life and include everything that you would have wanted to in the SOP. The resume gives an opportunity to put all those things.

Recommendations: The recommendations do NOT have to be from a business context or from a business school professor. Academic recommendations are preferred. And recommendations from ISI would be held in high regard. From the recommendations the admissions committee is trying to judge the ability for academic excellence. It does not matter what field it is. I have heard of people getting into B-school PhDs based on recommendations from their physics or chemistry professors! Typically 2 or 3 letters of recommendation are required. If you are sending 3, then one can be non-academic.

There is no difference, other than some points that have been capture above, between an application to a grad school and to a business school for a PhD.

Financial Aid. Isn't it very difficult to get financial aid in Business Schools?

For MBA, Yes. But for a PhD... A BIG NO! In fact if you are admitted to a good Business school PhD you are almost sure to get a financial aid. A case in point is Stern school of business at NYU, which is where the author of this section is headed (or already is, depending on when you are reading this), where ALL the admitted students to PhD in finance were offered FELLOWSHIPS! Not all departments in all business schools are able to give fellowships to everyone. However full scholarships and support in the form of RA-ship or TA-ship is to all admitted students is almost assured.

Extract from the PhD program page in a website of a high ranked business school (not Stern school of business, NYU):

Because research is the primary focus of the doctoral program, PhD candidates are freed from any requirement to teach as part of their graduate support. The only requirements for this assistance are that students make adequate progress toward graduation and work with faculty members on research projects.

Note that the above school has clearly pre-specified the amount of support that will be given to ALL admitted students! This is not to say that you can expect all schools to have such an attractive support package. However, what is interesting is that there are schools that do give such a deal.

At the end of an MBA, which is for just two years, the candidate is expected to get a good job and can therefore be expected to pay for studying by taking a loan. However, since a PhD is typically to prepare for an academic career, aid is given.

Choosing the schools to apply

So the next question is... to which schools should one apply? I can help in answering this question only for FINANCE. Given below is a list of 14 schools that are reputed to give a solid training to its students. (This is the opinion of a professor in finance in the US.)

CMU, Stanford, MIT, Chicago, Wharton, NYU, Columbia, Northwestern,
UCLA, Berkeley, Harvard, Duke, Cornell, London Business School

List of U.S. business schools offering PhD

General B-school rankings from different websites are some indicator, however it makes sense to have a look at the ranking of the individual department, eg., quality of the Finance department in a particular school may be very different from that of Marketing.

It is good to have a fair idea of rankings before choosing the schools to apply to.

The best page for rankings is probably by Prof Dennis.
http://www.kelley.indiana.edu/ardennis/rankings/

This page gives department-wise rankings based on publications in top journals -

http://www.kelley.indiana.edu/ardennis/rankings/rank2001.htm

The ranking of the MBA program in the same field is some indicator of the PhD program also. However the correlation is not equal to 1. Keeping this in mind, you could also look at the links given below.

For pages that have a general ranking of business schools, you can have a look at these

http://www.ocs.mq.edu.au/~skant001/bizguide.html
http://rankings.ft.com/rankings/mba/rankings.html

For rankings of specific fields within a business school you can have a look at

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/grad/rankings/mba/mbaindex_brief.php
and choose the appropriate field of interest. You can view the top 3 schools (MBA rankings) for free. For viewing the other rankings one has to pay something. It might make sense for a few people to pool in together, pay the money, and use the same login.

The top 10 schools for finance (MBA) can be found in table-I of the following article
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0254/is_2_62/ai_100202314

MORE: Essay Writing Tips for Applying to a Business School