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Profile for 2013 - evaluation and possible improvements


Michalz

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Hello, after reading numerous topics in this forum I was wondering about my profile and its possible improvements. I am currently doing my two-year master's program, so I would like to apply for Fall 2013. Although it does not leave me very much time for changing my profile, maybe you'll give me some hints to improve my chances

 

Type of Undergrad: Finance, Polish university, pretty ok at national level, not recognized internationally

Undergrad GPA: we do not calculate it, however I scored 98%, the best score of my year faculty's alumni

Type of Grad: simultaneously 2 Masters program: finance (my undegrad university) and Math for Industry and Commerce (from great technical school in Poland, a program being part of European Consortium for Mathematics in Industry)

Grad GPA: hard to say at this point, however should be fine, although not that good as undergrad

GRE: haven't taken yet

Math Courses: master in math, so great number of math courses, including many oriented towards appliances in finance and economics

Econ Courses (grad-level): mainly finance courses, monetary police, economic policy

Econ Courses (undergrad-level): micro, macro, financial instruments & markets, public finance, econometrics

Letters of Recommendation: I believe can have a good one from professor i have quite close contact with, well recognized in the world but only in narrow area: energy markets and prices modelling, some time ago best economist in Poland according to Repec (but that gives him just about 1000's place in global ranking :(); second one from probably best recognized finance professor in Poland, but unknown in the world (however long time ago was visiting many great universities, e.g. Stanford); still thinking about the third one, eventually from Polish professor, not recognized abroad

Research Experience: official research assistant position for students is very rare in Poland, however I helped one professor with his research, conducted my own research, article published in after-conference publication in Polish, another publication on the way, but again in Polish and not very prestigious monograph; my thesis about currency transaction tax was quite research-like as well

Teaching Experience: don't know how that counts, but I have taught economics in high school for 3 years, preparing students for national economic contests with great successes; no Teaching assistant position in Poland

Research Interests: financial system, economic policy

SOP: I think pointing out that my profile isn't that bad if you consider limited opportunities I had in Poland may be some help; e.g. my LORs won't be from internationally well-known persons, but they are from top10 Polish economists

Concerns: poorly-known university, lack of advanced economic courses (although I could hardly take more of them), LORs from professors far from being in top50, profile not-oriented on economics (although economic program at my place was total crap and I am happy I took finance)

 

What do you think can I still improve in my profile to have bigger chances of being accepted in some decent program? I am thinking about exchange with some reputed European institution (Tilburg, Barcelona GSE), however this may be possible just in the spring (however have some chance to do it in fall) next year, so probably too late to get some LORs.

 

I would love to be accepted in some top10 American programs. However I was wondering about my chances (especially after reading admissions and rejections 2012: nobody from here got accepted to Harvard ;)) - is there any point in sending application e.g. to Harvard or MIT?

If not top10, I would prefer Europe. I am considering Tilburg, GSE (however I do not exactly get how PhD works there - looks like you can do it being e.g. a student of Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona), Touluse, Stockholm, Zurich. Funding is crucial for me, so e.g. GSE looks less appealing as I have seen they give mostly only partial waiver of tuition this year.

Considering funding I really consider Denmark and Norway. They do not have top programs, but some of them look reasonable (Aarhus, Oslo), the program is free and you get great salary (just about 4k euro per month), even considering huge taxation and price level. I was just thinking that if you dont go to the very top institution, there's no huge difference between landing up in some top50 programs and top200 ones while your pocket defnitely feels the difference :) Does anyone have some opinion on this greatly-paid programs in Scandinavia?

 

I'd like to know your opinion about my chances (supposing my GREs will be fine, which is not so obvious :)). And also, I heard once an opinion, that the major advantage of top10 institution is that they have great people in almost every field, while other top20 or top30 places are strong in some specific areas. So do you have any advice, considering my research interests (design of financial system, monetary policy, macroeconomics more generally speaking), to what not-so-elite institution shall I apply?

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This is probably not the best time to post profile evaluation for 2013, because we are all waiting anxiously to hear back.. but anyway, I think your profile is strong conditioning on the fact that you are from Poland, but I bet most people on this forum do not know how it should be evaluated unconditionally. Therefore, I think your best bet is to ask your recommenders - what schools are they comfortable in sending you to?

 

Other than that, I think doing a master degree at a more well-known school in EU would help you reducing the noise significantly. I think spending 1-2 extra years to do masters and get into top 10 afterwards is well worth it, if your alternative is going to a top 30 program (if you are top-10 caliber indeed, that is; but only you will know this).

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if you dont go to the very top institution, there's no huge difference between landing up in some top50 programs and top200 ones

 

Are you sure about that? There seem to be more academic placements in the top 50 then in the top 200, albeit I've just been looking at American programs. Do you mean just for European programs?

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Thank you OutOfGame, that's definitely a good point - going to some master would not only greatly "reduce noise" in my case, but also give me some necessary advanced economic courses. But I would defnitely prefer 1 year master. There are great programs, like GSE or Toulouse M2. The only problem is funding - do you know in which of these (or other reputed) institution they usually give you funding? I mean e.g Uni Carlos III in Madrid has a great offer (Financial aid) - I wonder where else can you find similar opportunities? At this forum I found once a link to the website with information about funding in almost every university in USA - does something like that exist for Europe?

