<p>After playing around in a state university for two years, my gpa dropped to 3.5. With only one year left on the calender, how should i prepare for the upcoming graduate school admissions?</p>
<p>my profile:
Math + Econ major: finance for graduate school
GRE : 650v + 800q + 3.5AW
GPA: hopefully 3.6-3.7
Full-ride scholarships + quite a few scholarships on campus
two research experience for about a year, yet no paper published
school activities: so so, looking forward to get more involved next year</p>
<p>So guys, how should i spend my next year to increase my possibilities to get into some top 20 universities. Very appreciated for any suggestion!</p>
<p>I don’t know about finance, but econ looks at how many math courses you have taken. If finance is similar, you should take as many advanced math courses as you can.</p>
<p>“School activities” are entirely irrelevant for graduate school admissions, so don’t worry about them. You will not list extracurriculars on your application and you will not be asked about them.</p>
<p>Retake your GRE or consider the GMAT. Your verbal score is too low. We’d not look at anyone falling below the 90th percentile on any facet. </p>
<p>Should be asking the profs you are working with for additional advice. Also not all research experiences are the same. What exactly are you doing for them? It’s unlikely you’d have a publication in a year (at least one that is half decent) but are you an actual coauthor on a working paper? Conference paper even? </p>
<p>No one will care about school activities. But I am a bit worried that you don’t sound like you are getting much advice and direction from those you are working with.</p>
<p>Finance is a parallel of Economics Ph.D. admissions. For finance programs, you should have the general course set of calc, linear algebra, probability/stochastic theory, ODE/PDE, and real analysis. If you can take some courses like topology, functional analysis, modeling, etc.–then even better. Your grades for real analysis is probably going to be the most scrutinized.</p>
<p>What’s your research interest in finance? Unlike economics where people are really just expected to figure out if they want to do micro, macro, or modeling, finance programs typically want people to identify what subtopic they want to get into–i.e., asset pricing, market structure/IO, game theory/choice modeling, etc.</p>
<p>The Q in the GRE is most weighted for finance/econ programs, but the AW is a little worrisome.</p>
<p>Your undergraduate institution will also play a big part. If your school has well-known finance professors, try working with them or at least getting their opinion about where you should go next.</p>