PhD Economics Profile Evaluation- Provide advice not only comments

[ahhejase]

Profile Evaluation - Economics PhD
PROFILE: AH
Type of Undergrad: Medium-sized public Master's granting university (unranked Finance Department)-Ranked in top 500 schools forbes
Undergrad: Bachelors of Science Finance Undergrad GPA: 3.25 / 4.00
~3.6 GPA in Finance courses... low grades in classes as (US history-art-marketing
...) Excellent math grades
Graduate: MA economics from University of Detroit.(In top tier of Midwestern master's universities in the 2010 edition of U.S.News & World Report's "America's Best Colleges)
Graduate GPA: 3.75/4.0
GRE: 780Q, 400V, 5 A
MATH Courses: Calc I-III (A+, A+, A+), Linear Algebra (A+), Differential Equations (A+), thats it for math classes
STAT Courses: Regression and Variance (C)
ECON Courses: Economic Analysis of Enterprise
Analysis of Economic Conditions
International Monetary Analysis
Economic Idea in Perspective
Seminar in Monetary and Fiscal Policy
Theory of International Trade
Financial Economics
Game Theory
Economic Policy
Research Paper Course-on Economic thought history
Int Macro
Int Micro

lowest grade is B in financial economics, all others (A,A+,A-)

Letters of Recommendation: Enthusiastic letters from 2 economics associate profs, are fairly known and One Famous Publishing Finance full Professor from my undergrad school.
Research Experience:None
Teaching Experience: Tutor for Finance Classes

Research Interests:History of Economic though-International economics-Labor Economics-International Finance
Statement of purpose: Defend school. Talk about why each school is a good fit for me. I really want research in a economics/finance focus
Concerns: None

Schools i am contemplating(only with funding as i have no money):USA: Wayne state Univ- Michigan state univ- Univ illinois chicago-Boston Uni
Canada:University of toronto-york university-Concordia University-Mcgill

Please Tell me if i am being realistic in my choices,as iam looking for funding as well.

[ahhejase]

And if i can get higher por favor, El Señor tell me what i should look at!

[tm_guru]

Your math grades are good, and you sound confident of strong letter of reference's. Also, your GRE is fine if you are a native English speaker. If not, then the 400V will count against you.

Your profile is lacking mathematical statistics & econometrics, and as you are aware, you have no research experience which makes anything you say about wanting to pursue research slightly less credible.

In terms of the universities you have selected, they are quite an odd collection.

Wayne State? Never heard of it having a PhD. UIC is low ranked, and I know very little about the program. UIUC is much higher ranked.
Michigan State and BU are decent schools. And you might have a shot at Michigan. Not sure about their strengths or funding policy. But I know BU is not an easy place to get funding, something like 30% get funded in first year.

I'm not up to date on those Canadian schools, so someone else will have to chime in with regards to those.

Given your interests and the holes in your profile, you might consider Brandeis, they are mainly focused on International Economics, and you can take classes at BU and BC if you go there. Actually, you should try BC too. :-)

[thelatinodancer]

Originally Posted by tm_guru

Your math grades are good, and you sound confident of strong letter of reference's. Also, your GRE is fine if you are a native English speaker. If not, then the 400V will count against you.

I have similar GRE profile and I am not a native American speaker. I want to know why verbal score of 400 is not good enough . I also would like to know if i get around 100 toefl ibt score out of 120, will it change the admission perspective to foreign student for English requirement?

[Gecko]

as most of the candidates score 500 and above, a 100 point difference can put doubts into the minds of the adcom~

[applicant12]

Originally Posted by tm_guru

Your math grades are good, and you sound confident of strong letter of reference's. Also, your GRE is fine if you are a native English speaker. If not, then the 400V will count against you.

I don't really understand this point tm_guru... why do adcoms expect a non-native speaker to have a higher GRE score than a native speaker? I mean... it's the verbal part so native speakers should have a certain advantage and should score higher right?

[walt526]

A score of <500V signals to the adcoms the possibility that you may have difficulty reading/understanding English, regardless of one's country of origin. A strong TOEFL or AWA can help remedy it. Also be aware that some institutions have university requirements that are relatively inflexible. For example, I believe that UCD has a university/school requirement that requires 60th percentile from domestic applicants on each section (~500V)--not sure if it's lower for international applicants.

[tm_guru]

Originally Posted by applicant12

I don't really understand this point tm_guru... why do adcoms expect a non-native speaker to have a higher GRE score than a native speaker? I mean... it's the verbal part so native speakers should have a certain advantage and should score higher right?

Put yourself in an adcom's shoes for a moment. A 400V is a bad score even if you are domestic. There's no hiding that fact.

But the reason a bad verbal score doesn't matter so much for a domestic applicant is that the adcom simply assumes the individual did not bother to study for that section of the test. A serious domestic student with a bad verbal score probably has research, grades from english and history classes, not to mention 12 years of school, and 4 years of university, all delivered in English.

So if 'Brad Johnson' scores 400V the adcom doesn't worry because they know 'Brad' speaks perfect English and will not struggle to understand the professors at the school, and will be able to lead discussion classes in Micro 101. If 'Jacques Lemont' (from say, Belgium) scores 400V, the adcom does worry!

[tm_guru]

Originally Posted by thelatinodancer

I have similar GRE profile and I am not a native American speaker. I want to know why verbal score of 400 is not good enough . I also would like to know if i get around 100 toefl ibt score out of 120, will it change the admission perspective to foreign student for English requirement?

A score which approaches 110 is usually necessary to completely assure the adcom that you have no trouble with the english language. Moreso if your GRE Verbal and AWA is weak.

[applicant12]

Originally Posted by tm_guru

Put yourself in an adcom's shoes for a moment. A 400V is a bad score even if you are domestic. There's no hiding that fact.

But the reason a bad verbal score doesn't matter so much for a domestic applicant is that the adcom simply assumes the individual did not bother to study for that section of the test. A serious domestic student with a bad verbal score probably has research, grades from english and history classes, not to mention 12 years of school, and 4 years of university, all delivered in English.

So if 'Brad Johnson' scores 400V the adcom doesn't worry because they know 'Brad' speaks perfect English and will not struggle to understand the professors at the school, and will be able to lead discussion classes in Micro 101. If 'Jacques Lemont' (from say, Belgium) scores 400V, the adcom does worry!

Yea I agree with you here. So is a high TOEFL enough to make up for that?