asianecon Posted June 19, 2007 Share Posted June 19, 2007 I'm applying to US PhD programs this coming Fall. Since most of the guys giving advice here are not the same set of people as before, I'd like to hear some of your opinions. Here's my profile: Undergrad: BSocSci Hons (Economics) in one of the top Asian universities located in Southeast Asia; graduated top of economics class (around 200+ students) and received various medals including a prize in econometrics; received a prestigious scholarship from the country where this university is located (I'm not a citizen) Grad: MA in Mathematical Economics and Econometrics (technically the 1st year of PhD) from a highly ranked program in microeconomics and IO located in France (top in Information Economics and 2nd in IO I think based on econphd); will graduate as one of the top of the class (best scores in micro, macro sequence and optimization); received a prestigious scholarship from the French government; personally offered a scholarship by my Masters thesis supervisor (famous guy; Econometric Soc fellow) for the rest of the PhD program (respectfully declined) GRE: Q750 V600 AW4.0 (will likely re-take in October) Research experience: forthcoming theory paper in the International Journal of Industrial Organization (co-authored with undergrad supervisor); working on a paper with an Econometrics guy from grad institution; RA for a relatively well-known (in his field) professor from undergrad institution that allowed me to be acknowledged in papers written by my supervisor with a famous UCL professor (deleted wrong info) and an MIT professor (John Bates Clark awardee); Honors thesis (undergrad RA supervisor) and Masters thesis; will be doing a one year RA job for two relatively well-known young supervisors at a Top 5 US institution; 2 small conference papers (not really significant) LORs: potential writers include my supervisors in undergrad and grad institutions; the two guys I will be working for in the 1 year RA job; potential co-author from grad institution; (should I submit letters from all of them assuming that they will write excellent letters or just from those I'm sure of?) TA: none Research interests: IO both empirical and theoretical; semi-parametric and non-parametric statistics (mostly applied); designing Monte Carlo simulations for different estimators and tests; treatment effects; applied empirical economics (labor issues; education; political economy esp. economics of wars and political instabilities; urban economics); role of competition policy and microeconomic issues in developing countries; econometrics of auctions and other mechanism design topics Math: calculus, linear algebra, real analysis (only as audit since I decided to spend time doing research and enjoying my now ex-girlfriend; I was one of the top students in the midterm though) all during undergrad; grad optimization (theoretical and rigorous; some differential geometry for static optimization; optimal control for dynamic part; taught by a famous econ/math guy who's also an Ect Soc fellow though never really got to closely work with him; received 20/20 under the French system) Please suggest schools that (i) I have a good chance of gaining admission and (ii) are aligned to my interests. From reading posts here, my main weaknesses are my GRE scores and the lack of math, but I'd love for you guys to weigh in your opinions in terms of the probability that other parts of my profile can compensate for these. Also though I'd love to go to a good school, I'd rather not re-take the GRE so I can concentrate on my RA job and also my other research papers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
econ-applicant Posted June 19, 2007 Share Posted June 19, 2007 Do yur GRE again. The rest of your profile is great. You should not let your GRE Q hurt your applications. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ImProcrastinating Posted June 20, 2007 Share Posted June 20, 2007 Do yur GRE again. The rest of your profile is great. You should not let your GRE Q hurt your applications. I'd agree. A 750Q is frankly pretty low. The rest of your profile is incredibly strong, so I don't think the score would keep you out of say top 30 or top 20 programs (which it would for almost anyone else), but if you retake it and get 780+ I think you'd have a very good chance at a top 10, maybe even a top 5. I think your excellent performance in mathematical economics and econometrics will largely make up for your math background. Taking analysis II for a grade or dif eq or something would probably help a little, but it doesn't sound like you have the time for it, so I wouldn't worry about that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asianecon Posted June 20, 2007 Author Share Posted June 20, 2007 Probably you're right. Bringing up that Q to something above 780 might make a lot of difference. When I applied for Fall 2006 admissions my profile basically looks like the one on top, less the Grad and most of the Research Experience stuff--no published paper, no acknowledgement; basically I only mentioned I was RAing and also submitted a paper. I got into Penn State with funding (is this close to a Top 30?), Oxford, UCL, Stockholm SE and Toulouse (they don't require GREs and my undergrad supervisor is well-connected to people in TLS). On the other hand I got rejected by Northwestern. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OneMoreEcon Posted June 20, 2007 Share Posted June 20, 2007 Penn State is really good for micro theory. The things you added to your profile are incredibly important... research experience, publication, much stronger LORs from well-respected economists. And I'll go out on a limb and guess you're at Toulouse (which I already assumed... is one of these ES Fellows Tirole, by chance?). Your profile is pretty damn impressive, and I think you'll do very well, unless you're misleading us. Just boost the GRE Quant score to avoid an possible auto-rejects. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asianecon Posted June 20, 2007 Author Share Posted June 20, 2007 My supervisor is not Jean Tirole so I hope I didn't mislead anyone. To avoid potentially misleading people: The optimization prof is Jean-Charles Rochet while my supervisor is Patrick Rey. I'm not sure if most of the people here on the board know these guys, but probably if you do a lot of IO or Mechanism Design, then you should. The UCL guy is Mark Armstrong while the MIT guy is Jerry Hausman. If you do micro theory, you probably know the former. Of course almost everyone who has taken econometrics knows the latter! