Hi my old folks and fresh talents, Thank you very much for your warm and encouraging words. I try to answer the questions posted early in an aggregate manner and hope it helps to you. 1) For Valarie: I am in the Ph D program. Very nice to hear that you have not only made your decision but also taken the action! Good luck to you! 2) For Thinkpad: Congratulations to your admission! You asked about the campus visit and contacting professors. I think that is pretty important step if it is feasible. A solid background and an excellent application package are always the core of Ph D application. However, there are approximately 100-200 applications on average for a major in a school. Probably no one has paid any attention to your application even if you are super. So first, your scores have to be high - otherwise, you will be out at the 1st round when some assistant was filtering. Someone says that the scores are not important - this is not true! Without high scores, you do not have the ticket to the beauty contest hall. Second, if you get the attention of some professors, the probability of your application is to be read or ready carefully is getting greater. Some professors who are teaching or taught you can be the bridge. With their permission, you can use their names to contact the professors in the school you are applying to. Remember, only use the relevant one name but more so that you do not confuse others. When contacting professor, it is not necessary to discuss about academic question because you are miss-leading and soon it cannot continue anymore if you do so. I would suggest you to say that you are interested in the Ph D program and find his/her research topics are of your interest and ask whether he/she takes students this year. Mentioning that Prof. xxx suggested me to contact you will generate reply at least. When you have more mutual interests, the natural communications follow. For Jillxiong: I am married and happily live since thereafter :-). My experiences in many senses are due to my age. So you are "old" enough, surely you have a lot of experiences if you have not wasted too much of your past. I have seen some young Ph D students, mainly from Qinghua, Fudan, and Shanghai Jiaoda, with strong math ability, in the dapartments that mainly use math methods, for example, operation management. So if you are in China, applying to that major will increase your chance. If you keep trying without success, you will be gradually generating more and more experiences. If you do not forget your goal, one day you will succeed and will live happily since thereafter. (Remember all the same endings for a fairytale.) For miaxis: strategy does not need too math quantitative methods if you are in Corporate Strategy program. However, industry organizations (IO) and Business economics (BE) also deal with strategies from different perspective - one from game theory, and another extended to a broader scope, do need a lot of math. By the way, if you want to be a star professor, you'd better do lot of math. For lyle: If you undergraduate gpa is not good, you'd better go to some master program, for example, in China first because you need do the admission test well only. Then you can have a good gpa with your master program. That is one, maybe the only, way to make up the weakness of your undergraduate gpa if it was really low. For all others wrote to me: Thank you very much for your support and apologize for not replying you quickly or not at all. I am very glad to read that some of you have got the offer and some of you are waiting for or working on. No matter what status quo, we all look forward to the future with our today's hard work! Wish we all the best! |