<p>Hey guys,</p>
<p>I have recently joined the forum however I have been following the website for some time now. I find it a tremendously useful website with a ton of helpful people.</p>
<p>The reason I am writing here is I am a bit lost in terms of estimating my chances of gaining admission to top finance PhD programs in the US. I would really appreciate some opinions / insights from the community here.</p>
<p>A little about me:
I am currently working at a top management consulting firm in NYC
- Graduated magna cum laude (overall GPA of 3.68, departmental GPA of 3.78) from Princeton with a major in economics and three minors in finance, applied & computational mathematics and near eastern studies
- Coursework focuses on probability theory and stochastic processes, stochastic calculus, financial mathematics, scientific computing, mathematics of fixed income and commodity markets, mathematical microecon, mathematical econometrics, macroecon, derivatives pricing
- For the compulsory economics thesis, wrote a thesis that focused on stochastic game theory in continuous-time and commodity derivatives pricing and was awarded the best senior thesis in economics prize (Wolf Ballesian Memorial Prize in Economics)
- Research interests include stochastic portfolio optimization theory, asset pricing, insurance markets, deterministic and stochastic differential game theory, probability theory and stochastic processes, economics of uncertainty, dynamic optimization, queueing theory and market microstructure
- Was awarded a summer research grant in economics for research on pricing of CDOs backed by life settlement contracts
- Got admission to Part III of Mathematical Tripos in master of pure mathematics and mathematical statistics at Cambridge University with a scholarship of 8000 pounds but turned it down
- Worked with Yuliy Sannikov for both my junior thesis and senior thesis and can get very strong recommendation from him.
- Produced two research papers - one published in Michigan Journal of Business and the other in UCLA Undergraduate Journal of Economics and currently working on a third paper which I am hoping to publish in a peer-reviewed journal
- Referee for Journal of Risk and Insurance
- In high school, first place winner in physics at the national science project competition and holder of jury special prize in physics at the European Union Contest for Young Scientists and a visiting scientist at Institute Laue-Langevin and European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble, France, as a prize-winner</p>
<p>Now, after debating whether to apply for graduate school straight after undergraduate or to experience the private sector and choosing the private sector path, I realized that I really miss and love research and learning. I am thinking of applying to HBS PhD in Business Economics, NYU Stern PhD in Finance, MIT Sloan PhD in Finance, Cornell PhD in Finance, Columbia Business School Phd in Economics and Finance, Chicago Booth PhD in Finance, Princeton PhD in Economics and then Bendheim Center for Finance.</p>
<p>I have not yet taken the GMAT but I will try my best there.</p>
<p>Can you guys provide me with some insights / opinions on the strength of my profile for the above-mentioned programs? I would be extremely appreciative of any thoughts / comments - particularly regarding the extremely tough competition for PhD programs at top US institutions, my lack of formal mathematics classes in analysis and somewhat low GPA.</p>
<p>Many thanks in advance.</p>