batman28 wrote:
Sorry you already said University of Illinois. Is it Urbana Champagne? What about your phd? Where was it?
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Yes, it was Urbana-Champaign, and the PhD is at University of Toronto. I don't believe this is a well known school as far as MBA programs are concerned, but this is a top 10 PhD program in accounting, and I also believe a decently rated school globally. To give you an idea of the competitiveness to get into a PhD program, a typical top 10 business PhD program only accepts 2 or 3 students a year, out of anywhere from maybe 100-200 applicants. I don't really know if this is something I should mention in an application, as I feel like it sounds arrogant and somewhat irrelevant. I'm also pretty sure no adcomm will be aware of this and hence won't place any value in it. This is a link to the most commonly used ranking:
https://www.byuaccounting.net/rankings/u ... r=ranking6As for extra-curricular activities, I was involved in several while I was still working, but stopped after I started pursuing the PhD. Being an academic is basically not just a job but a life endeavor.. I basically dropped everything for it. While in the PhD program, I was spending every waking hour on the PhD... and that was just to get by. This is somewhat the general expectation of a PhD student, which is part of the reason why I don't see a PhD as a good fit for me. I miss working in a corporate environment, on real projects that make an impact to the organization, and in teams. Academic life is a little too ivory tower, solitary, etc.
I'm still in the PhD program as we speak, but as for obtaining another great job, this is something I'm not sure I'll be able to do, at least not right away. I haven't tried yet, given that I'm still doing the PhD, but my impression is that the economy is still a bit down.
I'm a little confused as to why it would be better to stay in the PhD program while applying for MBA programs. I could be wrong, but I feel that it would be more beneficial for me to get back into the work place, and get the best job I can in the mean time..
Like I said in my initial post, my primary reason for wishing to obtain an MBA is to transition from accounting to management consulting. As I mentioned briefly in my prior post, my role in internal audit gave me an opportunity to be an agent of change within the organization. It's not exactly like consulting, but I believe there is some overlap. For example, my role basically consisted of identifying risks (operational, financial, or strategic), determining whether or not the organization has processes in place to address these risks, determining whether or not these processes are operating as intended, "selling" my findings or recommendations to senior management, etc.