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02 Jul 2016, 11:49
Kudos
Bookmarks
Hi!
I intend to apply for Marketing PhD programs in the US and I hope people here can help me with some doubts I have.
First, a little about me.
I'm a Brazilian male, 43 years old, trying to apply to top schools.
My GRE scores are 165 Verbal / 161 Quant / 4 Analytical Writing. I seem to be better at GRE than GMAT.
I've not taken the TOEFL yet, but my IELTS overall score is 8.0.
I got a bachelor's in business administration from a university which is considered the best one in Latin America, with a GPA equivalent to 3.0 approximately. I also completed an MBA and a MS (in business), with GPA of about 3.8 in each one.
I worked for about 20 years as analyst/supervisor/manager at several services companies in Brazil, from small ones to big ones. And then, about 5 years ago, I changed my career and started to teach. I'm currently teaching business classes at an important school in Brazil.
My experience and academic background are more strongly related to Finance than Marketing, but some of the main challanges I had when working with Finance was to measure Marketing results and to allocate resources to Marketing in a corporate budget. How do I know if Marketing investments are getting adequate returns? How do I decide the amount of money I should provide for each Marketing activity? Those are the kind of questions I had when working for Financial and Marketing departments at a few companies and which directed my research when doing my masters. Concepts like customer profitability, customer lifetime value and customer equity are of great interest to me. So I want to apply for a Marketing PhD in the US, as I believe that's the best way to study and research about those subjects.
So, here I my main concerns:
1 - Should I retake the GRE? The verbal score is excellent, at 95%. But the Quant is at 79%, which is much less than the 90% typical score expected for top PhD programs. I studied a lot for the GRE and I'm not sure if it is worth investing more time and money to maybe improve my score by a couple of points, or if I my GRE score is good enough so that I should start concentrating in other aspects of my application.
2 - My undergrad GPA of 3.0 is considered low for a PhD program. However, it is from the best university in my country, from an extremely demanding school where it would be virtually impossible to get an overall GPA score as high as 3.7, for example. I'm planning to explain that in my Statement of Purpose. Am I right if I do that?
3 - It has been very difficult to decide which schools should I apply to. I know a good fit is extremely important. But several schools do not state very much about the research subjects they are most interested in. And among those who do inform about their research priorites, almost all of them include measuring marketing results in a way or another. I also tried to research about schools' faculty, but that is also a lot of work. So, I'm now with a list of almost 30 schools with Marketing PhD programs in US, and hundreds of names of faculty members. This is really overwhelming. And I do not have money to pay the application fee to 30 schools. So, any help to narrow the list down is very welcome at this stage.
Thanks to all in advance.
I intend to apply for Marketing PhD programs in the US and I hope people here can help me with some doubts I have.
First, a little about me.
I'm a Brazilian male, 43 years old, trying to apply to top schools.
My GRE scores are 165 Verbal / 161 Quant / 4 Analytical Writing. I seem to be better at GRE than GMAT.
I've not taken the TOEFL yet, but my IELTS overall score is 8.0.
I got a bachelor's in business administration from a university which is considered the best one in Latin America, with a GPA equivalent to 3.0 approximately. I also completed an MBA and a MS (in business), with GPA of about 3.8 in each one.
I worked for about 20 years as analyst/supervisor/manager at several services companies in Brazil, from small ones to big ones. And then, about 5 years ago, I changed my career and started to teach. I'm currently teaching business classes at an important school in Brazil.
My experience and academic background are more strongly related to Finance than Marketing, but some of the main challanges I had when working with Finance was to measure Marketing results and to allocate resources to Marketing in a corporate budget. How do I know if Marketing investments are getting adequate returns? How do I decide the amount of money I should provide for each Marketing activity? Those are the kind of questions I had when working for Financial and Marketing departments at a few companies and which directed my research when doing my masters. Concepts like customer profitability, customer lifetime value and customer equity are of great interest to me. So I want to apply for a Marketing PhD in the US, as I believe that's the best way to study and research about those subjects.
