From MBA to PhD...suggestions?

at wharton, 2nd year MBAs who express interest in PhD are allowed to join PhD seminars either as auditors or as participants (depend on the course). there are few like these every semester.

also - whichever track you want to go - do yourself a favor and do exceptionally well in as much as quant courses as you can during the MBA (i.e. take more than the minimum. get an A or A+ in every single one of them).

unlike others, I don't think you must read journals. in fact this might be too early for you, and deter you...
what I suggest is that for every course that you take on the MBA try to push yourself in asking some non-trivial questions about what you study. try to think how you would go about to answer them. what kind of relevant data you'd need. if you have insights, can you put them into words. can you formulate them in a way that they can be tested?

if you do so for a year.... you could then spend the summer starting the preparation of your phd application. it might be good thing to do some academic reading at that time.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

Hobbit, do those 2nd year MBA students that express interest in the PhD program have a leg up on "outsiders" that are applying to the program? How does that work out?

Also, what kind of quant should I be reviewing before the MBA program, keeping in mind that a PhD might be the ultimate goal? I have already brought out a few statistics books. What else should I be looking at?

Thanks

Not sure about finance or other fields, but for general management/OB, multivariate data analysis is the basis (regression and its variants ANOVA/MANOVA, Structural Equation Modelling, etc...)

I'd assumed that since you were interested in finance that you'd be interested in more of the econ side of strategy as opposed to the org behavior/theory side, not that you should be discouraged from exploring. It's important to keep in mind the various options you would have in any field (there are diverse options in finance too).

They don't have any formal advantage over regular phd applications. they probably have secondary advantage by the fact they know more literature, talked to professors about their interests, and have access to better people for recommendation.



for mgmt/ob you'd need lots of stats. for finance you'd need advanced level calculus and probably a lot of linear algebra -to say the least.

however - I've seen too many on both sides that "talk the talk" i.e. suceed in classes, understand research papers and even do some research, that don't really understand what's stand behind all this math. I've just heavily criticized a very famous paper in OT on the fact that they didn't know how to measure what they tried to measure, just because they didn't formulated their measure correctly. the reviewers didn't pick that up, probably for the same reason.

therefore - my suggestion is to get a firm grasp of basic calculus, linear algebra and probability theory, which are the basics of everything else. you should be comfortable with partial derivatives and jacobians, multiple integrals and integrals on surfaces (on the calculus side), diagonalization of matrices and orthogonal transformations, eigenvalues and positivedefinite matrices (on the algebra side), and a firm grasp of the definition and basic properties of the main distributions and how/when they arise (probability).

of course you don't need all of these, and can do well without any of these (in management, don't know about finance/econ). also you'd have opportunities to do that while you study if you choose the right courses.

hope this helps.

Thanks for all the suggestions. If anyone else has any, keep 'em coming. I really appreciate it.

Wow... Way to deter from my PhD dreams! Kidding.

Ned - I am in your boat. I just accepted my MBA offer at the University of Colorado beginning this August. I share the same goal of eventually earning a PhD and becoming a college professor. I must say, my real motivation to become a professor is to "teach" students as opposed to getting published, but I do understand that these are not mutually exclusive.

In some ways, I plan to use my MBA as a stepping stone to a PhD. In the same light, I plan to parlay my MBA into more "strategic" expereince required in the field I hope to "profess" (Sustainable Business). I have always been felt that my best professors had "real world" experience - although I feel that this is more true with Marketing/Management/Strategy classes. I posted a thread on this some time ago - reply's were very mixed. Thread: https://gmatclub.com/forum/103-t55293

My plan is to do just what some folks mentioned above. ENGAGE with your MBA professors. They could be the golden ticket into your PhD program. At the very least, they can shed some light on the PhD journey, and answer questions you may have. Attend any and all relevant seminars and speakers, the whole concept of a PhD is to further your learning through research, introspection, and critical analysis... Begin and engrain that process now!

Where will you be earning your MBA?

PM'd.

My sense in talking to people who have done this is that it helps a lot. One guy is already a Ph.D. student, so it obviously worked out for him. Another was in my seminar, and I thought he was excellent when I talked with him 1-1 on some papers, so he should have spoken up a lot more. Anyhow, this guy attended other phd seminars, and he seems to think that it helped him at least understand what he's getting into and perhaps with some connections with key faculty. If he's admitted, I'll ask him how helpful the process was.