Date: February 22nd, 2018 2:42 AM
Author: charcoal windowlicker
Stats phd but have worked in econometrics and had lots of friends in business school (top school but not highest run like harvard / stanford) so I can tell you what I've seen.
The finance programs are heavily quantitative and highly selective - as in the incoming economics phd cohort had like 20 while the finance program had maybe 3-5. One of my friends in finance had a math phd from a top tier school before doing finance phd. (nothing like this is necessary and it's overkill he just wanted to switch, but it's these kinds of people).
For the finance programs they are extremely competitive - and you have to have very good quant background. Other friend in finance had a math + cs major from top school , a third econ + math from very good school.a
Marketing is split - the quant marketing wants math background but nothing like the finance programs, the other side of marketing is less quantitative.
Accounting they don't require you to have crazy good quant backgrounds like some others - but the more you have the better. The accounting people have it fucking made - really good job market, very high paying tenure track jobs, outside consulting / industry options should you ever wish to leave. All while not demanding the most rigorous requirements.
But keep in mind at our school all these business students were required by the grad biz director to independently pass the Economics qualifiers, as scored by the economics department (the biz people were in many of our stats / econ classes). So even if program didn't technically require tons of math - you have to pass extremely difficult and abstract / quantitative econ quals (not sure if all biz programs do this).
One of my best friends switched from econ to accounting - i have no fuckign clue what his "research" is about or how that would even make sense for accounting. But these are the people that have it fucking made it's ridiculous. Then marketing since similarly your outside options are insanely good as well. Finance is good if you like it but keep in mind the level competition for good programs is absurd.
Overall - yes these profs have it made and probably have one of the best jobs in the world - 200k starting (28 year old dudes starting with this) + summer salary + consulting on side with tenured security (should you make tenure obviously).
But the level of competition into these phd programs is one thing - if you're smart sure you can get into some good program somewhere - but the level of competition for academic tenure track jobs in biz may be better than other STEM academic job markets, but it's still pretty fucking absurd and only a very small proportion of your cohort will get good academic placements - basically you have to be a standout star among your peers for that to happen.
Should you decide to apply - load up on applied statistics courses, and take as many highly advanced applied stats, economics, and mathematics courses as you can handle along with any biz courses you find useful. But please don't fool yourself about your chances of landing a good academic placement / tenure track job - if you're a star go for it though.
edit: if you're not familiar with phd admissions process - in econ / stats (and i assume biz isn't too different) it goes something liek this (as explained to me by numerous profs i'm friends with).
Start with pile of applications, throw out the ones that are too far below a soft cutoff for GRE math scores. Out of this pile - scan through letters of recommendation for names that they know and trust. If there's a big name / very influential person etc. that's liked byu the department, has decent gpa, and is a fit for the field / focus sub-area of study, this person is basically in automatically if they meet those criteria.
The rest of the pile that's still in play, they'll start to exam gpa, courses taken, interests etc. - and weigh these against your letters (letters are most important thing by far), getting a more reduced pile again, then out of those they'll match up with fields of interest and fit etc. Don't take this process description too literally - but something like this happens with phd admissions for quant fields.
Letters of rec by far most important determination - so besides loading up on stats, math, and biz courses - try to get a research job or RA position with as big of name / most influential person at your program as possible (but conditional on them being someone you can talk to and are interested in your success, don't become an RA slave for some big name that is never involved with grad students and has an army of RA slaves). So in your MS program choose this prof wisely, even if you have to offer to RA for free for research experience - show initiative, ask good questions, read relevant literature on your own etc. - and show depth of understanding and creativity and most importantly the ability to produce independent peer-reviewed research. This can be tough b/c you don't publish as an MS or undergrads - but you'll get your chance on an RA project, knock that out of the park and kiss their ass and make sure they like you, and that they have connections to a school (e.g. someone they co-author with, their advisor, etc.) that fit your interests with someone yo uwant to work with. Good luck
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3899773&forum_id=2#35458934)