 

And about the top50, top200 - maybe top50 and top200 is indeed still very different, but I still think there's no big difference between landing up in e.g. Manheim (theoretically program in top100) and Bergen (not even in top200, but almost) - in both places you'll only find limited number of top-class professors. In both places you will have to make connections outside uni by yourself and be more internationally active at your own if you want to reach the top - and is defnitely better to do that with full pockets :)

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Canadian schools have one year M.A's which offer some funding. E.G. UBC, U of T.

 

Also I strongly disagree with your statement. I would want to b from Mannheim before Bergen any day of the week, because Mannheim has a few researchers in my radar. Bergen has no one. One or two strong faculty make a very strong difference in terms of academic placement. Look at Oregon, U houston these schools have placed quite a few students into academia and it is because of the strength of usually a single faculty member that plays a big role (Evans and Papell respectively). Mannheim from what I know has more than one good researchers. Also among the european schools that have no adopted American style training there is a strong tendency for students to work closely with their advisor earlier on than with American programs. The general truth about well known economists is they generally are connected within their own field.

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You are defnitely right, I know it from my personal experience as I'm currently studying in a institution with poor econ researchers in general with one decent exception in very narrow field. But in that case rankings do not tell you much. Top100 uni may have 5 great researchers, none in your field of interest. Top200 may have just one or two - but in your field. The hardest thing is that going to specific place just for one professor I haven't known before it's very risky.

 

In fact I've never thought about MA in Canada. But actually, why not? :) I'm going to take a look on that.

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  • 3 years later...

Someone did post his results in his old profile evaluation thread and I think that's a nice idea. Here are mine. As you can see by comparing the first post to the current one, some things have changed. I changed my research interests (or rather finally defined them, although that's still subject to change), learned a lot about how the process works and what are good places to do PhD and that realized that some stuff just doesn't count (I bet few people care about your crappy publication in your native language which might as well not even exist or be printed-at-home student bulletin). Knowing what I know now I could easily answer my past self: "Boy, with this profile you have no chance of getting into Top 10 nor Top 20.". Thanks to OutOfGame for giving me more hope though.

 

But the story has happy end - I developed my profile a lot, mostly by exchange at better place, research work with my supervisor and - probably most importantly - RA experience in a great research team where I really learned a lot. I did relatively ok, but not super good in last year cycle and this year I cracked Top 10. So if you're Top10 calibre but your personal history is such that getting to T10 program is unlikely, you can do it. It may require a lot of investment but you may elevate your profile a lot. At the same time I wouldn't count on miracles - if your profile was weak, even if you improved a lot you still have small chances of getting to the very top programs just because it's hard to get in there in general, even for well qualified applicants.

 

PROFILE

Type of Undergrad: BA in Finance, internationally unknown Polish university

Undergrad GPA: 4.8/5

Type of Grad #1: MA in Applied Mathematics, a bit more reputed but still rather unknown Polish university; 1 semester of exchange at Economics department at UC3 Madrid

Grad GPA: 4.9/5

GRE: V 155 / Q 169 / A 4.5

Math Courses: Bunch of it during the Master but more advanced courses mostly in Statistics

Econ Courses: Introductory Micro, Macro, Pub Finance, bunch of Finance courses during BA; Political Economy, Applied Macro and graduate Econometricsduring MA - in the end lack of solid econ background actually

Research Experience: BA thesis published in peer-reviewed but not very top quality local journal; independent MA thesis on Energy Economics with article with my supervisor based on the thesis published in reputed field journal; second article with supervisor in the same field journal; 1 year of full time researchassistance for Law&Economics professsor, MIT PhD.

Letters of Recommendation: RA supervisor, MIT PhD, tenured but still rather young ; Course instructor from Madrid, PhD from Toulouse, past work in US T10 ; Supervisor from Poland, well known in his narrow field but not beyond it, no ties to top PhD programs; I think all letters were strong

Research Interests: applied microeconomics, political economy

SOP: discussing my research experience an just a bit about research interests

Comments: I'm two years out of school. I spent one year working in business (personal reason to delay application) and applied last year. I was accepted to some European programs (Madrid, Cambridge, Oxford) but decided to take an opportunity as RA and try to crack Top 8 this year.

 

RESULTS:

Acceptances: Northwestern Kellogg ($$$), Minnesota ($$), Zurich ($$$), EUI Florence ($$), Oxford & Nuffield College (?)

Rejections: Harvard, MIT, Stanford GSB, Stanford Econ, Princeton, Berkeley, Yale, Chicago Econ, Chicago Booth, LSE, NYU, Stockholm Uni (!)

Pending: Stockholm SE (they lost the application or what? :))

Attending: Northwestern Kellogg

Comments: I achieved what I wanted and so I'm very happy.It must have been quite a lot of luck too since I only got one offer from Top8 schools and got rejected from some schools which I considered inferior but the beauty of this game is that you only need one!

 

What would you have done differently?

I think that improving my profile would require quite a lot of changes early in my education, e.g. different BA or MA institution. This would be very difficult for many reasons though. But since I only learned that I want to do Econ PhD when graduating from BA program and had no idea how the application process works, I think I ended up very well. If I could made up my mind earlier and start getting interested about serious research earlier maybe it would help.

One advice for applicants coming from places which don't have the history of sending people to US/Top European programs nor the faculty with PhDs from relatively well reputed institutions - you must reach outside! Exchange, RA, intership - whatever. It's difficult but doable.

One thing is certain, I wouldn't be where I'm now without this forum. For people from outside of US whose UG institution has probably never sent a student to any US Econ PhD and has virtually no professors who can introduce you to the admission process this forum is very valuable. Thanks folks!

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