interview was today. i am ****ing exhausted, but it went relatively well. i got all the questions right i think except the last one. they made me basically do an approximation and gave me 3 minutes to come up with a "90% confidence interval" for the approximation. i took too long starting and by the time he said 1 minute i just had to frantically come up with something. I was stupid in that i should have made the confidence interval bigger because i wasn't as certain as i sounded. the other questions all went pretty smoothly and i got to sit at a trading desk for an hour talking to traders.

it was an odd format, 3 interviewers and me. started with standard interview questions then went to math questions. the weird part was when i was working on the math problems it seemed like the interviewers weren't really paying attention to me at all and were talking to each other (about some fish at a stud game or something). it was somewhat distracting but maybe that was the point, who knows. they said they'll let me know within a week.

I just graduated with a Finance degree from a State school (Dec 10). I'm currently working now - its a Leadership program job and its not really a finance related job at all. I'm currently applying to more Finance related jobs but I'm barely getting any interviews at all which really sucks. Unfortunately, I played poker all through my college career and have **** for EC's, and work experience.

After analyzing what I want to do with my life, I think I may want to do a PhD in finance and go towards academia. I've talked to one of my professors and he said he would give me a letter of recommendation and I'm fairly sure that another will as well. However, my main problem is that I've barely done any research whatsoever and my academics before have been mediocre (3.5 overall, 3.67 Major .) I'm studying for the GMAT now and obv I'll need like 700+ to even get considered. With all that said, what would be my chances of getting directly into a PhD finance? Is my only option to basically do a masters and try to go to finance then. How do I go about obtaining the research experience that everyone in this thread says is essentially mandatory? It sucks that I made up my mind at such a late stage.

From what I know Finance PhD's are math-intensive on the level of Econ PhD's. That is, it is a technical degree beyond what you would even be exposed to in an MFE.

In other words, take more Math or good luck.

I would consider a Master's in Applied Math or Economics before one in finance to get into a finance PhD for the reason ILM gives.

Didn't get SIG. Guess I'll have to try to make this project work over the summer

Too bad. Don't read much into it, though. These things -- like grad admissions -- can be very random.

GL with summer research.

yeah, I've tried to keep somewhat positive. This coupled with online poker dying and the whole robbery thing makes for the worst week ever

ul man. I got 9 rejections before I was told I was on a waitlist lol. Things tend to work out for people who put the time in. No money in quantitative trading...everyone's a physics phd.

wat

Making tons of money on bad models? (lol jk)

<-----------politics

Just curious what he meant by 'dead'. We have a pretty sound model, and it seems to be very +EV, and we (and other companies who do quantitative trading) are hiring.

How can I figure out if a PhD is right for me? I've never done research so I don't know if that will be appealing to me. I'm only motivated by the end goal (which is the "easy" lifestyle that a tenured professor has) and I'm also semi-motivated by the fact that I want to gain complete understanding of a subject (finance in this case) and I feel like a PhD helps me accomplish that. The problem is that I've always just cruised by in academics without ever really putting in that much effort and thus am not really that good at Math, physics, etc. as I should be. I'm currently re-studying calc, etc. to prepare my fundamental knowledge, however I still feel like I won't be as smart as the other people that will be doing masters/PhD since it generally takes me a while before I get the concept down pat. I read the whole thread and its been mentioned that you'll never get through a PhD program if you're not motivated by what a phd does rather than the phd itself and that's sorta worrying to me b/c I've always been lazy (am trying to change that desperately) and I don't in essence want to waste 2+ years of my life when I'm destined for failure.

More of a joke that all these uber smart ppl are chasing super small edges.

What are you doing right now? I.e. are you in undergrad or done with college? If you're an undergrad, do research on campus ASAP. If there's no relevant research on campus, find an REU.

I don't think the edge is as small as you think, but I also don't know what your background in quantitative finance is.

I read a NYT best seller about it and have an adviser who vehemently defends the EMH...so I effectively know nothing.

As we discussed above Graduate Finance is a COMPLETELY different animal from undergrad Finance.

PhD level Finance is an extremely technical degree that requires very, very good Math skills. Though it's not exactly my area, when I was looking at competitive PhD Econ programs they expected through Linear at a minimum and more practically through Real/Multivariable Analysis either pre-admission or later on. I would expect that Finance is similar though Wyman is a better resource for that.

Also, I don't know what easy lifestyle you think professors have. IF you really enjoy research I'm sure it's wonderful but the process of becoming tenured is very long and very difficult.

I have no idea what math background a finance PhD requires; mine's in math. I know that top econ programs tend to require some real analysis (if you're lacking, some may "invite" you to come the summer before you start for some catch-up). If you want to prepare to look at financial models, the most useful things tend to be probability and statistics. If a student wanted to be prepared to study finance in a mathematical way, I'd recommend that they start by taking undergrad courses in calculus, (ordinary) differential equations, linear algebra, probability, statistics, and real analysis.

That is at least a minor in most departments and may be an algebra course away from a major in some.

No prob, not picking a fight or starting an e-peen contest.

But I'll say that there are definitely edges out there to be had and that markets are definitely not efficient. Where I work, we search for and exploit them with a team of mathematicians, computer scientists, and physicists (from management downward, our company is entirely research driven).

You sort of need to know you REALLY like doing research before going for a PhD. If you don't REALLY like doing research, you're wasting your and everyone's time, and someone's money.

The latter is pretty good motivation; the former is absolute nonsense. An academic life provides flexibility, but is not at all "easy."

It's possible to be sort of lazy in a grad program (if you're remarkably efficient), but not likely. Also, fyp.

Since summer vacation is starting (for me at least) and I am going to be a senior I need to start thinking about the actual process of applying to grad school. One thing I'm worried about is that some of the professors are in departments that require GRE subject tests I definitely won't be able to take.

For example, at some schools what I am interested in falls under math/applied math and the school requires the math GRE. I am an EE major and, while I'm doing a math minor, I definitely don't know the real analysis/algebra/etc. that most math majors know and is required for the test. I'm going to start emailing admissions offices but in general have people seen problems like this before/know how is best to deal with them?

wouldn't be a bad idea to learn some over the summer -- some test prep books might be useful.

Not my field, BUT, I'd have a pretty hard time imagining a department turning down an otherwise good potential student when changing into a related field. (Many of the best evolutionary bio students are physics majors, etc.) In my experience (n=1), the attitude is "if you need some skill set, you can pick it up as you go along."

Also, admissions offices in grad schools tend to be paper-processors. Look for graduate admissions coordinators in the specific department you're looking at, and/or contact specific faculty members for information.

On a note related to this, when is it standard to start contacting admissions coordinators/professors? Is it ever too early or should I get this started ASAP?

Never too early. But don't freak out about it, I didn't even start the app process until November (maybe later, I forget) for the next fall. I think the sooner they're aware of your presence, the easier it is to maintain communications later.