So, here I my main concerns:
1 - Should I retake the GRE? The verbal score is excellent, at 95%. But the Quant is at 79%, which is much less than the 90% typical score expected for top PhD programs. I studied a lot for the GRE and I'm not sure if it is worth investing more time and money to maybe improve my score by a couple of points, or if I my GRE score is good enough so that I should start concentrating in other aspects of my application.
2 - My undergrad GPA of 3.0 is considered low for a PhD program. However, it is from the best university in my country, from an extremely demanding school where it would be virtually impossible to get an overall GPA score as high as 3.7, for example. I'm planning to explain that in my Statement of Purpose. Am I right if I do that?
3 - It has been very difficult to decide which schools should I apply to. I know a good fit is extremely important. But several schools do not state very much about the research subjects they are most interested in. And among those who do inform about their research priorites, almost all of them include measuring marketing results in a way or another. I also tried to research about schools' faculty, but that is also a lot of work. So, I'm now with a list of almost 30 schools with Marketing PhD programs in US, and hundreds of names of faculty members. This is really overwhelming. And I do not have money to pay the application fee to 30 schools. So, any help to narrow the list down is very welcome at this stage.
Thanks to all in advance.
04 Jul 2016, 08:20
Kudos
Bookmarks
BrazilianPhD
Hello there!
Very good to hear from you!
Soooo, first of all, before we get into all of your questions, let me ask: why do you want to get a Phd in marketing? What are your goals?
Additionally, since this will eventually help with your application: What research have you conducted? Have you ever taught? Do you have any publications?
On to your questions:
1. You should take the GRE if you think you can do better. A higher GRE score will ALWAYS help. It shouldn't come at the expense of other things though.
2. Yes! You should of course explain all that. It will help
3. The answer is: you need to do that research. There is no way around it. There are two or three very important things when researching a PhD program:
1. Where do the graduates of the above program end up teaching?
2. What the ranking/prestige of the Marketing program is.
3. That there is someone on the faculty who can support your thesis
So you HAVE to find out about the professors and departments in all the schools. This is actually something you will be expected more or less to know. I mean imagine this is a market study - you wouldn't do one without first consulting all the information out there that is necessary. So it is a lot of work, but do get it done. Additionally if you do find people who are interested int he same fields as you, it makes it sooooo much easier to build a personal rapport with them.
On a final note, I would HIGHLY recommend visiting the departments. PhD programs are very small, and if you visit and make meetings with professors and administrators, they WILL remember.
So do that if you can.
Best,
Jon
05 Jul 2016, 18:20
Kudos
Bookmarks
Thanks for your reply!
About my reasons and goals:
1 - I'm very interested in understanding the relationships between Marketing and Finance; this subject is like a passion of mine, something that sparked during my experience with Marketing Planning. There are not many books about the subject and almost all of them too vague, not deep enough. That kind of thing has been considered a priority for the American Marketing Association for years, there are several very interesting academic papers about it, but there is also a lot of work to be done, as several theoretical gaps still persist. So, in order to really learn about the Marketing-Finance relationships, I believe I must go to the higher level of academic research. Then, going for a PhD seems like the narutal path for me to follow.
2 - I already left my executive career behind me, choosing the academic world instead. I already teach business at a school in Brazil, but I do not want to be only a professor, I want to focus on research. And I sure feels like my Masters has not been enough for that, I don't feel prepared enough to conduct high level research. Again, PhD seems the right choice.
3 - On a more personal level, I want to continue to show people in my country that education and knowledge are important, and a viable choice for a career. I live in a country, Brazil, where education is often not considered a worthy investment. Education is not a priority for the government, for the people, for the companies. I believe that's one of the main reasons Brazil is always struggling with so many hardships; a country can't really evolve without strong education and research. I don't know if it sounds too arrogant, but I want to be an inspiration, someone who helps to bring changes in my country for a better future. I have already done some of that, but a PhD in the US can help me do it in a grander scale.
Of course there are a lot of more information about those goals. I don't know if I can send you my Statement of Purpose when I get to write it.
