If you were a top-20 B-school adcom, would you admit me?

Question

Hi everybody. I am in a great,mind destroying dilemma

I can't apply for more than10-12 B-schools(financial reasons) and if I don't get admitted this time(my 1st time), I am going to have to forget my long-lasting dream of a a PhD abroad. So, I'll be grateful if you would help me choose my schools wisely :-D

. What are my chances if I apply to 10-12 schools among the top-20? I wanna apply in Marketing or Managerial economic, the former being the priority. Please don't give me discrete answers. Give me flexible, goal-seeking answers. I mean please give me a confidence range. Tell me what to do, what part to strengthen. Especially about the GMAT. If my odds are low, introduce to me a safer range, other than 1-20. Thank you all in advance I am: 1- 24 years old/male/ 2- BA is English language and literature, GPA 3.8 3- student of Masters in marketing, Tehran university (absolutely no.1 in Iran), GPA 4 4-being offered an honorary PhD place at Tehran university 5- GMAT 700 (1st and last time) 6-TOEFL (ibt) 110 7- translated two book, "Developing leadership talent", "Marketing principles" (by Phillip kotler) 8- written 3 articles, 2 indexed in ISI 9- TA for two courses 10- good recommendation letters(from professors I have done research with) 11- one book written, "English grammar for Msc students" 12- recognized as an exceptional talent in the "Iranian Young Researchers Association" and a member of "Iran's society of elites" 13- Founder and editor-in-chief of a studentship scientific journal called "A window to the world of management" 14- effective and persuasive SOP (have been thinking about and editing it for 15 months,have always been strong in effective writing, have had a PhD in English literature proofread it) 15- The top student in all the four semesters of Msc. The top student in the graduating group. 16- recognized as a top student in the faculty (formal cognition certificate) 17- ranked 31th among more than 8000 Msc entrance test takers though I was a major changer I LACK work experience, which is my main fear. Of course I have many years of teaching experience but no experience in marketing. How strong do you find this weakness!? Please just tell me if I need to provide more info.

PTK · Answer

It seems that you have a great profile, but I could not comment on it becuase I am not familiar with the requirements for Ph.D programmes.

saeedt · Answer

Thanks Pkit for answering, but, friends, please make your most educated guess even if you are not sure, and please please don't suffice to the poll, I need explanatory answers, so I can analyze them to reach a conclusion.

saeedt · Answer

uh, 62 people read it and only one answered!

PTK · Answer

I think that the rest of the people have the same response as me, thus they do not want to post the same response. I hva emoved your topic in admission-consultants-124/ There are Admission consultants whom you can ask to evaluate your profile.

saeedt · Answer

Thanks Pkit.

risys82 · Answer

It is good for you to post your question, but honestly, soliciting feedback from the "62" people that have viewed the post is not really the right course of action. Asking for an educated guess from those who are not PhD students, applicants, or professors themselves does not make any sense whatsoever. Instead, your post should read, please don't respond unless you at least have some idea of what you are talking about. I guarantee you the feedback you end up receiving will be far more valuable than an outsider's educated guess. And if you don't get any feedback at all, it is probably still better than incorrect feedback in any case.

Also in response to Pkit's suggestion to consult one of the admissions consultants: I do not recommend this. I believe that most (all??) of these admissions consultants deal with MBA admissions and not with PhD admissions. The two are a completely different ball game. I would say that if you can get into a top 20 PhD program, you probably have the stats (GPA and GMAT) to get into a top 5 MBA, assuming good work experience and essay. While MBA programs look for academic ability, work experience, and good extra curricular involvement, PhD programs primarily look at GPA, GMAT scores, an understanding of what a PhD entails (i.e. research, not industry), and a good fit with the school (i.e. matching research interests).

A few comments about your profile:
- Teaching experience is unlikely to be worth much in admission to the top PhD admissions. They will be far more interested in your research experience. However, I am not sure I see any research experience based on the profile you posted. You mention some book translations and books written but this does not equate to research. Also you mention 2 articles indexed in the ISI. Perhaps you can describe this to us more detail. Are these research papers?
- Work experience is not a requirement to gain admissions into PhD programs, but when you're looking at the top 20, generally most people have superb profiles, and you want to be as competitive in every area as possible.
- Your GMAT score is on the low end for the top 20 programs. A safe GMAT score for top 20s would probably be more in the 750 range. However, this is just one thing they look at.
- Your BA is in English, and masters in marketing. I do not know whether or not this means that you have a strong quantitative background, since you didn't mention what kind of quantitative coursework you have, or what your GMAT breakdown was. Top schools will probably want to see at least Calc 1 and 2, statistics, linear algebra. 
- Having obtained your degree outside of the US and being an international student, your stats are probably going to have to generally be better than that of an American applicant, all else being equal
- Everything else that you have looks decent

