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Department Head : Vijay Singal

Graduate Program Director : Jin Xu (Associate Professor)

The Department of Finance, Insurance and Business Law offers graduate studies leading to two advanced degrees: the Ph.D. and M.S. in Business (with specialization in Finance).

The M.S. is a 30-hour non-thesis program designed for a limited number of highly qualified students who wish to undertake specialized training in finance. However, students are not always admitted to the M.S. program.

The PhD program requires dissertation on an approved topic in finance and is designed to prepare students for academic careers in research-oriented schools of business. Accordingly, the program's primary focus is on research. Over the first two years in the program students develop their conceptual and empirical tool kits by taking a series of graduate level courses in Economics, Statistics, Econometrics and four semesters of doctoral seminars in Finance. Students are also required to write research papers after their first and second year in the program, in addition to the dissertation. They are also provided the opportunity to teach at least two courses during the program. Thus the program aims to prepare them for the research and teaching missions of their academic career. As a small program with typical enrollment of two or three a year, the students get plenty of personal attention from our department faculty which is nationally recognized for its contribution to research. More information may be found on the Finance webpage at  https://finance.pamplin.vt.edu/graduate.html . 

Minimum GPA: 3.0 Institution code: 5859 Testing Requirements: TOEFL Paper 600.0 Computer 250.0 iBT 80.0 GMAT GRE The M.S. is a 30-hour non-thesis program designed for a limited number of highly qualified students who wish to undertake specialized training in finance. However, students are not always admitted to the M.S. program.

Minimum GPA: 3.0 Institution code: 5859 Testing Requirements: TOEFL Paper 600.0 Computer 250.0 iBT 80.0 GMAT Total : 600.0 GRE Students admitted into the program typically have a master's degree, competitive GMAT scores, strong transcripts and letters of recommendation. Financial aid is provided for four years conditional on satisfactory academic progress. Additionally, the department provides a "Professional Development Fund" to each student to help defray costs of conference travel, journal submission fees, etc. Fifth year funding is available based on a case by case basis. During the first two years students are required to take about 40 hours of course work including nine 3-credit courses in microeconomics, macroeconomics, statistics and econometrics, and four 3-credit doctoral seminars in finance --- two each in Corporate Finance and Investments. Additionally, the students sign up for at least 50 hours of Research and Dissertation credits over the four years, adding up to at least 90 credit hours required to graduate from the doctoral program. In addition to the course work the students are required to successfully present their first and second year research papers to the faculty to better prepare them for their upcoming dissertation. The submission and presentation of the second year paper is one of two key events in the program. The other key event is the dissertation defense.