Profile Evaluation - PhD in Economics

[rbinzhu]

PROFILE:Undergrad: Top 15 universities in mainland, ChinaMajor: ChemistryUndergrad GPA: 3.3+GRE: Hasn't taken yetTOEFL: 103Math Courses: Calculus I: B; Calculus II: B; Linear Algebra: ANo Econ CoursesNo Letters of Recommendation; No papersOther: Participating in an chemistry lab program, likely to have promising results.Questions: 1) I have not taken any econ courses due to some limits in course registrations in my undergraduate school. What should I do to compensate for the loss in my professional background?2) The next school year is my third school year. I‘m considering enrolling an visiting program in the US. Is this helpful?3) What are the specific requirements of being admitted as an PhD student in econs at a top university in the US? Or what's the preferences of those universities?

[tbe]

You need to take the TOEFL or have a degree from an English-speaking institution to be eligible to enroll at most US schools.
You should try to take some economics courses. Otherwise, why would you want to go to graduate school in economics?
Take additional math classes.
Improve your English language ability.

[applicant12]

@OP: Why do you want to go to grad school for ECON again?

You need to take the TOEFL or have a degree from an English-speaking institution to be eligible to enroll at most US schools.

His/her score was 103

[chateauheart]

There's no reason to consider preparing for PhD econ applications if you haven't taken any econ courses. There's absolutely no way for you to know that you'll be interested in doing research in a subject without any formal exposure to the subject, and only a small minority of econ undergrads end up sufficiently interested in PhD econ work. The ex-ante probability of you ending up being interested in PhD econ work is sufficiently low that it's not even worth preparing for at this moment.

If your main reason for considering PhD econ is to use it as a pathway for high-paying professional jobs in the U.S., you should just apply to Ph.D. chemistry or biochemistry programs and focus on improving your English. Top health consulting and biotech firms recruit from PhD chemistry programs on at least an equal basis as PhD econ programs, and it's *much* easier to get into Ph.D. chemistry programs. Alternatively, if you have enough financial support from your family, you can just do a master's in computational science or an MBA.