FAQs

If you are someone who loves learning, generating new ideas, and setting your own agenda you may want to seriously consider pursuing a doctoral degree in business. While all academicians can make their mark in a field, those in business have the opportunity to influence both the educational and the corporate sectors. Click here to find out how Academia can help your Work/Life Balance.

Not at all! Many of the Ph.D.’s who have come through The PhD Project, have done so after spending a significant period of time in another career. Doctoral students come in all ages – from recent college graduates to mid-career professionals. Click here to listen about making the switch to academia after an extensive corporate career.

No. The PhD Project is a network of African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans and Native Americans (U.S. citizens or permanent U.S. residents) who are interested in getting more information about business doctoral programs. The network is comprised of current doctoral students, faculty and doctoral program directors who help provide access to information and resources about doctoral studies in the business area.

The PhD Project hosts an annual conference each November (see Why Should I Attend The PhD Project Annual Conference?) for those considering business doctoral studies, as well as 5 discipline-specific conferences each summer for PhD Project Doctoral Student and Faculty Alumni Associations.

Take advantage of the information contained in this website – be inspired by the Member Stories, read about The PhD Project In the News, and apply to attend the annual PhD Project Conference.

The PhD Project Conference is a 3-Day event that takes place annually, each November in Chicago. The conference provides a rare networking and information gathering opportunity for African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans and Native Americans (U.S. Citizens or Permanent U.S. Residents) interested in pursuing a business Ph.D. to become a business school professor.

The conference is invitation only. There is an application, which must be completed and submitted for consideration. All applications are reviewed by heads of doctoral programs. If you are invited, The PhD Project will pay for your round trip airfare (domestic travel only), and your hotel stay (shared room with another conference attendee) for the 2 nights during the conference.

No. An MBA degree is not required for admission to doctoral programs. Only a Bachelor’s degree is required. See Alternative Paths below to a Doctorate to learn about the various approaches to getting your Doctorate.

Yes, the GMAT is required for admission to doctoral programs. For more information visit their website at www.gmat.org.

While the GMAT is still the predominant test used for business program applications, the GRE is becoming increasingly accepted – both in the number of schools that accept it (more than 1100 as of June 2014) and the number of applicants who submit GRE scores for consideration (almost 10% of all applicants for MBA programs in 2013; no data was available for PhD programs).

Though there are many factors that go into determining which test to take, we’ll try here to give you some of the key factors:

• Admission policy: The primary determinant of which test to take will likely be the set of schools you’re applying to. No one should choose which schools to apply to based on the admission tests; instead, you should choose your admission tests based on the requirements of the institutions and programs you plan to apply to. Many schools will accept both the GMAT and GRE; however not all do. Thus, if you’re applying to 6 schools and only 4 of the 6 accept either test but 2 of the 6 will only take the GMAT, it makes more fiscal and logical sense to only take the GMAT.
• Performance: Since the test will play a role in your application you want to ensure that you take the test that makes you look the best. In order to do that you have to familiarize yourself with the format and content of each test, determine how those tests align with your strengths and weaknesses, take a practice test of each test type, and then choose the test you’re likely to score the best on.
• Preparation time: If you’re starting at approximately the same score for each test you should consider which test you’ll be able to prepare for more easily and efficiently. The GRE requires a fairly extensive and diverse vocabulary so if you have a strong vocabulary currently you’ll probably have a better time learning to apply that vocabulary to the test than someone who has a weaker vocabulary and must learn the words before learning to apply them. The GMAT doesn’t specifically test vocabulary words but it does have more complex reasoning in the quant section than the GRE does; thus a strong quant acumen is more necessary if you plan to take the GMAT than if you plan to take the GRE.
• Cost: The GMAT costs $250 per administration and the GRE costs $205 per administration; thus if all your schools will accept both tests the more fiscally sound test to take is the GRE.

