<p>
[quote]
Have you heard of econophysics? The application of physics methods to economic problems? Do you think the relative ease of getting an academia position extends to them as well?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, the problem with that strategy is that the field of econophysics is still extremely new, and it is always risky to study a brand new field as academia won't know what to do with you. For example, would you be writing papers for the econ crowd, or the physics crowd, or the computational mathematics crowd? Who exactly is your academic audience? </p>
<p>It's a high risk, high reward strategy. If you can demonstrate your value to academia, then you can be one of the pioneers who breaks open an entirely new field, perhaps with its own specialized academic literature and methodologies. Much groundbreaking research is performed by scholars who can blend multiple disciplines. But of course there is the chance that you won't be able to demonstrate your value because your papers won't be accepted by either the econ crowd or the physics crowd, which means that you will have difficulty in even getting placed and certainly in winning tenure. </p>
<p>
[quote]
Take the GMAT and see your score, it will give you an idea of whether you can get into a good bschool for a PhD and what tier you will be at (above 90th percentile and you are probably okay)
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Uh, well, I don't know about that. The GMAT tells you very little about whether you can get into a business PhD program. Heck, many of them don't even look at the GMAT, instead requiring the GRE (the GMAT is mostly for MBA students). But even if you do get a high GRE/GMAT score, you still know very little about where you can get in.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that the GRE/GMAT score is like 'personal hygiene' in that doing well doesn't really help you, but doing poorly can hurt you tremendously. The only thing the GRE/GMAT can do is hurt you, it can't really help you. Business PhD programs admit people mostly based on research potential, of which standardized tests reveal very little.</p>