How about my chance this time

I am studying in PhD program of Electrical engineering in University of Maryland,
College Park
right now. However, I don’t like my current major very much and I am seeking
for the opportunity to transfer to a finance PhD (or PhD in related area). I
know the difficulty to apply such a program, but I still want to try my luck
this year. Since I have a not bad program to stay in, failure of application
will not hurt me badly. Therefore I want to try some high ranking ones.

My basic background is:

*BS: Peking
        University, School of Physics.
GPA 3.80, a journal paper in physics (physical letters A) and a conference paper
in finance, but it was just a trivial one-
        2007 China
conference in finance. Also my undergraduate thesis was about asset pricing but
it’s not published.

*Graduate study: University of Maryland, EE. I have only stayed here
for one semester so I think maybe it’s not long enough. I think I can get A for
all there courses I took this semester.

*Test scores: GRE
620+800+5.0; GMAT 710+5.5. I plan to take TOEFL IBT in January.

*Recommendation: Two
Chinese faculty members who co-advised my undergraduate thesis. One US professor
who taught me partial differential equation this semester.

*Course study: I took some math, economics and finance
courses both in China
and in US: calculus, linear algebra, some complex analysis and partial differential
equation, probability and statistics, macro and micro economics, econometrics, financial
mathematics and derivative securities. Also I took partial differential equation
at graduate level here in Maryland.
I did quite well (more than 90/100) for nearly all of them.

I know maybe it will be better for me to apply after getting
a Master’s degree. However, my current program is quite reluctant to give PhD
students Master (I can only receive it after passing the proposal exam, which
usually takes four years). So most probably I will apply without graduate
degree no matter when I apply. I want to know whether this hurts me badly in
application.

I really appreciate any kind of suggestion.

硕士文凭拿到拿不到呵呵不会有太大影响的

可是我总觉得如果lz没有申到理想的finance的话又被现在的系里老师知道了....

呵呵所以三思后行.

物理背景学金融很赞,找些物理背景的老师好好谈谈

huangming xiongwei之类的

huangming是pku的吧?xiongwei是科大毕业的

你自己把握啦

Thank you for sharing your opinion. I hold my intention to
transfer as a secret in my department so I think there is little possibility that
my advisor can know about it.

By the way, what did you mean by saying “discussing with
professors with physics background”? Do you mean I can walk into their offices
to talk to them? I feel it’s very difficult to make an appointment beforehand
because I tried once and no one replied my email.

是发邮件啦

老师都很忙,不大会见你吧

我觉得lz的背景应该去Try比较Top的School啊， 比如Stanford。

大胆的申请．就是不要让现在的学校的老师对你有意见．大不了，回来读本专业．申请上了就去读，申请不上了，本专业也挺好．大不了，出来找工作．工作几年，然后把该办的事情全部解决掉. (比如, marry, birth, status.....)

再回学校读个MBA什么的，然后再申请．（我就是这么想的．．．．呵呵）

而且你现在申请，直接去找老师好了，自报家门出身，和Professor 多谈几句．

Good Luck

stanley同学的心态很值得学习。