Profile Evaluation 2016

[krkicker]

Hello! I am looking for a bit of advice about which schools are good bets for me for this upcoming application cycle. I would say my strengths are my GPA, GRE scores (assuming I do as well on the actual exam as I have been doing in practice), and that I have some good experience within my research interests (both an undergraduate study and RA experience in labor/demographic econ). My weaknesses would be coming from a relatively unknown college, and not having references from well known researches (I suppose a small upside is that I have very close personal relationships with each of them, but that doesn't necessarily make a great recommendation).

 

Type of Undergrad: B.S. Economics (Le Moyne College - non prestigious Jesuit, Liberal Arts college) - will complete in May 2016

Undergrad GPA: 3.92 (4.0 Econ/Math)

GRE: Taking this August. On practice exams I have been scoring 167+ on Quantitative

Math Courses: Calculus I-III (A), Differential Equations (A), Linear Algebra (A), Numerical Methods (taking this fall), Probability Theory (taking this fall), Real Analysis (taking this spring), Mathematical Statistics (taking this spring)

Econ Courses: Introductory and Intermediate Micro and Macro (As), Economics of Sports (A), Income Inequality Seminar (A), Financial Markets (A), Economic History (A), Global Economic Issues (A), Econometrics (A)

 

Letters of Recommendation: Professors from Boston College, Syracuse University, and Illinois-Urbana. Not well known researchers but that shouldn't be surprising given my smaller scale school.

Research Experience: Undergraduate thesis about the college major choice, RA for professor (Illinois-Urbana) at Le Moyne College (research focused on predicting talent in youth tennis athletes) , and RA for graduate student at American University

Teaching Experience: Will be Econ Dept TA for my senior year

Research Interests: Labor/Demographic Economics

 

 

Some potential schools I have considered are Syracuse University, Michigan State, University of Virginia, CUNY Graduate Center, and University of Illinois - Chicago, just to list a few. I am looking for some more recommendations if you have any! Also, where do you think my app stands? I feel pretty good about my odds of getting into Syracuse and Illinois-Chicago (and thankfully both align well with my interests!), but I wouldn't want to sell myself short if I could aim a bit higher. If your advice is to work as an RA after graduation to try to get stronger recs then that's fine, but I would also appreciate assessments on how I would fare this time around should I decide not to do that. Just want to have a clear idea of both outcomes! Thank you!

[Food4Thought]

It really is a shot in the dark with profiles like yours. Because your school, as you describe, is fairly unreputable, your letter writers are not very well known, etc., I can see you getting rejected from every school you listed as a distinct possibility. This isn't because you are a bad candidate; it's just there is very little context to your grades.

 

Why do you think you have a good shot at Syracuse and UIC? Are your professors connected there or something?

[krkicker]

My college is connected with SU in many ways (we are about 5 minutes away so there's a lot of interaction/crossover and even have a tuition reduction program with the Maxwell school), and a few of my professors are SU alum. With UIC, I'm going more off of the admissions standards they gave me when I contacted them. However, you make a good point how on paper I can be well above admission standards, but without a reputation to back it up, it isn't worth as much.

[Food4Thought]

Another thing to keep in mind is that the provided standards for admission may not reflect the actual applicant pool. So, the ideal info would be about average stats of previously admitted students. You letters of recommendation will probably make the difference here. If they are going to be able to say things above and beyond, "he is a good student/RA", then I think you can be more optimistic. But I think the problem will be that your results will have so much noise.

 

That's usually why the recommendation of an RA comes into play, because it is a way of providing a credible signal of your ability that is largely separate from your undergrad background. Try looking at the CVs of students currently at the programs you are wanting to attend. Are there students with similar backgrounds to yours?