Need help with choosing a decent school for PhD in Business Administration. What colleges are the best... and still are located in a "free" state?

Some of the top schools are in Kalifornia... and since Kali won't let me bring my prebans, I won't be going there.

My fiance wants to go to NY for NYU-Stern, but I know that the city of NY sucks for Gun ownership. Still, I am willing to make TEMPORARY reasonable accommodations.

Thanks for your help!

T.D.,
You know the better schools as well as we do and probably better.

Rather than list the Whartons, Harvards, Stanfords, Tufts, etc., let me say I agree with your fiance.
Your profile indicates Indiana as your home state.  I can think of few places better than NYC (maybe London) to further all aspects of your education.  The city has the best entertainment in this country plus Little Italy, China Town, etc.  Great museums and other cultural advantages we just don't have in the heartland.  Additionally, you're close enough to D.C. to make use of its many places of interest.
Certainly furthering your formal education will be your number one priority but there is more to a broad education and NYC has much to offer.

I don't know if you plan to teach  or..............(?) after completing your degree but even if teaching is your goal you'll still probably consult on the side and NYC is the place to informally make those contacts.

(I do believe I remember one of your earlier posts about credit bureau reports........  Nawwww, probably no connection !)

Thank you very much, [b]5subslr5[/b].

My fiance is getting the PhD - afterwards, I can return to college (any) and finish out my nursing degree. She does not want to teach - only make money...lol

I am a "people" person, and she is a "numbers" person.

I just want to be happy - I have seen far too many family & friends leave this world not happy about how they spent their life.

So she asked me to post this question here - because she wants us BOTH to be happy (as do I, of course).

I know that we have a lot of brothers in arms in NY & NYC, and that is a big plus [:)]

Any more thoughts or input is very much appreciated!

Jesse H Jones School of Business @ Rice Univ.  23rd highest rated business school, and you know Texas is gun friendly!!!

If she wants to just make money why in the world would she want a PhD ??

Her under-grad and masters are in what field/s ??

T.D., does she see herself working for Smith Bareny, in bidness for herself, ??
Could she tell us in a couple of sentences why a PhD is necessary for what she wants to accomplish ?

She sees the PhD option for teaching as being good for when she gets a little older, and wants to have a secure job w/o pressure.  
She can always consult on the side.

Her Masters is in Hospitality & Tourism Management - but her concentration is in the financial aspects of this type of business.

FWIW - (background info), she is Taiwanese - soon to be American. Her Grandparents have retired (and are citizens) to the US almost 20 years ago, and live in Las Vegas. (if I ever get to go to the SHOT show, I will have a place to stay - lol). She really supports our RKBA a lot - something that is not an option in her home country.

Respectfully Tyler I say to you both there are no secure jobs besides self-employment and no jobs without pressure.

Now, so far as a Ph.D. is concerned I'm going to stand by my first post.
However, there is a small college in the Boston area by the name of Babson.  I don't believe Babson even offers a PhD program (but I'm far from certain) but they have a world class MBA program for budding entrepreneurs.  When it comes to a fairly practical business education and world class contacts Babson is the sleeper of the country.

I do not want to possibly insult your lady but if she is from Taiwan it is likely she is Chinese and also likely she speaks what we refer to as the Mandarin dialect of Chinese (as well as Formosan and at least one local village dialect).  (I last lived in Taiwan in 1988.)  Chinese women tend to make excellent business people.  With her intellect and assumed language skills she will do well.  China/ Malaysia (Chinese mostly run the business part of Malaysia) are the next 'Japan' so far as international business opportunities.

TD -

If she can get into Wharton, that be my top recommendation.  As you know, its an excellent school and PA is about as gun friendly as they get ("shall issue" CCW, NFA friendly, no restrictions on hi-caps or "assault" weapons).  5subslr5 raises a good point on NYC though - you get to be in the center of it all.  NYC is the place to make the contacts and do the networking she may need later.  

PhD in business? You have to be kidding me, unless you want to be an academic, a PhD is really detrimental to your career prospects. If she wants to do finance (specify which kind), I'm assuming she's going into hospitality finance (did she go to Cornell for under, btw?), then work experience will count far more than a PhD degree. How many years of work experience in this field does she have? How old is she? What schools did she go to for under and grad? I'm sure if she's as good as she sounds from your description (if she's aiming for schools like Stern and Wharton) then she's perfectly good without a PhD.

No insult at all! She was born in Taiwan and does also speak Mandarin Chinese (I am learning). Funny, with just the little I have learned, it has already been helpful and put to use at the Hospital where I work.

I agree with all of you on the position of MBA vs. PhD... but another factor that we have to consider is money - it is a lot easier to for her to get funding for her Phd then to pay the tuition for an MBA (we don't have a lot of money). I think it is also just one of those "lifelong dreams" that she has, and I will support her with whichever road she chooses.

