How I Spy on the Adcoms

[SlowLearner38]

On my CV, which I included in each application package I mailed in, I put the address to my personal website. Since the domain name was brand new when I purchased it in September, I had no traffic on the website prior to admissions season. Well, during the admissions season I would regularly check the traffic statistics on my website, which tracks IP addresses. With the use of a free IP address locator, like this one, I would see where in the world these IP addresses going to my website, downloading my papers and looking at my updated CV, were coming from.

 

I was really quite amazed how accurate it was. I saw activity in Amsterdam (Tinbergen), Atlanta (Emory), Dallas (UTD), Eugene (Oregon), and Vancouver (UBC). It also pinned down an IP address coming from the exact building that houses the Economics Department at Arizona. I also saw activity from Charlottesville (Virginia), but I was not accepted there. No activity from Iowa City (UIowa) or Nashville (Vanderbilt). Putting this together, I saw activity on my website from 6/6 of the schools I've been admitted at so far and only 1/3 of the my rejections

 

So, for next year's admission season, take the above as my suggestion as a mechanism to help relax your nerves a bit. When someone from a school I applied to would access my website, it would mean that they must have had to been looking at my printed CV in my admissions package, saw the website and typed that address in on their computer. My bandwidth statistics also let me see which page and which files they were downloading too.

 

All in all, it has been a pretty fun little trick. :)

[walt526]

Interesting idea. Wished I had thought of it!

[DrBunny]

You're gonna be a great economist![clap]

[MYCCTV]

It sounds really wonderful. But I just have a quick question: how can you make sure they will go to your website even they are interested in you? Since you sent them all the information they need, is it really necessary for them to go to your website? Anyway, it is an interesting idea:) Good Job!

[SlowLearner38]

You're gonna be a great economist![clap]

 

Thank you! :)

 

It sounds really wonderful. But I just have a quick question: how can you make sure they will go to your website even they are interested in you? Since you sent them all the information they need, is it really necessary for them to go to your website? Anyway, it is an interesting idea:) Good Job!

 

Applications come with constraints -- sometimes I can't send or write everything I want in my application. For example, on my website I have the course description of every course I've taken in economics, statistics and mathematics. There are also links to both of my undergraduate research papers.

[eigenman]

All in all, it has been a pretty fun little trick. :)

 

This is very, very clever. Nice work. :D

[discreetcharm]

really cool idea and great work

 

but hard to believe adcoms are spending alot of time on this on top of all the other things they are looking at

 

you must be an exceptional applicant and the people looking are potential supervisors

[dsdoodle]

Little did you know, they've been spying on you this whole time on TM as well :).

[PerfectMarkets]

FYI, MIT has a Class A IP range, so everything that originates from 18.* is MIT. Booyah!

[SlowLearner38]

really cool idea and great work

 

but hard to believe adcoms are spending alot of time on this on top of all the other things they are looking at

 

I'm less concerned with the magnitude of their visit to my website, but rather the simple fact that they visited it gave me a lot more certainty.

 

Clearly I can't exactly pin down that the visit coming from say, Dallas, was from someone associated with the economics department at UTD. Though, I can see if the user came to my site from a link or if they typed it manually. So for example, I also kept track of which applications I uploaded a pdf of my CV (hence the onces that could potentially come to the site via a link). Anyways, a few assumptions later and the game is successfully solved using backward induction. :)

[eigenman]

Little did you know, they've been spying on you this whole time on TM as well :).

 

Heh, do you think so? Do we have any good information about this?

[datacollector]

I did the same thing, though I saw no/little traffic from the places I applied to...

[dsdoodle]

Heh, do you think so? Do we have any good information about this?

 

No solid proof (although it would be funny if someone got a picture of a professor looking at TM without him/her knowing) but just an educated guess :).

[empirechen]

brilliant~

[heraclitus_junior]

I did the same thing, but googlepages shut down and transferred to googlesites so my counter stopped working. I never bothered to fix it.

