Hi All,
I'm (24) looking to apply to the following schools for 2025 entry for my PhD in Accounting (not in order of preference): Cornell, Harvard, Wharton, NYU, Columbia, MIT, Michigan Ross, Yale, Chicago Booth, Kellogg, Duke, Berkeley Haas, Stanford.
My background:
-BSc in International Management with Finance from Warwick (4.0 GPA). Most quant classes are in finance and econometrics + a lot of accounting classes.
-1 year of experience at Morgan Stanley in Risk Management within Credit Risk in London (worked with financial statements, a lot of credit research, Capital IQ, programming). Also a previous summer internship at J.P. Morgan.
-Going for my MSc in Finance and Accounting at Imperial (Excellence, merit-based scholarship received). Classes will include econometrics, statistics etc.
-CFA Level I passed (92nd percentile)
-No research experience, but planning to reach out to a relatively well-known professor at Imperial to start thinking about the dissertation and be able to put this in my application.
-Relatively good professors for recommendations (publications in journal of finance, journal of financial economics, accounting review, etc but also more average journals). They are good professors but not great.
-Planning to take the GRE in November, I don't expect a 168 in quant but probably can get a 165/166.
What are my chances of admission into one of these schools? Am I aiming too high? Should I substitute the rather quant ones eg Stanford by "safer" choices eg Washington/Illinois? I am not considering anything outside the US. Any other recommendations (eg reaching out to faculty) much appreciated since I'm relatively new to the academic world.
Thanks a lot!!!