Is it hard for Math majors to get into Finance Ph.D Programs

Your major and GPA are strong, but unless you're looking to apply to business school directly from college (I wouldn't recommend this), the work experience you get will be a major factor as well. If you're on this site, I assume you're considering a job on Wall Street. With strong math skills and an interest in the markets (you may need to take some classes, join your finance club, and become a regular consumer of the Wall Street Journal, CNBC, etc) you could be an attractive candidate for a trading position.

You will also probably need to take the GMAT. Many schools require the GMAT, not the GRE.

It's smart to start thinking about business school now. You'll have time to build a compelling story. Take a look at this advice about building a Succesful MBA Application - http://bit.ly/UNlts . Factor this into your plans over the next few years and you should be in good shape.

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So what do you do? -I work for an investment banking firm. Oh okay; you are like my brother, he works for Edward Jones. -No, a college degree is required in my profession

Most students apply to PhD programs in business directly after undergrad. You need to have strong grades, which you do of course, and really strong letters of recommendation from professors the admissions committee will be familiar with... undergrad math is the ideal preparation for finance graduate study.

Work experience is largely irrelevant for PhD programs and may even be looked down upon- less so in the case of finance and more so in a 'pure' field like economics. Your intro classes in a finance PhD will basically consist of Micro (Mas-Colell) and Macro (prob. Stokey-Lucas or Sargent) and then an econometrics sequence (Hayashi, maybe Hamilton) and an optimization/math methods class (prob. Sundaram?). Asset pricing (Cochrane) and intro continuous time (Bjork or Cambell, Lo, MacKinlay) usually are in the 2nd and 3rd semesters...

It is really tough to get into a Finance PhD, along with Operations, probably the lowest admit rates and highest entering qualifications, on the order of 2-4% acceptance rate. To differentiate yourself, it helps to get some research experience with a prof, maybe this summer or early in your senior year (from experience, easier said than done)...

If you want to work in the private sector, a federal reserve research assistant is probably better than the research group of an investment bank (academics tend to look down on research undertaken at banks unless it is someone well-known like Lipton, Bergomi, Carr, Piterbarg, Gatheral, etc...)

You should consider MIT's operations research or Princeton's finance phd program. Both are very quantitative and very interesting.

I agree with formerMD; math is a great major and phD programs care more about the research you've done and the recommendations you get. Getting a masters in finance will really increase your chances of getting into a top program. Your stats are pretty strong as it is, but that one extra qualification will give you an edge. If you do choose an MSF, make sure you choose one of those programs that is geared towards placing in Phd programs.

You're an excellent candidate for a finance PhD. I would make sure you (i) Do a thesis/research, and (ii) Take a programming course to learn C++.

I don't know about hiring into quant programs on Wall St - seems like you'd be a good candidate, but my impression is that a lot of those guys worked in academia for a while doing post-doc.

This may be a dumb question, but what kind of non-academia jobs can you get with a PhD in finance other than hedge fund positions?