About reseach and publications:
I just finished my Masters, so I have not a long experience with research. My main research was my dissertation, when I used a stepwise discriminant analysis to investigate whether results from complaint handling cases had an impact on the profitability of companies. My dissertation was approved in January/16. Then, I wrote a paper based on my dissertation, which has been selected to be presented and published at a very important academic conference to be held in Brazil in September. Apart from that, I also have started a project to do a bibliometric analysis of the main marketing journals together with a professor from my Masters course, and I'm involved in some experiments my school is doing with the use of alternative methods of teaching, like Problem-Based Learning.
About the GRE:
Thanks for the reply. I will take the TOEFL first, and then I will resume studying for the GRE and try it again.
About researching PhD programs:
Yeah, I thought there would be no way around it. I have to do some research about the PhD programs and faculty. I have already started to do it, your reply helped to assure me i'm on the right path. It seems that I'll end up with a list of about 25 schools, all of them with professors who have published papers related to my subjects of interest (customer profitability, customer lifetime value etc).
Unfortunately, I'm in no condition to travel to the US. I'll probably exhaust my financial reserves with this process of applying to PhD programs. Just the cost of doing the GRE is almost the value of a monthly minimum wage here in Brazil, really expensive.
I'm really grateful for your opinions, it's a real fight I'm in and it's good to know we have an ally here. Thanks a lot.
About my reasons and goals:
1 - I'm very interested in understanding the relationships between Marketing and Finance; this subject is like a passion of mine, something that sparked during my experience with Marketing Planning. There are not many books about the subject and almost all of them too vague, not deep enough. That kind of thing has been considered a priority for the American Marketing Association for years, there are several very interesting academic papers about it, but there is also a lot of work to be done, as several theoretical gaps still persist. So, in order to really learn about the Marketing-Finance relationships, I believe I must go to the higher level of academic research. Then, going for a PhD seems like the narutal path for me to follow.
2 - I already left my executive career behind me, choosing the academic world instead. I already teach business at a school in Brazil, but I do not want to be only a professor, I want to focus on research. And I sure feels like my Masters has not been enough for that, I don't feel prepared enough to conduct high level research. Again, PhD seems the right choice.
3 - On a more personal level, I want to continue to show people in my country that education and knowledge are important, and a viable choice for a career. I live in a country, Brazil, where education is often not considered a worthy investment. Education is not a priority for the government, for the people, for the companies. I believe that's one of the main reasons Brazil is always struggling with so many hardships; a country can't really evolve without strong education and research. I don't know if it sounds too arrogant, but I want to be an inspiration, someone who helps to bring changes in my country for a better future. I have already done some of that, but a PhD in the US can help me do it in a grander scale.
Of course there are a lot of more information about those goals. I don't know if I can send you my Statement of Purpose when I get to write it.
About reseach and publications:
I just finished my Masters, so I have not a long experience with research. My main research was my dissertation, when I used a stepwise discriminant analysis to investigate whether results from complaint handling cases had an impact on the profitability of companies. My dissertation was approved in January/16. Then, I wrote a paper based on my dissertation, which has been selected to be presented and published at a very important academic conference to be held in Brazil in September. Apart from that, I also have started a project to do a bibliometric analysis of the main marketing journals together with a professor from my Masters course, and I'm involved in some experiments my school is doing with the use of alternative methods of teaching, like Problem-Based Learning.
About the GRE:
Thanks for the reply. I will take the TOEFL first, and then I will resume studying for the GRE and try it again.
About researching PhD programs:
Yeah, I thought there would be no way around it. I have to do some research about the PhD programs and faculty. I have already started to do it, your reply helped to assure me i'm on the right path. It seems that I'll end up with a list of about 25 schools, all of them with professors who have published papers related to my subjects of interest (customer profitability, customer lifetime value etc).
Unfortunately, I'm in no condition to travel to the US. I'll probably exhaust my financial reserves with this process of applying to PhD programs. Just the cost of doing the GRE is almost the value of a monthly minimum wage here in Brazil, really expensive.
I'm really grateful for your opinions, it's a real fight I'm in and it's good to know we have an ally here. Thanks a lot.
