My First Month in the US

So, I have been in the US for a month now. And what a month. Most of the things were expected, but it sure wasn't in my plans to face something like the hurricane Harvey in my first month here. I got lucky, the apartment I'm living has not been affected by the storms, no flood or problems with water and energy supply for example. But the same cannot be said about the city of Houston. Let's see how things are at the University of Houston when classes resume on Tuesday.

So many things happened, so many details to take care of. Hard to remember everything, but I'll try to write about several of them, in no particular order.

The apartment. I'm really happy with the apartment where I'm living. It's a big apartment, much more than I expected or need. It's in pretty good conditions. There is a supermarket two blocks from here and there is a light rail station even closer than that. I take the train and two stations later I'm already at UH. Very convenient.

Shopping. Starting a new life, needed to buy a lot of new things. I didn't bring much from Brazil. Almost everything I purchased for my new life here was from Amazon.com. I've been an Amazon customer for about two decades, but surely I'd never ordered so many things. And Amazon is still a favorite of mine, in several regards, like price, delivery, amount and quality of information provided, range of products. For students, there is even Amazon Prime for free during 6 months and 50% off after that. Highly recommended. The other Marketing PhD student starting at UH had problems with Ikea's delivery. I wasn't able to access the US website of Walmart while I was in Brazil, just the Brazilian one, making it hard to use Walmart to plan in advance. BestBuy seems like a good place to check for prices too. I bought some basic and cheap furniture, but they all seem good enough. Electronics are amazingly cheap when compared to Brazil, I had to control my impulses and resist the temptation of buying too much stuff.

Bureaucracy. Really, lots, and lots, and lots of paperwork and procedures to follow. I can't really remember everything I did after I arrived here. Procedures to follow about entering the US as a student, to get a social security number, to open a bank account, to enroll in class, to be hired as a teaching assistant, to get student ID, and much, much more. It may not seem like much, but it's overwhelming, specially because it's too much information and things do not work if you do in the wrong order. But I must say the support from UH is amazing. If you're reading this and is about to arrive in the US to start your PhD, give priority to this stuff. If you take too long to do something, that thing may delay another, which will delay another, and so on. And then you may miss some important deadline.

Math bootcamp. Before starting the actual PhD classes, I had the opportunity of attending two week of intensive classes about Mathematics. Nice way to start with a feeling that this is going to be hard. All right, I had studied things like matrices, vectors, and derivatives, but that was a very long time ago. And never at such depth, and such speed. Most of the things I was not able to grasp at all. But it was a very nice opportunity to know other students who are starting a PhD at Bauer, in Finance, Accounting, Management etc. Very nice people, all of them.

Communication. Expect some trouble if you're coming from another country. I was not able to make the first SIM card I got to work with my Brazilian smartphone, even if it's unlocked. Then I went to a place to try to get another card from a different company, and I was told I'd have to buy a new phone. I was in the end able to find a SIM card which works for me, but it wasn't as easy as I had expected. Internet accounts are also a problem. Things like Gmail and Facebook presented several hurdles to overcome, since I was logging into my accounts from a new pc, in a new country, things like that. Facebook, for example, showed me pictures of my friends saying I should identity them to prove I'm really me. I came to the US still with my old Brazilian cell phone plan active, but if I had not done that I think I would not be able to access some of my accounts. To keep in contact with people in Brazil, I use Facebook for general news, WhatsApp for more private conversations, and Skype for video calls.

Finance. I came to the US with a Brazilian credit card. It works for many occasions, but there are many situations where it's no good. In several cases, when I'm filling an online form, there isn't even the possibility of informing a billing address that is not in the US, and then the card doesn't work. There are physical stores where my card was not accepted, and I don't know the reason at all. So, better be prepared with enough cash. Took me a while to open a bank account too. I first went to the credit union with a branch at UH, but I was told I would only be able to open an account with a Social Security number, something that would take still several weeks by then to get one. Different places have different rules, so I went downtown and I was able to open an account at Bank of America.

Coursework. One of the first things I wanted to do after arriving in Houston was to meet the professor to define a coursework. This semester, I'm taking Marketing Management and Strategy, and Multivariate Methods in Marketing at Bauer, as well as Quantitative Economic Analysis at the Economics department of another UH school. I still don't have much to say about the courses, since hurricane Harvey suspended operations at UH for over a week. But Quantitative Economic Analysis is basically Math, in a very abstract way and very focused on Mathematical proofs. It's going to be a very hard one for me. Multivariate Methods in Marketing seems to be a lot of fun. Still hard, of course, but the professor is very good, with lively classes, the classes are more focused on practical stuff instead of abstract Math. Marketing Management and Strategy has not started yet, but I'm very excited since it's with one of the professors who interviewed me and the subject is very closely related to my research interests.

