Why a Ph.D. in Marketing at Terry?

The Ph.D. in Business Administration with an area of emphasis in Marketing (Ph.D. in Marketing) is designed to develop qualified scholars who will excel in research and teaching positions at major research universities and colleges across the globe. Within the Department of Marketing, students may specialize in studying the process and impact of marketing strategic and tactical actions on consumer behavior and/or firm level outcomes. Each student works with an advisor and a committee chosen from twelve research active faculty in the marketing department to create an appropriate academic program. As part of their program, students are expected to be actively involved with faculty mentors conducting research leading to professional presentations and publications.

The marketing department has several strengths that make it an attractive program for a Ph.D. student:

• Faculty who conduct rigorous research and publish the findings in the top academic journals and have received numerous research awards
• Faculty who have mentored and placed doctoral students successfully at excellent research universities
• Faculty who are committed to build a nurturing and supportive environment for doctoral students and thus the presence of an energetic peer group of Ph.D. students
• A Ph.D. program designed to develop a deep understanding of the marketing domain and build strong empirical research skills in econometrics, psychometrics and statistics
• A Ph.D. program designed with sufficient flexibility to meet individual student needs
• A university that values and supports graduate education with diverse complementary strengths in economics, psychology, statistics as well as related business fields such as management, finance and accounting
• Located in Athens, a wonderful college town with great food, music, low cost of living and wonderful weather throughout the year
• Near Atlanta, a vibrant cosmopolitan metropolis, only an hour away by car with access to an international airport and cultural options

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What kind of students are we looking for?

Marketing decisions are increasingly driven by the availability of rich, real-time and high volume data on consumers, marketing actions, competitive actions etc. This allows academic researchers to conduct research in such data rich environments. While such data provides the opportunity, researchers need to have the ability to be creative about identifying marketing research problems, think deeply about solutions and have the passion, commitment and persistence to identify interesting and novel hypotheses and test them with strong empirical analysis. Simultaneously, traditional written and spoken communication skills continue to be important requirements as they are critical to disseminate the knowledge created through the research process. Consequently, the department looks for the following traits in Ph.D. students:

• Motivated, excited and intellectually curious about problems and issues
• Disciplined and committed to think deeply about research problems and solutions
• A willingness to learn econometric, psychometric and statistical skills
• Creative problem solvers
• Business experience useful, but not an requirement

Beyond the above attributes, please note that the Marketing Department differs from the general Terry College and Graduate School guidelines in the following manner:

• International students for whom English is a second language must have a 26 or higher TOEFL score in order to teach.
• Possessing a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree from a university in the United States or other country where English is the primary language (e.g., Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, etc.) does not exempt the international student for whom English is a second language from the TOEFL, and, thus he/she must take the TOEFL and include it as part of his/her application.

Prospective applicants can obtain information about the Terry College PhD program, including admission requirements, application deadlines and application materials from the Terry College Ph.D. website.

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Typical Course Sequence

The typical PhD student takes four years to complete all degree requirements:

• Course work: Course work takes approximately two years to complete.
• First summer Paper Presentation at the beginning of the second year (in the fall semester)
• Second summer Paper Presentation at the beginning of the third year (in the fall semester)
• Written preliminary examination: Taken after you have finished all course work on your plan of study, in the summer between your second and third year
• Dissertation: The typical PhD student in the Department of Marketing finishes his or her dissertation between 12 to 24 months of completing the preliminary exam. Dissertation proposal guidelines are available.

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