[eigenman]

No solid proof (although it would be funny if someone got a picture of a professor looking at TM without him/her knowing) but just an educated guess :).

 

Is the hypothesis that they're interested in specific candidates, or that they're interested in what candidates are saying about their programs? :)

[MYCCTV]

It will become really interesting if every school sends one people (say professor) to TM and chatting here with us! lol

[tm_member]

We know that there are some professors on here regularly, just search for John List's posts. What will become most interesting is what this generation will do when we are adcom members...!

[SlowLearner38]

What will become most interesting is what this generation will do when we are adcom members...!

 

Here on TM, I'd bet the applicant information will continue to rise for years to come. Bridge those information networks! On a side note, I have a feeling that the popularity of the economics major will continue to grow, from the bachelor level to the doctorate level. This is complete speculation but I think the business major will lose some market share to the economics majors for a while (BA level), but the business major will always retain a larger share.

[untitled]

Here on TM, I'd bet the applicant information will continue to rise for years to come. Bridge those information networks! On a side note, I have a feeling that the popularity of the economics major will continue to grow, from the bachelor level to the doctorate level. This is complete speculation but I think the business major will lose some market share to the economics majors for a while (BA level), but the business major will always retain a larger share.

 

There are more than a few of us who have a good deal of inside knowledge that we do not feel comfortable divulging, either because someone in faculty requested we not, or because we feel that some of this knowledge gives us an advantage. In the case where faculty has requested we not divulge some information, former TMers will likely wish that information not be divulged once we are faculty. I wonder, though, what the nature of that information usually is, and whether faculty are correct or not to wish it remain hidden. For instance, it may include expected yield rates, number of accepts, and number of funded slots. Would having that information about all schools be pareto improvince? What if just one or two schools were willing to divulge this information this time of year, who would it help and hurt?

 

Also, to SlowLearner38, I wonder if you noticed that adcoms checked your site a certain number of days before they sent you a decision. As in, what is the calendar for an adcom member? I often hear they don't go through the applications until the last minute, but I find that hard to believe, someties even when someone from the department says they are still reviewing files, I feel like that is often just a form of soft waitlist. What does your evidence say about the turnaround between checking your site and sending results?

 

By the way, I have never heard from any faculty about my aggregate results work, and have no evidence that they are aware of it (but have heard from TM lurkers who've seen it). I try not to care, but I do wonder how much use it is to adcoms, and how much use adcoms take from it.

[shootermcgavin7]

I am definitely using this trick when I'm on the job market next year. ty

[SlowLearner38]

Also, to SlowLearner38, I wonder if you noticed that adcoms checked your site a certain number of days before they sent you a decision. As in, what is the calendar for an adcom member? I often hear they don't go through the applications until the last minute, but I find that hard to believe, someties even when someone from the department says they are still reviewing files, I feel like that is often just a form of soft waitlist. What does your evidence say about the turnaround between checking your site and sending results?

 

Great question -- sorry I didn't see this earlier. Though I haven't looked at the data to see what the average time between activity and an admissions decision is exactly, for the most part the schools that went to my website did so approximately 2-3 weeks after the admissions deadline, regardless of when I turned in my application. That being said, it probably is true that they don't look at the applications right away after the admissions deadline. Further, most of the offers I received came about 1-2 weeks after I saw the activity on my website.

 

I'm curious now so I will check later tonight to give the actual times between deadlines and activity for each school.

[Elliephant]

SlowLearner, I'd love to have the final answer to this last post of yours... if you're still willing to divulge that not necessarily Pareto-improving information.

 

Also, for anyone who uses Google products: Their Analytics allows you to set up filters/alerts based on the IP addresses from which traffic is coming. So instead of compulsively checking your traffic every five minutes, you can compulsively check your inbox for alerts instead. ...Seriously, though, the Analytics app allows you to track almost anything you care to dream up. I hope to get a chance to make good use of it in the coming months ;)