PhD Students. Unfortunately, the Marketing department had to cancel the lunch it had scheduled to meet faculty and students. So, I don't know much about them yet. I know the one student from Singapore who has also been accepted for Fall 2017 (but for CB), and the students I share a room with (from India, Iran, and South Korea). All of them very friendly and supportive.

Some numbers about Bauer doctoral program. The program has now 79 tenure track faculty for a total of 72 PhD students (12 students in the Marketing Department). Among the 17 students incoming this Fall, we have 47% female, 71% international, 82% with a graduate degree, with an average GMAT of 706.

How About the GRE and the IELTS?

In previous posts, I wrote you could take the GRE instead of the GMAT, and the IELTS instead of the TOEFL.

Well, I did actually take all those tests: GMAT, GRE, TOEFL, IELTS. But I spent much more time with the GMAT than with the GRE, and also with the TOEFL instead of the IELTS. So, I don't feel prepared to write much about the GRE and the IELTS. But there are a few things I would like to point out.

I regret not paying enough attention to the GRE. For business schools, the GMAT is more traditional and more widely accepted, so it seemed logical to me to focus on the GMAT. But the number of business schools accepting the GRE for their PhD programs is really big nowadays. Your preparation for the GMAT will be useful for the GRE too, with few adjustments. They are different, but they test almost the same things.

I recommend you take both the GMAT and the GRE, and then see which one is your best score to include in your application. You can send them both, if you wish.

But the main reason I recommend taking the GRE is the percentiles in score. Just like the GMAT, you get not only the score, but a percentile which shows the percentage of test takers who score below you. And the percentile for the Quantitative section of the GMAT has changed too much in the last years. Now, the only way to get a Quant score above 90% in the GMAT is if you get a perfect score of 51. However, according to the 2016-17 GRE Guide, you can be above 90% anything between 166 and 170 in the GRE Quant section. And it just happens that the Quant section of the GRE is considered easier by many people than the corresponding section of the GMAT. So, with less mathematical skill you can get a higher Quant percentile at the GRE. So, it's easier to make your application look stronger in the quant section using the GRE than usingh the GMAT.

Why can you get a higher percentile with less skill with the GRE? I think the answer lies in the difference between the people who take the GRE and the people who take the GMAT. The GMAT is only for business schools. And business schools (MBA mostly) draw a lo of applicants who are extremely strong in Mathematics. Engineers and economists, for example. From countries like China, South Korea, and India, for example. So, it's really hard to get a Quant score better than those people. The GRE, however, is used for graduate programs in general, not only business. People who apply to a PhD in Literature or Arts, for example, take the GRE too. And those applicants are usually not so strong in the Quant section. So, it is easier to get a Quant score better than them.

Ok, that's only valid for the Quantitative Section. Not necessarily the Verbal section. But, I think the Verbal sections of both the GMAT and the GRE are hard for people in general, although the GRE demands a better vocabulary. And, for many business PhD programs, they are more worried about your Quant skill than your Verbal skill.

So, that's what I wanted to write about the GRE.

Now, the IELTS. If you are an international applicant, you should focus on the TOEFL if your interest is doing a PhD in the US. The reason is that it seems all schools accept the TOEFL, but many do not accept the IELTS (which is stronger in Europe). But, if your TOEFL score is not that great, the IELTS may be an alternative for some schools.

As I wrote before, my scores for the listening, reading, and writing sections of the TOEFL were very good. But my score for the speaking section was lower, only 23. And there were schools which demanded at least a score of 25 in each section, So, my total score of 110 was great, but my speaking score was not enough. In those cases, I was able to sent my IELTS score instead of my TOEFL. Because I like the speaking section of the IELTS a lot more than the TOEFL's. In the TOEFL, you talk to a computer recorder using a mike. In the IELTS, you have a real conversation with a real person in front of you. I think it's much better to show if I can talk in English or not.

How to Prepare for the GMAT?

Applicants must find their own ways to prepare for the GMAT, since different applicant has different profiles, with different strengths and weaknesses, as well as different timelines and money to spend. A great place to see a lot of information about the GMAT, including the experience of different applicants of different profiles, is the GMATclub forum.

I can tell what worked for me. I found very early that I needed much more preparation for the quantitative section than for the verbal section. I read a lot of texts in English (books, magazines, comics, websites), and have been doing that for decades now. I think that prepared me for a lot of verbal questions. So, I spent much more time with preparation for the quantitative section.

In order to prepare for the quantitative section, I strongly suggest you the Manhattan GMAT books. They may be expensive, but they are really great. They helped me to recover my mathematics skills, know about GMAT questions, and develop a strong foundation.

The Official Guide for GMAT is another essential book to prepare for the GMAT. But, to use it alone is not the best way, in my opinion. GMAT Prep Now is a free GMAT preparation course, which use the Official Guide. So, with GMAT Prep Now you will be able to study the Official Guide in a much more organized way, helping you to evaluate your performance, and it will also add several tips and strategies which are not included in the official guide. The Official Guide is actually very lacking in test taking strategies, its value is due to the quality of questions.

