Ph.D. Program at Simon Business School - EU

Why Pursue a Ph.D. at Simon?

Simon Has Much to Offer

Our students are among the best-trained graduates in their fields. They are highly sought after for academic positions for their strong analytical skills and research performance. From the very beginning of their training, there is an emphasis on the creation of a strong foundation from which new ideas and effective research can grow. The first year consists of a heavy course load in mathematics, economics and statistics. The important skills our students learn from these courses are hard to acquire later if not learned before research training. Further, this allows students in subsequent years to acquire a deeper understanding of the state-of-the-art concepts in their discipline chosen, and to quickly develop strong skills necessary to conduct original research.

Our Training is Complete

We admit a diverse student body from a variety of academic backgrounds, including: finance, mathematics, economics, statistics, engineering, computer science, law, physics, accounting, business administration and management undergraduate and graduate programs. Students possessing strong backgrounds in quantitative and technical fields will have a competitive advantage in our Ph.D. Program, though degrees in these fields are not required. We provide all the necessary training beyond the basic baccalaureate degree.

All of an applicant’s abilities are consided in admittance. We look for students who are analytical, creative and interested in studying business problems and trends. We carefully evaluate each application to find candidates who might prove to be "diamonds in the rough."

Our Placement is Outstanding

Most of our graduates are employed before they defend their dissertations. 91 percent of these placements are in academic positions, with a 58 percent majority of our graduates in top business schools (as ranked in U.S. News & World Report 2006).

20% of our graduates get their first job in a top-10 ranked business school.

Life-Long Benefits

A career in research and academia provides a satisfying life-long career with outstanding intellectual, social and economic benefits. Economic benefits are substantial. Business school professors are the highest paid in academia. According to the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business-International (AACSB), starting salaries for new doctorate assistant professors by concentration are $105,800 in accounting, $91,900 in computers and information systems, $108,800 in finance, $91,800 in marketing, $101,200 in operations/statistics, and $93,300 across the disciplines. These averages apply to all AACSB member school graduates. Graduates from the Simon School earn between 40 and 50 percent above the average since most of our graduates receive positions at business schools with competitive positioning.

The success we have experienced in placing our students stems, in large part, from the importance the Simon School attaches to its Ph.D. Program and the consequent high quality of the training provided in the Program.

The Ph.D. Program is an Integral Part of the Simon School’s Business Strategy

In recent years, due to media rankings of M.B.A. programs, resources devoted to business Ph.D. programs have been shrinking. Both funding and the extent to which the best faculty teach and supervise student theses in Ph.D. programs have been reduced. Given the pressure to improve M.B.A. rankings, deans view Ph.D. programs as cost centers and ask, why should I devote resources to training my future competitors for free? That is not the case at the Simon School. The Ph.D. Program is viewed as a complement to the M.B.A. program in attaining the School’s objectives.

The Training Offered is Both Analytical and Practical.

It seems as if every academic field has become more analytically oriented in the past two decades; the management field is no exception. Our program is designed to equip students with modern quantitative tools and techniques. There exists, however, a danger of becoming preoccupied with technique while losing sight of the problem. At the Simon School, applied problems are not only the most challenging problems, but also are the most rewarding. We convey this philosophy to our doctoral students. Those who select theoretical thesis topics know that, during their dissertation work, they will be asked to discuss the applied aspects of their research.

Students Specialize Without Succumbing to Academic "Tunnel Vision."

To do research at the frontiers of a field, one must first acquire the kind of thorough background that is impossible to obtain in more than a few specific areas. By selecting major and minor fields, students at the Simon School achieve a degree of specialization. At the same time, distribution requirements ensure breadth of training. To obtain balance between depth and breadth, the Simon School has developed an interdisciplinary program. The School is small enough to avoid decentralization of study into departments. Our faculty belong to one or more loosely defined groups (Finance, Operations Management, etc.) but there is considerable overlap in the membership of these groups. Many of them schedule weekly seminars, attended by faculty and students, where new research is presented and discussed. Students also attend thesis proposal seminars given by their colleagues in many different areas. These informal opportunities, which cut across the various academic disciplines, allow students to get a broad understanding in many of the areas taught at the Simon School.

Faculty Members are Accessible to Their Students.

One-to-one contact with faculty members is important in all phases of the educational process, but is particularly vital at the thesis-writing stage. In many Ph.D. programs, relatively few professors with good reputations are available to supervise theses and students compete for the time of those faculty members. This problem does not exist at the Simon School. We maintain a small program intentionally and are proud of it. With fewer Ph.D. students, faculty members are available to devote additional time to each individual.

Simon Offers Generous Financial Aid.

Students admitted to the Simon Ph.D. Program qualify for our full-tuition scholarship and adequent financial support to cover living expenses for up to four years. Financial support, in the form of a no-service-required-fellowship that averages $21,000 per year, is available to students through their fourth year.

Simon is an Internationally-Known Center of Research.

Three prestigious journals are edited at the Simon School. The Journal of Financial Economics (J.F.E.) is widely acknowledged as one of the highest quality finance journals. Various citation studies find the J.F.E. ranks close to the top among all economics journals for the rate at which other papers reference the articles it publishes. The Journal of Accounting & Economics ranks the highest among accounting journals for citation impact. The Journal of Monetary Economics ranks very high among macroeconomics journals, and is near the top among all economics journals for citation impact. These publications give our faculty access to leading research throughout the world as it is being produced, which is an important factor in training doctoral students.

source: http://www.simon.rochester.edu/phd/whySimon.aspx

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