Help wanted for PhD/MBA application

[CrackNeurons]

Any advice is welcome!

 

My background is as follows:

 

Academic: Took both my undergraduate and master from Arizona State U. Double major in finance and accounting during undergraduate with GPA=3.78. Master in accounting with GPA=3.50. I got a GMAT score of 760, top 1 percentile. Passed CFA level I several years ago.

 

Work experience: I'm a CPA of Arizona. Worked in China doing public-traded company’s audit for a year. (I'm a Chinese) And now working in a counsulting firm doing equity research for the TMT industry for about 6 months now (still in Beijing China).

 

My current job of equity research is interesting for me (at least far more interesting than auditing) however:

 

1. I think what I am doing now could be done by AI within the near future, and together with big data, AI could definitely do a better job.

 

2. I do not feel like climbing up the career ladder anymore. To be honest, I don’t want to be a CEO/CFO/…. Nor do fancy cars/beach houses interest me that much. I took two gap years traveling around and observing people around gives me a strong belief that doing what you like is a major source of happiness. I love reading books & papers on economics/psychology/accounting, thus I am thinking about applying for a PhD.

 

QUESTIONS:

 

1. I have basically no research background (no RA experience, no papers published).

    

    With background mentioned above, do I get a chance to apply for business-related PhD? If so, what kind of school could I expect? (top50? Top 100?)

    

2.         Academic recommendation letters would be a problem for me. I’ve left school for a while and since I’m back in China, it’s hard for me to re-connect with former professors. Anybody faced similar situation before? What could I do?

    

3.         I’ve consulted some people and they think I barely have a shot applying for a PhD now. Their suggestion is to an MBA first, build some connections with professors and think about PhD then. Would this be a doable path? If so what level of MBAs could I apply with backgrounds mentioned above?

    

Thank you for your time reading, any advice is appreciated!

 

Fay H

[fuzzylogician]

Hi there, please don't post your questions multiple times. Your other 5 posts have been removed. 

If you want to get useful answers, it will help us to know why you want to pursue further studies of any kind. An MBA and a PhD would set you on very different career paths, and it's not clear that you have considered that or know which one you want. Given the current way you have framed your questions, my best advice would be not to apply for any degree until you actually figure out what it is that you want to do, and then what you need to do to get there. If that goal requires a PhD, then and only then does it make sense to pursue that degree. Liking to read books/papers about random topics is absolutely NOT a good reason to do a PhD in any of them. With this kind of reasoning for applying for a PhD, I would go ahead and agree with your friends that you are unlikely to get accepted. But I doubt that an MBA is what you need to change that. It may be that a second MA or professional courses are a better choice, or that you don't need any further education at all but instead you just need to start applying for whatever position(s) you want to have with your current qualifications and resume. Before you do anything else, you need to decide what you actually want. 

[CrackNeurons]

Thank you so much for your reply! It really makes me think about my reasoning to get more education. I realize my current incentive is: don't know exactly what I want and not satisfied with what I am having, so i want to see where any degree would take me. With is written down, I noticed that it is quite an unjustified reason to apply for graduate-level education. A deliberative career/life planing would be my top priority rather than blindly applying for anything.

Thank you again for your advice. And sorry for the multiple posts, i got panic not receiving any replies. Won't do that again.