The Official Guide is not only lacking in strategies. It also does not provide many questions at the higher level of difficulty. Since you want to get a high score, knowing how to solve questions at the level found at the official guide is not enough. You will need harder questions. And the source of harder questions I found is again the GMATclub, with its question bank.

Following that path, I was able to go from Mathematics revision, to a general preparation for the GMAT, and then end with hardcore questions focusing on my those points which were still weak after months of preparation. I was able to improve from a total score of 600 (my first mock test when I barely knew about the GMAT) to 750 (my last official score, used in my applications).

The GMAT in Application for PhD in Business

Taking standardized tests is part of the process to apply to Business PhD programs. In order to show your academic prowess compared to other applicants, you can take the GMAT or the GRE. Many schools accept either the GMAT or the GRE, some prefer one over the other, and some accept only one of them.

This time I will write about the GMAT. There is really a lot to know about the GMAT, one could do a whole blog just about the GMAT. But, in short, the GMAT is a test to evaluate your quantitative and verbal skills. It is very important in the PhD application, since your GMAT score is one of the first things admissions committee look at when evaluating your profile. A low score may show them that you are probably a waste of their time, while a high score may show them they should take a better look at you.

It is also very important because you will probably need to devote a lot of time preparing for the GMAT, even if you are academically very strong. People say that the GMAT tests how good you are at taking the GMAT. So, you may be great at math and still do poorly in the quantitative section of the GMAT if you don't know how to face the test. At surface, the GMAT tests mostly your mathematical and English language skills. But it is much more than that. It tests your ability to make decisions, to identify your strengths and weaknesses, to manage your time, to deal with pressure, to build up your mental resilience. Lots of applicants are great in Math, but get low scores due to bad time management or panic attacks during the test, for example.

For me, preparation for the GMAT took about 1 year, since I had to revise mathematics which I had not studied for more than two decades. And one of obstacles I had to overcome was to learn to give up on a question which I knew how to solve, but not in the short time demanded by the GMAT.

The whole test will take about 4 hours, And you gotta be able to keep your mind sharp during the whole 4 hours. If you lose focus midway, you may doom your score. A mistake people make is studying for the GMAT only in short bursts, like 1 hour a day. You should include long sessions in your preparation, because you gotta be able to solve extremely hard questions after several hours of mental work.

The most important sections of the GMAT are the Quantitative and Verbal Sections, each with scores ranging between 6 and 51. The scores of both sections will be combined in some strange way, resulting in a "total" score between 200 and 800. For Business PhD programs, your quantitative skill is usually very important. Specially in for programs like PhD in Finance and Accounting, your quantitative should be close to a perfect. But even for other fields, like Marketing, your quantitative score should be very close to perfection. Scores for the verbal section are lower, it's almost impossible to get a perfect score of 51 in verbal.

The quantitative section has 41 questions to be solved in 75 minutes. The verbal section has 37 questions to be solved also in 75 minutes. Both sections are CAT (Computer Adaptive Tests). That means that if you get a question right, the computer will adjust the test to give you a harder question. And if you get a question wrong, the computer will give an easier questions. It is not that simple, but it's something along those lines.

If you are planning to apply to PhD, you are aiming a great score. So, you should expect to get a medium question first, then a more difficult, then another even more difficult, and so on. If you keep doing good, by the 20th question in a section you will start to see very hard questions. To get a great score, you must expect to face increasingly harder questions which will test your limits, even if you are a genius.

I found the verbal section easier to deal with, even being a non-native. The verbal section has reading comprehension, critical reasoning, and sentence correction questions. So, no great surprises in there. You probably saw those kind of questions before. It does not mean they are easy (reading questions include very complex and boring texts to be analyzed, for example), but they are typical questions.

The quantitative section, on the other hand, tests knowledge you possess in unexpected ways. You may get angry with yourself when you get wrong a question about something you thought you mastered. Special attention must be given to a kind of question called Data Sufficiency, where you must answer if the question has enough information to be solved. So, you're not being asked to really solve the question, only if the question can be solved or not. You must often hold back that urge to really solve the question, because doing that will take precious time. As far as I know, GMAT is the only test which uses Data Sufficiency questions. I had to take a time specifically to learn how to deal with those questions effectively.

There will also be an integrated reasoning section and a writing section, whose scores will not count towards that "total" score I mentioned above. Even if they are considered by many as less importantt than the quantitative, verbal, and total scores, you must not negllect them. Bad scores will taint an otherwise great application.

You get the scores, but also percentiles for each score. So, schools what your score means, when compared to other people who took the test. My total score was 750 / 98% for example. That means that my score of 750 was better than 98% of the people who took the test recently.