In my opinion, you should apply to maybe 3 schools in the top 10, 3 in the top 20, and the remainder in the top 50. I would say definitely do not use all 12 of your picks for the top 20. I won't tell you what your chances are because I don't think anyone could really say they know for sure. But to give you an idea of how competitive it is probably going to be:

I'm currently in the PhD admissions process myself. I have a 750 GMAT, and gpa is 3.9 for masters and 3.8 for bachelors in the field that I am pursuing my PhD in. Both degrees were obtained at a top 5 state school in the US. I have 6 years of very good work experience. I applied to over 20 schools in the top 50, and so far I have not heard anything yet. It is still pretty early in the admissions cycle (normally most programs seem to respond back in Feb-Mar), but at least half the schools I have applied to have already responded to other applicants with interview requests and such.

Remember that most programs are accepting 2-3 students out of hundreds. Therefore your application really needs to be great. From what I can see of your application, it looks good, but probably by no means a guaranteed shot at a top 20. Therefore, choose wisely and apply to not just top 20 schools.

saeedt · Answer

Thanks a lot for your informative,constructive answer, risys82. I totally agree with most parts: forming an application portfolio, PhD-MBA differences,hyper-competition and so.

But, are you sure that teaching experience is so less important than research experience? A PhD student is finally gonna become a professor after all. Moreover, as an accepted and funded PhD student, you are expected to teach the undergraduate at your school. How teaching ex can not be important for a would-be teacher? I'm not saying research is inferior to teaching, but teaching itself is very important an experience, isn't it? I'm going to spend some noticeable time working as a TA. So, had I really better devote this time to research, do you think?

About the articles, I was talking about my application day. Currently, one of my papers is under review and I am at the final stages of the other.

risys82 · Answer

Hi Saeedt,

Yes, I'm certain that teaching experience is not going to be valued over research experience in PhD programs, especially if you're talking about the top 20 programs. I would say that most of the schools in the top 50 are looking for people who wish to researchers. In fact, I would be careful about emphasizing teaching when you're applying to PhD programs because doing so could instantly remove you from consideration for admission into these programs. I think that for a lot of schools, it is their test to see whether the applicant really knows what a PhD is about and what they're getting themselves into. Many people tend to have two misconceptions about the PhD. The first misconception is that getting a PhD is like getting a super MBA. That is wrong because an MBA prepares you for industry, while a PhD is primarily preparing you for a research career at a university. The second misconception is that getting a PhD is about teaching when it is not. It is all about research, research, and more research. Therefore if you mention that you emphasize teaching or that you mention that you would maybe like to go to industry afterwards, you are automatically out.

However, this doesn't mean that a preference to teach is wrong, or that a preference for a balanced research and teaching agenda is wrong. It simply means that you should not be targeting the top 20. There are schools out there that like to emphasize both teaching and research within the top 50 (although I would argue that even almost all of these schools, research still trumps teaching by a lot), and more out of the top 50. Because think about it, if all you wanted to do is teach, you can do so with a masters degree. The one and only reason to get a PhD is to learn how to be a researcher.

As far as the research you are doing, I would not be familiar with it because I am not in the same discipline as you. However, recognize that there is a distinction between academic research and industry research, with the latter not being valued because it is generally not as robust as academic research.

cabro57 · Answer

I agree with everything risys82 wrote. I think your profile looks good (but don't ask me about a % chance of getting an offer), but 700 GMAT is definitely not good enough for elite schools, and I'd be surprised if you made it at near elite schools, especially as an international applicant -- there are many, many international applicants with a 700 GMAT. If you send 10-12 applications to schools in the top 20 only, you'll be up against the same people every time, so you'll lose against the better applicants every time -- you need to pick a field (this wasn't mentioned but Marketing and Management research can be very different, if you apply for either you'll look unfocused to say the least), and then look through the top 20-50 schools that have good professors in that field. Some of the elite schools have top faculty in every department but the 25th best school is not 25th in accounting, 25 in finance, 25 in operations research, 25 in marketing.. they may be 5th best in marketing and have no accounting faculty whatsoever -- those schools may be off the radar for some applicants and may have more spots reserved for PhD candidates in marketing than other schools.

Hope this helps!

