noa Posted December 18, 2010 Share Posted December 18, 2010 Undergrad: Bachelor (Licenciatura) in Economics, specialized in Quantitative Economics in mostly unknown uni in Spain Undergrad GPA: 9.29/10 (1st in class, mean GPA of my class was approx 6.5/10) Grad: Master in Economics, same school Grad GPA: not available yet GRE: 800Q 660V 4.5AW Toefl: 119/120 ECON: Metrics I-II (9.5, 10), Non-Linear Models in Econometrics (10), Time Series Analysis I-II (8, 8.5), Simultaneous Eq Models (10), Macro Theory I-IV (10, 9.2, 8.7, 10), , Macro Policies (9.25), Short-Term Econ Policy (10, 8.5) Micro Theory I-IV (9, 10, 9, 7.7), Game Theory (10), Decision Making Under Uncertainty (8.5) Public Econ I-II (10, 10), Research Methods in Econ (10) MATH: Linear Algebra (8.7), Calculus Analysis and Optimization (10), Advanced Calculus & Diff Equations (10), Matrix Algebra Linear & Non Linear Programming (10) STATS: Probability (10), Statistics for Economics (10), Linear Models (8.5), Multivariate Analysis (10), OTHER: Operations Research (9) RESEARCH: one semester as a TA/RA professor who does Macro, currently doing Master thesis TEACHING: tutor for lower level math classes (Math I-II) and High School tutor LORS: 2 PhD from UPenn, 1 PhD from Northwestern, 1 PhD from SUNY Stonybrook, 1 Post-doc from Princeton. Chose 3 out of those 5 for each school. Not very well known abroad but they'll be pretty enthusiastic and some of them have contacts at some of the universities I'm applying to. APPLYING TO: Berkeley, Stanford, Northwestern, Princeton, NYU, Columbia, Harvard, Maryland, Yale, Penn I'd love to know what you think. I realize I might get shut out but due to some of the contacts my professors have I have a very big chance of getting into one of the schools I'm applying to. (That's why I ended up not applying to lower ranked schools). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
triple_sec Posted December 18, 2010 Share Posted December 18, 2010 Your profile is very strong, so I would be surprised if you wound up being shut out. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure you'll also have to endure some rejections. Given that your school and recommenders are unknown but your profile seems to be otherwise almost spotless, I would say that your admission chances are more or less iid, with somewhat lower chances at more toppish schools (like Harvard, Princeton, and Stanford). I mean, I think you're in a situation pretty similar to that in which I was last year and could rationalize my outcomes ex-post using this logic. Anyway, let me make a prediction, which should be treated merely as an educated (?) guess: IN: Berkeley, Northwestern, Princeton, NYU, Maryland, Penn WAITLIST: Columbia, Yale OUT: Stanford, Harvard Good luck!!! :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
noa Posted December 18, 2010 Author Share Posted December 18, 2010 Wow, that's actually much better than I expected! I see you're at Yale, I'd love to go there. It's one of my top picks. Let's hope that everything turns out okay in March. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chisquared Posted December 18, 2010 Share Posted December 18, 2010 Are those econ courses graduate courses? I think having a four course sequence is common only in graduate programs... Then again, I don't know much about undergrad programs in Spain either. In any case, I agree with triple_sec for the most part. How is your university's placement history? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
noa Posted December 18, 2010 Author Share Posted December 18, 2010 No, they're undergrad. I'm taking the graduate sequence of metrics, micro, macro and computational methods now in the masters. The placements are not so great, mostly because almost no one wants to do the PhD in the US. But the top students get into top Spanish and European programs quite easily. I was offered the opportunity of going to CEMFI this year, but I turned it down... anyone they do have great contacts (with the person in charge of admissions) at one of the universities I'm applying to, so I guess I should be fine there. Thanks for your reply, by the way. Some days I feel pessimistic and fear I'll get shut down despite what my professors told me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chisquared Posted December 18, 2010 Share Posted December 18, 2010 At least your professors reassure you otherwise; I mentioned being worried about getting shut out to one of my professors, and he didn't expressly disagree. :P But, fine, I guess he wouldn't know either, given that he's fairly young (finished his PhD in 07). Was your offer at CEMFI for their PhD program? It might've been a good idea to do your masters there. I've seen CVs of students in the top 5 saying they came from CEMFI. (Although, I'm not very sure if they offer a terminal masters....) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
noa Posted December 19, 2010 Author Share Posted December 19, 2010 Yeah, they offer a two year terminal masters and then you can go on to a PhD. The problem was I knew that if I did my master at CEMFI it would just be easy for me to finish my PhD in Spain in 2-3 more years instead of starting all over again in the US. Maybe not a good reason, but anyway, that's done so. Thanks for your input! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tm_member Posted December 19, 2010 Share Posted December 19, 2010 I'm very optimistic about your chances, but you should definitely add a couple of safeties... the marginal cost is so small when you step back and look at the big picture... If you are thinking of Yale maybe you like metrics, so maybe UNC-Chapel Hill (a great school in it's own right) might interest you, as they are also a metrics place... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
noa Posted December 19, 2010 Author Share Posted December 19, 2010 I'm very optimistic about your chances, but you should definitely add a couple of safeties... the marginal cost is so small when you step back and look at the big picture... If you are thinking of Yale maybe you like metrics, so maybe UNC-Chapel Hill (a great school in it's own right) might interest you, as they are also a metrics place... Yup, I like metrics, that's why I'd love to go to Yale :D. Thanks for suggesting other schools. As it is, if they don't admit me at any of these places I'll try again next year or keep on the PhD track here, since I already have funding anyways. It's more of a personal reason, since my partner's coming with me I can't justify moving all the way from Spain if I won't be able to attend a top school. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chisquared Posted December 20, 2010 Share Posted December 20, 2010 (edited) Yup, I like metrics, that's why I'd love to go to Yale :D. Thanks for suggesting other schools. As it is, if they don't admit me at any of these places I'll try again next year or keep on the PhD track here, since I already have funding anyways. It's more of a personal reason, since my partner's coming with me I can't justify moving all the way from Spain if I won't be able to attend a top school. If it comes down to having to reapply next year: if you really want to get into Yale, and are serious about doing research in econometrics, try getting measure theory and functional analysis on your transcript before application time next year. Edit: Just realized that your classes in optimization and analysis may have already covered measure theory and functional analysis, but I do think it'll probably send a stronger signal if you take stand-alone courses is in them, given the level of depth a standalone course would have in those subjects. Edited December 20, 2010 by chisquared Follow up Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
noa Posted December 20, 2010 Author Share Posted December 20, 2010 If it comes down to having to reapply next year: if you really want to get into Yale, and are serious about doing research in econometrics, try getting measure theory and functional analysis on your transcript before application time next year. Edit: Just realized that your classes in optimization and analysis may have already covered measure theory and functional analysis, but I do think it'll probably send a stronger signal if you take stand-alone courses is in them, given the level of depth a standalone course would have in those subjects. Yeah, we covered it a bit. I would definitely try, although the system is so unflexible in Spain that you can't take courses in the Math department for example. The best I could do (which I considered for this year) is auditing those courses, since my dad's a math professor and I know a lot of the professors, they'd let me attend their class (and most likely write me a letter saying that I attended and did well or something). But if it's not official I don't know if it would be worth anything at all to the adcoms. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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