Many business programs, including most business programs abroad, accept only the GMAT for application purposes. Recent data indicates that GRE scores for accepted candidates tend to be lower than the GMAT scores of accepted candidates (as determined by the predictive-GMAT scores derived from ETS’s GMAT/GRE comparison tool). It should be noted that no conclusions should be drawn from this data about the likelihood of acceptance based on GMAT vs. GRE scores as a great many factors beyond standardized test scores go into admissions decisions. Lastly, regardless of which test you ultimately decide to use, know that you can prepare for and improve your performance on either. Find the right preparation solutions for you, work diligently on it, and stick to the task until you’ve reached your goal. The bottom line is that you need to achieve your best score to give yourself the best chance of admission to the program of your choice.

For more information about the format and structure of the two tests, check out this comparison tool.

BYU, NYU and Wharton offer programs to help prepare for business doctoral studies. For more information on these programs, visit Doctoral Resources

Applications for most doctoral programs are due in January, and offers of admission are usually announced in March.

Visit www.statementofpurpose.com for information and advice on developing a winning SoP.

If you are seriously considering teaching at the university level as a tenure-track professor, you should attend a full-time doctoral program at an AACSB accredited business school (see Participating Universities.) Although, part-time and on-line programs are available, students of these programs are not eligible for membership in The PhD Project Doctoral Students Association.

Unlike undergraduate and graduate schools, most business doctoral programs waive tuition and fees. In addition, almost all doctoral granting institutions offer compensated research and or teaching assistantships. Although The PhD Project does not offer any funding to doctoral students, additional sources of funding can be obtained from private foundations and government agencies.

First-year compensation varies widely by discipline and hiring institution and can range from just below $150,000 to well over $200,000 for a 9-month salary, with the opportunity for substantial additional compensation for summer research and teaching assignments.

Once accepted into a full-time, accredited business doctoral program, students who meet the eligibility requirements are invited to join The PhD Project Minority Doctoral Students Associations (DSAs). These associations were created in 1994 by The PhD Project to sustain a high level of commitment and a sense of connection among minority business doctoral students. There are now five minority doctoral students associations covering all the major areas of business education: Accounting, Finance, Information Systems, Management and Marketing.

On average, doctoral programs in business take four to six years to complete.

Most schools do not required educational training or work experience in business prior to applying to a business doctoral program.  The educational backgrounds of business doctoral students vary and include:

• Computer Science
• Economics
• Engineering
• Humanities
• Mathematics
• Natural Sciences
• Operations
• Psychology
• Sociology

Business doctoral programs prepare individuals for careers as professors. Usually, an MBA is sufficient preparation for individuals planning to pursue a career in industry.

Read about the different doctor of business administration degrees and learn which one is right for you.

Doctor of Philosophy in Business (PhD)

PhD programs in business focus intensively on preparing candidates to conduct highly specialized scholarly research. They focus on the development of new theory in management, economics, and related fields. Most PhD graduates lead careers as university researchers and professors or as senior researchers in business or government.

Doctor of Business Administration (DBA)

Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) programs focus on the application of theory rather than on the development of new theory. While also intended to prepare graduates for academic careers, the Doctor of Business Administration, by virtue of its focus on application of theory, has more practical application in managerial settings than the PhD.

Similarities Between PhD and DBA

The DBA and PhD degrees are very similar in other respects. The DBA and PhD are “academically equivalent.” Both entail rigorous courses of study with a heavy emphasis on research. Students must write and defend a doctoral dissertation, in addition to taking a comprehensive exam.

The DBA and PhD are generally designed to prepare students for academic careers, either in teaching or research or both. There is no hard and fast rule about which degree you need in order to be hired by a university, but there are some basic trends:

• In some parts of the country, schools are now requiring that faculty members entering tenure track positions hold a terminal degree (i.e.: a doctorate) in business. A DBA or PhD satisfies this requirement, while a doctorate in education (EdD) does not.
• Accreditation matters. AACSB-accredited schools generally-though not universally-hire individuals with doctorates from other AACSB-accredited schools. In those cases where an AACSB-accredited school hires someone with a Doctor of Business Administration from a regionally-accredited institution, the quality of the research the individual has published is often the deciding factor.

http://www.allbusinessschools.com/faqs/dba-phd