Thanks to all of you who have replied. She has a lot of options open to her, and we both appreciate all of your input and ideas.

I believe NYC is the best choice for her, but we are also considering Texas as well (I want to move closer to DonR, and be the pain-in-the-ass son that he is thankful he never had... heehee)

OK, time for my .02

If you want to:
find one of the finest business colleges in the US,  
Stay gun friendly,
Have business options available to you,
and choose from some of the finest hospitals available...

May I suggest, The Athens of the South.. Nashville.

Vanderbilt University
Gun friendly
no state tax
Hospitals - Vanderbilt, Baptist, St. Thomas, Centennial are the majors,

Do some research on middle TN, the business climate here is good, not New York, but then who would really want to move to NYC? Plus with today's global economy, you don't have to live in NYC to be employed by major players.

Thanks xanadu!

Tyler

i gotta second subslr's comments on the usefulness of the PhD.  i have my masters and the degree isn't worth the paper it's printed on (might have something to do with my field of study though!).

i also second the worthlessness of a PhD for career moves in the "working" world.  employers don't like to have to pay for people's arrogance.  at least what they perceive as arrogance.  employers are going to see that she has a PhD and automatically think A) she wants a lot more money than anyone who doesn't have a PhD, B) fear she'll move on to bigger and better things to satisfy her "i deserve more; i have a PhD" arrogance, and C) would rather pay the big bucks to someone with more experience rather than more education.

PhDs are great for academia and research fields.  useless for all else.  i guess that's why my freshman philosphy teacher pointed it out to us like this:

B.S degree = Bull Shit
M.S. degree = More Shit
Ph.D. degree = Piled higher & Deeper

but if she's dead set on further schooling, why isn't she looking at IU-Bloomington?  as a resident of the state, she won't have to pay non-resident tuition (and believe me, it's about 3-4 times higher than resident).  you already know Indiana is a gun friendly state.  southern indiana is absolutely gorgeous.  and when you decide to settle down here after schooling is all done (doesn't IU have a great nursing program?  [;)]), i'll sell your house for you!  

caveat:  i don't think she's arrogant for wanting the PhD.  but i think a lot of employers will.

oh, yeah, couple more questions:  is she working now?  if so, is it a job/career that is in line with what she wants to pursue in the PhD field?  if so, has she talked to her supervisors to get their opinions on what they would think of a candidate employee with a PhD?  

Tyler you might want to look into the University of Florida. It is a good College and in the gun friendly state of Florida. It has that small town college atmosphere. UF also has a good nursing school my sister graduated from the nursing school. For a small town of about 65,000 it has four hospitals. Since your fiance is going towards the tourism end of business adminitration, Florida is a good place to start a career. It would be a good place start making connections in the tourism market.

I plan on going back to UF to finish my chemistry degree with a minor in German.

edited because I could not resist this, Phd is project hair dew

One of my business partners has a Ph.D. in Business Admin from the University of Texas (Austin I believe) and he's the dept. chair of the school of business management at a local university. The guy has it made, I'll tell you. He teaches maybe 5 classes a week, has tenure up the ying yang, and generally lives a very cushy life.

There are advantages to having such a degree, but maybe not so much working for someone else as forming your own company or working as a consultant.

One advantage he has is laymen consider him an "expert" and that itself is worth something. It impresses some people and he uses that to his advantage.

People at his level are commonly used to form business alliances and partnerships. Because of his credentials, people take him seriously and he has access to the highest corporate executives.

If one doesn't see himself teaching or working to form high-level alliances, there is really no need to have a Ph.D., especially in business. An MBA can be far more useful.

If you're into engineering, computer science, bio chem, etc., then it really can be useful.

A friend of mine just got his masters from the University of Phoenix on line. They might have a phd program too. You can live anywhere you want to that way.

University of Washington (UW) in Seattle, maybe?

The only downside to WA is no Class III.

There are a lot of ways to approach this problem, but one thing I did learn about grad school is that the name of the institution counts for a lot.  U Chicago, MIT, Harvard, followed by other Ivy Leauge schools and Stanford and Berkely are the "gold standard".  Even though schools like Minnesota and Texas have excellent business programs, a degree from Northwestern or Duke might carry more weight with potential employers.  Also check out the programs and make sure that their research interests are similar to hers.  She should identify a couple of professors before she starts who she would be able to work with on research and her dissertation.  Finally--it also matters what sort of package they give her.  Fellowship is best (free money and often times more of it), followed by research assistantship.  Teaching job is worst because while you learn to teach you don't get your own research done.

GunLvr

Hello,
This is Annie, Eric/Tyler's fiance.
Thank all of you for your replies to my current situation. Coming from Taiwan, I think it's great that you are allowed to own firearms here in the United States. When I get a break from all of my studies, I will learn how to shoot properly and safely.

I think this is such a wonderful website because everyone here is accepted for who they are, and because you can learn about almost everything from such nice people [:)]

AnnieH