Hi all,
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I would really appreciate any input on this topic!
What do you think are the key differences and similarities between admissions in a top tier PhD Finance program vs. a top tier PhD Economics program?
Perhaps I can start by making the following observations:
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(1) Clearly, there are close similarities between the core courses between a PhD Finance student and a PhD Economics student. I believe both need to go through the entire micro, macro and metrics sequence.
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(2) PhD Finance programs appear to be more competitive. But I would like to add a slight caveat --- while on absolute numbers basis, it does seem so (i.e. 3 - 5 admits per school). But please do correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems the number of applicants to PhD Finance programs are also smaller than that of Economics.
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An example (I know there are more schools out there but I just picked one as an illustration. Feel free to give further examples or counter-examples!)
Northwestern Kellogg PhD Finance: 8 Admitted; 196 Applied; 4.08% Yield
Northwestern PhD Economics: 18 - 25 Admitted; 600 Applied; 3.00% - 4.17% Yield
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So, it seems that at least for Northwestern, I don't see a significant difference between the yield (admitted / applied ratio) of PhD Finance and PhD Economics programs.
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So, in such cases, do absolute numbers matter more than the ratios?
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(3) Just going through the profiles of PhD Finance and PhD Economics students, I've noticed the following trends (please correct me if I'm wrong):
-There's a higher proportion of Economics students with Masters degrees and/or previous academic experiences (i.e. research assistant, publication, etc) than their Finance counter parts
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-There are many more Math majors going into Economics programs than Finance
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-Very few individuals going into Finance programs had a Finance / Business undergraduate training; but a good number of them have MBA's
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-Most of those who are admitted to Finance programs had some form of industry work experience (typically in investment banks, consulting firms, hedge funds, etc)
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-The strongest observation that I've made is that, it seems there are a plethora of examples of individuals at top tier Finance programs with significant work experience (i.e. 5 years or more) and did not have a math / hard science undergrad / master background. This leads me to wonder --- how many of these admitted individuals have real analysis (which appears to be VERY IMPORTANT in the TM Econ forum), graduate level econ / math / finance courses, and top Finance / Econ professors writing LOR's for them?
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That's the end of my observations.
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Please do share your opinions and thoughts!