university selection for PhD

Oh okay.
MiM and PhD, that is quite a predicament.
I have no idea of the PhD thing, but I am sure there are people who will help. Try posting in the MBA Admissions consultants forums, they can advice you.

Hi!

Your background looks very good.

What concentration are you aiming for?

Preferred Country/Programs?

Research interests and experience?

Letter of recommendation?

If you add the aforesaid details then members here will be in a better position to help you.

All the best!

Hi Manish,

I am looking for PhD. in management/strategy.
Preferred locations are US/UK/Canada and France
Research interests are market entry and entrepreneurship
I do not have any formal research experience as of now.

GMAT : 740
Undergrads : BITS Pilani, Bachelor of Engineering in Computer Science(top 10 engineering universities in India)
Masters : ESSEC Business School(Top 3 masters schools in France) with an exchange at Fuqua School of Business(Duke University)

I have talked to a lot of people, seen a lot of discussions during my PhD journey so far. I'm not a believer of concepts like "safe universities" for PhD applications.

Unless you have really strong connections to someone in a department who makes that kind of decision (and that's rare), I think you should always think them as risky. There are too many cases of people getting rejected from "safe schools" but being accepted by "non-safe schools."

School selection should be based on fit, especially research fit. Which universities have many professors who are really a great fit for you? Without knowing that, it's impossible to make good recommendations of universities to apply.

You need to be clear about what you want to do (specific types of research questions and methods, for example), and then do your research. That's usually hard work, I've seeing people doing incredible amounts of work to make a list, including searching a lot of data and developing their own ranking systems. But applicants are expected to work hard on that. When a professor asks "why did you apply to this school?" you should have an amazing, specific and objective answer. You should be able to talk at length about how you and the university fit well together.

Well said BrazilianPhD ........ I completely agree to what you said. Once you know your research interests and then you map them to specific programs in which similar research is happening then the entire application journey becomes very easy.

As I said your background is good. You need to read research papers in market entry and entrepreneurship and identify places where the research you are interested in is happening.

All the best!

Thanks for the help everyone!
I have accepted an offer from INSEAD.

Good luck to you!

Congratulations! INSEAD is a great place. All the best for your research journey.