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Joined: 02 Jul 2004
Posts: 11
Location: Ft. Benning, GA
Ph.D.-Finance (eliseo - belated reply)
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25 Nov 2005, 16:35
Hi, Eliseo,
Jaypalm is right. In fact, academic (i.e., teaching) experience is probably the least important part of your curriculum vitae. Good doctoral institutions want a combination of two criteria: (1) strong predictors of academic performance; and (2) strong predictors of future job placement. Neither of these has very much to do with whether you've taught before.
The first criterion focuses a lot of attention on the GMAT itself. This is not so much because the GMAT is perhaps weighted heavily in certain indices (it is 16.25% of the rating for the US News & World Report index), but because there are few reliable predictors of academic performance out there. Undergraduate GPA depends a lot on where the prospect studied, and it is virtually impossible to do anything about the differences in relative difficulty from institution to institution. For example, a graduate of the tough US Military Academy at West Point might end up with a GPA of 2.0, but the same student might well have been close to a 4.0 at some lesser institution. Now, let's say that someone undertakes the effort necessary to adjust individual universities' scores against a fixed standard in order to facilitate analysis. If the discipline of interest is business, it is difficult not to go back to the GMAT as the standard. This, in turn, obviates the need to give much importance to GPA in the first place. Therefore, doing well on the GMAT will tend to trump everything else for the person applying to business school.
Regarding the criterion of strong predictors of future job placement, good institutions will naturally give more importance to good salaries than to sheer numbers, and they know that graduates adept at research stand the best chance of capturing the best salaries. Therefore, they want people who are motivated to do research. Now, to normal people, teaching and research would seem to go hand in hand. In reality, doctoral recruiters who discover that a particular prospect really wants to teach are not nearly as interested in him as they are a competing prospect who really wants to do research. In effect, they tend to see teaching and research as competing alternatives, not mutually reinforcing activities. Moreover, they know that the best predictor of success in research is prior published research. Therefore, being able to demonstrate that you have already published something will give your application a big boost.
You may find some institutions actively engaged in raising their GMAT average by selecting students with sky-high GMAT scores and pushing all other considerations aside. Some of these are very solid public institutions that are worth a look. Such efforts should be expected to come in phases. Not all recruiting faculty believe in doing this, so when it is done, it is not likely to last more than a few years at a time.
Other institutions are actively looking for that vague quality that they call "fit." This is probably best understood as an indirect effect of the thinking that prevails in promotion and tenure (P&T) decisions. Assessing fit can be difficult, so it is likely to be gauged in the form of peer evaluations of a doctoral candidate, by the current doctoral students in the same school or department of the same institution. In such cases, a high GMAT can get you in the door, but it can also scare your prospective peers enough to send you back out.
All in all, stressing your background in market research, and being able to list several specific market research projects that you have either directed or undertaken yourself, will make you highly competitive when it comes to the second criterion listed above. Just be sure to let the institution know that you positively love research and are hoping to do a lot more of it. The GMAT will take care of the rest.
Lastly, as Littlefauss said, your selection of McGill or HEC is somewhat narrow. However, with your background, I would bet that you would be accepted with a strong GMAT score. You should already speak French, especially for HEC. McGill's average GMAT in 2004 was 646, while HEC's was much lower, namely, 585. Because these are both strong institutions, it is a good bet that a high GMAT will get you into McGill, but non-GMAT criteria will be considerably more important for HEC. You would do well to apply to a wider range than this, and if you wish to apply to an institution in Québec, an ability to interview in French will certainly be an advantage.