Hope this helps!

saeedt · Answer

Cabro 57, thanks a lot for both confirming risys82 and also providing new info, especially about "being measured against same applicants". It was a terrific thinking. risys82, your answer came as a shock to me at your first reply, and now, when you said "In fact, I would be careful about emphasizing teaching when you're applying to PhD programs because doing so could instantly remove you from consideration for admission into these programs", it came as a thunder bolt :-)

But, now that you continued explaining, it's downing on me why our opinions are different. You said "if all you wanted to do is teach, you can do so with a masters degree"? Are you sure I can teach in university with a MSc in the US? In Iran you should have a PhD to teach at reputed universities. Any way, taking your experience into consideration, I'm going cut on my devoted time to teaching. And would you please explain the difference about academic and industrial researches? I know we have three kinds of researches: applicable, fundamental and developmental. I understand that applicable researches mainly deal with applying science to industry. But, do you mean it's not academic? Actually, conducting fundamental & developmental researches (What I guess you mean by "academic") in the field of Marketing is hard, unlike natural sciences, especially for a Masters student. I had in mind depicting a triangle for my career ambitions in my SOP, Research, teaching and consulting being its apexes. OF COURSE emphasizing that the top apex is research. Taking your notes, I need to cancel this intention, huh?

saeedt · Answer

And one more thing risys82, I agree my BA field is not quantitative. But I have good quant scores at my MSc. Two accounting, one operation research, one statistical analysis, all A+ (superscript)

risys82 · Answer

Yes, in the US all you really need to teach at a university is a masters degree. Universities hire adjunct professors whose primary duties are teaching, and it seems like many of these professors do not hold PhDs. Instead, they have indsutry work experience or teaching experience. Whether your teaching experience is enough to get a job at a decent US university I don't know, but it definitely would not make sense to go for a PhD just so you can teach at these universities. Please don't make the mistake to think that what I said regarding teaching vs research at the top 50 universities is my personal opinion because it isn't. If told any of the top 20 PhD programs what you told me so far the schools are unlikely to see you as a serious candidate, and that is no exaggeration. With that being said, yes, I think you should modify your approach for your SOP. Any interests or comments in teaching should probably not occupy more than one or two sentences in your SOP. It is probably appropriate to at least mention it in your case because you have been teaching for several years now. Further, I would entirely eliminate any mention of consulting motivations because as that will be yet another huge red flag for schools to not take you seriously as a PhD candidate. Therefore, what is left is your desire to learn how to conduct research and that should be the emphasis of your entire SOP. The primary motivation you should mention in your SOP is that you wish to obtain a PhD so that you can pursue a career in research at an academic institution. If you enjoy teaching, that is great, but that is not why you are pursuing a PhD.

As far as the research is concerned, I know nothing of marketing or management research (well, academic research in general, given that I am an applicant for fall 2011, and not yet enrolled in a program). However, generally you can ask yourself this question: who does the research appear to be geared towards? Does it seem highly theoretical and geared towards an academic? This type of research may include theoretical models or may have complicated econometrics that a practitioner without the proper training could not hope to understand. Or does it seem to be quite practical and readable, and thus probably something that would appeal to a practitioner. I think practitioners generally would not be that interested in reading academic research, at least certainly not in my field of interest.

Finally, I am not really sure I consider some of the coursework that you mentioned as being quantitative, such as accounting classes, except maybe the statistics coursework. Have you taken linear algebra and calculus at least up to calculus II? I think that is the bare minimum that one should have if they expect to be competitive for the programs you wish to enter. I have no doubt that you are capable of completing these courses and getting good grades in them, but these are the minimum level of preparation that a lot of PhD programs seem to look for.

With all this being said, it sounds like you are not entirely aware of what you are getting yourself into at this stage. With this new-found knowledge, you may wish to reevaluate whether a PhD is really the right path for you, based on your ultimate goals. If you really want to do research then great. Apply to the top 50. However if your heart is mainly into the teaching or consulting, you may want to rethink this.

I don't think my comments are very far from the truth but if anyone disagrees, feel free to chime in. I know that Cabro, at least, is a current PhD student at a top PhD program. I am merely an applicant who has tried my best to do my homework on the process.

hellothere88 · Answer

Hi can I ask an opinion whether emailing admission/program director and mentioning how we are really interested in joining the program, after submitting your application, would help in the admission process?

Posted from my mobile device

Posted from my mobile device

katelynMBALink · Answer

I do not recommend reaching out to the AdCom after you’ve submitted your application. Ideally you’ve expressed your strong interest in the program through your application, so there’s no need for additional outreach right now. Plus, the AdCom needs time to actually review applications, so let them do that!

Posted from my mobile device

Posted from my mobile device

If you were a top-20 B-school adcom, would you admit me?

What probability to get admitted in the top-20

Prep Toolkit

Top 5 GMAT Debrief Videos

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards