Profile Evaluation (please help) unsuccessful this year

[gradeconomist]

PROFILE: (International Student)
Type of Undergrad: Top 2 school in a developing country
Undergrad GPA: 3.75
Type of Grad: Mid tier Canadian School
Grad GPA: Micro (A-), Macro (B+), Econometrics (B+), IO (A+), Game Theory (A+), Adv Monetary (A+), Trade (A), public Economics (A)
GRE: taken recently and scored 164 (quant) , 4.5 (AWA)
Math Courses: Calculus I, II and III
Letters of Recommendation: Game Theory, Micro, & Monetary professor from Canadian School
Research Experience: 1 year RA
Teaching Experience: Currently working as a Lecturer at the school I did undergrad from (top 2 in a developing country)
Currently Teaching: Mathematics for Economics I and II
Research Interests: IO / Game Theory
SOP: Laid out future research/career plans, summarized research experience

Schools I am aiming for: I applied this year to SFU(PhD), McGill, U of T (DSMA), York (PhD) and got rejection from all !!
Next year I am willing to apply to SFU, McGill, Carleton, and some midtier schools in US. However, I prefer going to Canada. I know my grad courses grades are awful, but I can't go back and change those grades. All I can do now is get some decent publications and submit GRE scores (which I did not have previously). Do you guys think that GRE scores, teaching experience is going to help me this year ??? please suggest..

Thanks

[oleador]

Did you get (all) your grad grades after you applied?

[OneArmedEcon]

I can't really sugarcoat it. It's very difficult to recover from mediocre grad school grades, particularly when earned at a non-elite program. And it looks like you struggled in both Micro and Metrics, which makes it all the more difficult for an adcom to overlook (i.e., it's not like you just had one bad final exam or something). I don't think that teaching experience matters for admissions at most places, particularly at a non-Western institution. Similarly, the GRE is solid, but it's not going to be a difference maker. What you really need is an extremely positive letter of recommendation from someone known to the adcoms.

When you say "mid-tier US" what type of school do you have in mind?

[tm_member]

6 A's and 2 B+'s? Surely that's not so bad... I guess the problem is that the B's are in the two most important classes. :-/

I think your issue is just that you haven't applied to enough schools.Staying in Canada really limits you. Aside from that, you have to get the best letters you can and just re-apply more broadly.

[gradeconomist]

@oleador

Yes, i applied with all MA grades

[gradeconomist]

@OneArmedEcon

The schools I have in mind are - George Washington, CUNY, Syracuse, Iowa State, U houston, USC ..

[gradeconomist]

6 A's and 2 B+'s? Surely that's not so bad... I guess the problem is that the B's are in the two most important classes. :-/

I think your issue is just that you haven't applied to enough schools.Staying in Canada really limits you. Aside from that, you have to get the best letters you can and just re-apply more broadly.

Thanks. Could you please enlighten me more on how staying in Canada will limit me. Is it interms of job? Career ? And when you say about broadening applications, could you suggest me some schools ? In addition, the ref letters I got this year, is the best I can get.

[OneArmedEcon]

@OneArmedEcon

The schools I have in mind are - George Washington, CUNY, Syracuse, Iowa State, U houston, USC ..

I think that you have a decent shot at those schools (sometimes when someone says "mid-tier" they mean Top 15-30 schools--which are mid-tier for some people, but out-of-reach for others).

A former classmate of mine (had to leave because he didn't pass prelims) applied this past admissions cycle and it came down to CUNY and GWU. He chose CUNY, but really liked GWU. One issue to be aware of is that they don't have a lot to offer in the way of funding, so most of the students do paid internships at various places in and around DC. He is American so an I9 wouldn't have been a problem, but I could imagine that this could be problematic for international students to get the proper visas in order to work outside the university.

Houston is a great place--to bad we just hired away one of their promising young labor/public economists.

[gradeconomist]

@OneArmedEconThank you so much. Yes, it will be difficult for me to get proper work visa. Can you pls also comment on the other universities that I listed.

[OneArmedEcon]

@OneArmedEconThank you so much. Yes, it will be difficult for me to get proper work visa. Can you pls also comment on the other universities that I listed.

Well my knowledge of those programs is pretty limited, since I didn't apply to any of them. What I know about GWU and CUNY is only from discussions that I had with my friend as he was deciding between the two.

My impression of Syracuse is that their main strength (at least historically) has been public, not IO or game theory. But I could be mistaken. Same thing with USC. The only thing that I know about ISU is that they have one of the leading experts in Agent-based Computational Economics (ACE). And Houston... all I know is that my university just hired the only guy whose work that I'm familiar with (not to say that there aren't other great faculty, just he was the only one who I could name off the top of my head from Houston).