admission phd economics

[sally82]

My dream has always been to get into grad school for economics, but I’m worried that my GPA may ruin my chances.

I am attending a Dutch university with a good reputation in Europe. Unfortunately, the Dutch grading system is very different from the one at US universities (especially compared to the ivy grading scheme where 40% earn As). We have here a grading system between 0 and 10 with 10 as highest grade, but a 10 is hardly ever given. There are many courses here with over 100 students attending and not a single 10 is given.

That said, my grades are quite good at my school, but dismal compared to the grades that I have seen here and in other forums, like people with 3.95 of 4.
I have an 8.6 of 10. My grades are high enough to allow me to graduate next year with Cum Laude (I guess that about similar to with Great Distinction, Cum Laude is awarded to about the top 5% of the students at my university)

As I’m in a four-year program towards an MSc in economics, I have a very thorough background in economics. I took for example upper level courses in industrial econ, development econ and financial econ that were taught at a near graduate school level (with textbooks intended for US graduate students, and heavy use of formal mathematical proofs).

My math background is quite good, but I never took any course called Calculus III, Real Analysis, ect. I had courses teaching this in my first year but the course titles hardly imply this (and I wonder if any admission committee is going to believe that these first year courses are truly equivalent, what they are because students here learned much more math in secondary/high school and therefore start at a higher level). Additionally math was heavily used in my economics classes in the following years. I also took two statistics, one econometrics, and two game theory classes.

I will take the GRE in October and I expect that I’ll get a quantitative score of about 780. I’m a bit worried about my verbal score, in the practice tests I usually only get about 550. Do you think this will count against me? Or is it ok if I’m not an English native speaker?

What grad schools do you think I should apply to? I’m more interested in microeconomics, especially industrial economics and game theory. I’m considering both US and European universities.

These are some school I think about applying to:
University of Michigan
University of Pennsylvania
LSE
Stockholm School of Economics

I would be very grateful for any help!

[Klimano]

I think you should take Real Analysis, some Topology, and maybe Advanced Calculus to convince the admission committees of the schools you have indicated.

Your grades are pretty good. If you pick up a document indicating your class rank from the student affairs office of your institution, then you may have an advantage.

However, you will need a 800 in the quantitative section of GRE. 780 is also OK, but to be at the safe side is always better. Be aware that, even 800 is not a guarantee for admission.

550 verbal score is very very high. I have 340, and last year I have been admitted to Georgetown (tuition waiver) and Virginia. But I could not attend as I need full-funding.

This year I have been granted a full-funding Research Fellowship from a domestic institution in my country. So I will reapply and seek admission maybe from higher ranked schools (with the same scores).

In sum, if you need funding, then you have to apply to lower ranked schools, not to UMich or UPenn with your current credentials. Or you have to strengthen your math background by taking advanced mathematic courses.

Klimano

[Econ]

Hey Sally82, I am from Greece and we have the same problem about grades. In Macro II, only one student out of the 800 that enroll (the 500 have failed in it in previous years) gets in the end an 8/10. In my University an 7/10 is achieved by only 15/300 students in each year, that is about 5% and a 8/10 by 0-3 students in every year. If you convert the first into GPA it is only 2.8/4 that stands for top 30% (??), or 40% (??) in US. I think that with the 8.6/10 you will not have any problem of getting admitted in a good university with financial help because in US they are (I hope at least that they are!) trained into converting and evaluating correct the non-US grades. Just take care to take a Q more than 770. So I would advice you to try also for better and more schools.

[sally82]

Hey econ!

Full fellowship at NYU is a great achievement. Congratulations!

Thank you for your reply to my post about admission to graduate schools. As you have read, I plan to go to graduate school in economics. Where is the big question :-)

I have an offer from my undergraduate university, which is a top 30 university in the field I’m mainly interested in. Additionally, they offer me a really good financial package.

So my situation is a bit similar to yours: I only want to see if I can get into a better PhD program. I have augmented my list of universities a bit since they time I wrote the post about admission to econ PhD programs. I’m now considering U Wisconsin, U Michigan, Northwestern, U Penn, Rochester and Penn State. Maybe also MIT, Stanford and Princeton although I’m a bit doubtful whether I will have a real chance there. Outside of the US I’m thinking about applying to Toronto, LSE, UCL, SSE and Pompeu Fabra. I’m not sure whether the later three would be much better than the offer I have but they are in cities I would enjoy living in.

I know that (in theory) the people deciding about admission can read grades from other countries. Yet I have some doubts about how much time they really take to consider an application and to consult the appropriate sources to find out what a certain average grade means. Do you include in your application letter from our university’s exam office stating some facts about how exams are graded at your university? Or do you trust that they know how to read a transcript from Greece?

You said that you’re thinking about applying to Chicago. Do you know by chance someone who went there and what experiences he or she made? I have been thinking about Chicago myself, but I heard some really negative stuff about their phd program. On the other hand, it’s supposedly easiest to get into among the top 5 programs.

[Econ]

On the evaluation of international transcripts: I think that universities that already have admitted in the past students from your university know exactly where you stand. Universities that do not have admitted in the past such students will, indeed, take some time to evaluate your grade. Personally, (i) I will write them a letter explaining the grading system (ii) ask from the prof that will give me LORs to state explicitly what the grade implies. I think that (ii) is the best mean of persuading the Universities that e.g a 8.6/10 in your University is a 3.8 in US.

On the Universities you intend to apply: Yes I agree UCL, SSE, PF are not so much better compared to the offer you already have (also e.g. Tilburg is better than these-sometimes I have seen it 2nd in Europe). So aim higher: LSE offers a MSC and a MREs/PHD program. In the MSC I bet my fortune that you are in (in know people from Greece that went with GPA 7.5/10, Q780, V440) but there is no financial aid. Nevertheless, you can see it as a intermediate step towards your dream-school. About Chicago: What a school! I have heard (nobady from Greece has gone there) that it admits 40 people and puts very difficult exams and that only 20 people survive after the 1rst year. About MIT: One student from my University went there-now she is the best student of her class. About Rochester: I think it is easy (relative to others) to get admitted, and it is a fine school.

My recomendation: Apply to many schools. Try LSE, one more from Europe, Rochester, Chicago, 2 or 3 from MIT,Princeston,Standford,Harvard,Yale, definitely try UPenn (excellent school-I think it is difficult to get admitted), Northwesten. Torodo is good but personally I would prefer a top 15 US school such as Michigan. I think that you have better chances of getting admitted in schools that already have admitted in the past students from your University. For example, because 2 people from my University have succedded in MIT, I have a better chance of being accepted there than being admited e.g. in Columbia (although Columbia is not so well-reputed as MIT in economics). So try Unicersities that are familiar with your University.

About the chances: the nice thing here is that chances are added rathen than multiplied. If you have a 20% in MIT and a 20% in Stanford then you have a 40% to be admitted in at least one of them (but only 4% to be admitted in both). So, try applying to many Universities! I think it will pay back. Say, try to 10-15 and you will get full admittion from 2-4; in the end you will choose where you would like to go.