Advice for 2014

[Stanajust]

Hello,

 

I am a student doing my msc in economics in Canada an average university (I wasnt really focused on academia in undergrad: 3.1 gpa). I am doing much better in grad school since I decided I wanted to pursue a Phd. I hopefully will be graduating top of my class with a 4.0 gpa. I scored a 167 on the quant part of the GRE and I am interested in doing research in market imperfections. I will be getting excellent recommenation letters from professors who went to top US institutions. I also may co author an article before I graduate from my masters.

 

However, I have no idea where to apply given my background and my research interest.

 

Any piece of advice would be much appreciated.

 

Thank you

 

Stan

 

Now in the correct format:

 

Here it is:

PROFILE:

Type of Undergrad: Finance

Undergrad GPA: 3.1

Type of Grad: Economics

Grad GPA: 4.0 (top of the class)

GRE: 167Q 160V

Letters of Recommendation: 3 excellent letters of recommendation from professors who went to top 20 US universities

Research Experience: MSc Thesis on market imperfections

Teaching Experience: Graduate Micro

Research Interests: Market imperfections, Macro

Concerns: Low undergrad gpa

Edited April 14, 2013 by Stanajust

[Griedman]

Hello,

 

You should post your profile in the standard form so that it is easier to give meaningful advice.

 

You can find the profile from the roll call thread

[Stanajust]

Hello,

 

You should post your profile in the standard form so that it is easier to give meaningful advice.

 

You can find the profile from the roll call thread

 

Thanks.

[Stanajust]

up up up up

[hedgequant]

Honestly, go open up about 10 different department websites per day and look through all faculty CVs. Read the abstracts of their papers and see which ones you really like...then look for co-authors on those papers. It will all start to make sense as to which programs have people you are interested in working with

[to2012]

Your profile sounds pretty similar to mine. I was admitted broadly to programs ranked between 30 and 40. Programs ranked 15-25 weren't so interested in me. Our undergraduate GPAs are a major flaw.

[Stanajust]

Your profile sounds pretty similar to mine. I was admitted broadly to programs ranked between 30 and 40. Programs ranked 15-25 weren't so interested in me. Our undergraduate GPAs are a major flaw.

 

So there is pretty much no way to overcome that. I don't know if publishing an article could help make up for the undergrad gpa. Should I be pushing for that or is it not going to make that big a difference?

[to2012]

I went to an above average flagship US state school for undergrad with a 3.1 GPA overall and 3.1 econ. I did my MA at an average state school in the US and earned about a 3.9 GPA over the course of roughly 65 credits (23 classes) with a 3.95 math GPA, including six graduate math courses. I scored an 800 Q on the GRE and did about three semesters of TA/RA work. I am rather confident that my LOR were not a limiting factor in my application except perhaps that they weren't written by "famous" economists. Provided that you have mostly As in your math courses I feel that our profiles are roughly equivalent.

 

I applied twice to Ph.D. programs. Last year I was basically shut out (partially funded admit to UC Santa Cruz) because I applied to mostly top 25 programs and that wasn't a good strategy. This year I applied to five top 25 programs and 13 schools outside of the top 30 including many ranked between 30 and 40 and was admitted to 8 out of the 13 schools outside of the top 25 that I applied to with waitlists at two. I was rejected from the five top 25 schools that I applied to.

 

As far as publishing: unless you end up working with someone really good on a research topic and publish in a reputable journal, I don't personally think that it will help all that much. I certainly don't think that publishing in a low-quality journal will be a game changer. Furthermore: publishing in economics takes probably, in median, one year upon initial submission of the paper to journals, and so even if you had already completed whatever piece of research that you would attempt to publish, it is unlikely that it would be accepted in time for applications for Fall 14 admission.

 

Unfortunately unless there is something about your profile that you haven't shared I find it unlikely that you crack the top 25.

[kalyea]

Publishing is a long process. It can often take well over a year of submitting, waiting for review, editing, and resubmitting. Unless you have something ready to go right now (and probably even if you do), the odds are very slim that it will have been accepted by a journal by the time it's time to apply to schools for 2014.

[Stanajust]

Publishing is a long process. It can often take well over a year of submitting, waiting for review, editing, and resubmitting. Unless you have something ready to go right now (and probably even if you do), the odds are very slim that it will have been accepted by a journal by the time it's time to apply to schools for 2014.

 

No I got nothing like that. So basically I should be applying to a couple of reaches but my realistic range is going to be top 30-40.

 

If I do stay in Canada would say UBC and the University of Toronto are out of reach? How about UWO, Queen's or McGill?

[to2012]

^^ If you are Canadian you should definitely apply to all of the top canadian schools, including U of T and UBC. I know that Canadian schools have favorable admissions for Canadians.

[esspe]

^agree

[Linethan]

Your profile sounds pretty similar to mine. I was admitted broadly to programs ranked between 30 and 40. Programs ranked 15-25 weren't so interested in me. Our undergraduate GPAs are a major flaw.

 

I also have very low undergraduate GPA. Even though I have quite outstanding master GPA and lots of research experiences, I was still rejected by all top 10 programs. I believe that high undergraduate GPA will not be the reason for admission (your research potential is more important), but low undergraduate GPA can still be the reason for rejection....

[Stanajust]

upupup

[Turgon]

I had average undergrad GPA and still managed to got into most top 10, though not MIT or Harvard. However, I'm an engineer, so that might be different. In my SOP, I told them something like "I found out that eng. was not my passion and devoted most of my time to extracurricular activities. Still, I had good performance in one of the best, and probably the hardest, engineering program in my country". I also said that I graduated earlier than most of my colleagues. All of this is true, of course. The point is, the low undergrad grades didnt send me to the auto-reject pile.

 

I'm not saying you shouldn't be concerned, only that it's possible to do well.

 

Now, to which schools do your advisors think you should be applying? If they went to top-20 programs and are in touch with research, chances are that they will give you MUCH better advice than any you'll get from this thread -- we simply don't know much about you or your program. Most importantly, they are the ones writing the letters. Since you wrote they are willing to give you excellent letters, they are probably excited about you going for a PhD and you should be able to talk the application process with them. At least one of them?

 

Also, did former students in your master's program apply for PhD's ? Where did they go? How do your grades compare with theirs? Who sent their letters of recommendation? This should provide you a guideline, though of course you have no reason to be less ambitious just because former students didn't go to top schools. However, if this is the case, you must believe that your professors rank you higher than those guys to be able to do better. You get the idea.