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OneMoreEcon Posted June 20, 2007 Share Posted June 20, 2007 Fellow of the ES is enough, even if it's not Tirole. The MIT connection also hinted that one of these people may have been Tirole. Still, you have an amazingly solid profile, and there's not much beyond GRE that you can do to boost your profile. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ekonomiks Posted June 20, 2007 Share Posted June 20, 2007 Why don't you stay at Toulouse? It's a fine place to do IO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asianecon Posted June 20, 2007 Author Share Posted June 20, 2007 Why don't you stay at Toulouse? It's a fine place to do IO. I know and actually I'm going to talk to my supervisor to ask his advice. My primary reason for leaving is that I don't speak French, though this could be remedied by a language course over the summer. Not being able to communicate basically entitles you to zero social life. I found that having a social life does matter in one's productivity. A second reason is that I'd like to eventually go back to my home country and encourage people to do research and also I plan to consult for the government. Most of the people from my country do not even know that Toulouse exists. Some friends of mine were even confused why I chose Toulouse over Oxford. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
buckykatt Posted June 20, 2007 Share Posted June 20, 2007 The rest of your profile sounds so strong that maybe that 750 Q score won't hold you back, but it's definitely the weakest link. If you didn't study very much for the GRE the first time, and therefore think you could definitely improve your score, I'd say working on that is worth the effort. In terms of LORs, perhaps you can tailor which professors you ask for letters to the schools you're applying to? No reason you couldn't have different sets of letter writers for each school. I would ask each of them for a candid answer about whether they can give you a strong recommendation. I think you'll get an honest answer from them and know whether their letters will strengthen your application or not. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quantwanabe Posted June 20, 2007 Share Posted June 20, 2007 buckyatt is correct, retake the GRE and try to get about 780+. Don't worry about taking the GRE multiple times, I have been told by many that most schools don't care at all about the number of times you take the GRE, they usually look at either the latest score, or the highest score from each section. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bne600 Posted June 22, 2007 Share Posted June 22, 2007 If your quants is 750 you can get 800 and understand your point about your social life. leave France. the most important thing is to get a high quants score and your ar due to a top 10 program. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asianecon Posted October 29, 2007 Author Share Posted October 29, 2007 Update: So I was able to get an 800 in Q (and a slightly higher V) BUT I completely bombed my TOEFL IBT because of the freaking test center (I will send a complaint to ETS tomorrow though I didn't cancel my score)--doors of the test area were left open so you can hear all the people walking and talking along the corridors; non-noise-cancelling headphones; no barrier between you and the person in front of you (the woman in front of me was actually quite attractive haha); and there's one instance where a girl's computer had to be rebooted! I'm planning to retake the freaking TOEFL mid of November. Fortunately some schools (correct me if I'm wrong, but Harvard, Yale and Princeton for example) provide a TOEFL waiver and for those that don't, it seems like they're not that strict when submitting TOEFL scores by the deadline (based on some posts I've seen here). EDIT: Btw, I took the CBT two years ago and got 299/300 so I never considered TOEFL as a difficult test; but based on self-evaluation of performance, I don't think I'll meet the minimum scores for most schools I'm applying to (e.g. Chicago has a min of 104 which is surprisingly "high" relative to other schools) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chicunomics Posted October 29, 2007 Share Posted October 29, 2007 Let me just say for the record I am incredibly jealous you got to have Patrick Rey as your supervisor. That is all. OK I will also elaborate further. I don't know what TOEFL scores are required and what you got and all that jazz, but just from your expression in this thread, I can't see how you would not be up to the standard required for everyone from Harvard down...so I hope you do better next time around. As others have said, your profile is ridiculously strong except for the math. I know specifically of a person from my university who got into Harvard (not saying Harvard is necessarily your #1 pick, but it's a good yardstick...) who would have been possibly of the same level of maths preparation as you, maybe even less. Also, I can't imagine his research experience would have been as good, but he was just an exceptional student - as you seem to be also. Plus if you have letters of recommendation from people like Rey who are tremendously well respected in IO circles, and indeed in economics circles generally...magical! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
econdreamer Posted October 29, 2007 Share Posted October 29, 2007 You profile is probably THE strongest among international student this year. We are all jealous of you. Would you post a list of your target school here? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asianecon Posted October 29, 2007 Author Share Posted October 29, 2007 Your comments are all flattering. Anyway here's the tentative list of schools I'm applying for: 1. Harvard: broad program; excellent in all areas; ivy brand name (this matters a lot if I go back to Asia); people I'd love to work with --> Pakes, Imbens, Aghion (competition and growth), Athey 2. MIT: broad program; excellent in all areas; highly technical school 3. Yale: econometric theory; technical school (metrics sequence); ivy brand name; econ growth center 4. Northwestern: theoretical and empirical IO; nonparametrics and semi-parametrics (Manski & Horowitz); technical school 5. Berkeley : microeconometrics especially discrete choice models (McFadden); weather 6. Chicago: microeconometrics (Heckman); field experiments (List) 7. HBS (Biz Econ): ivy brand name; proximity with econ program 8. Chicago GSB: proximity with econ program 9. Princeton: ivy brand name; econ theory 10. Stanford: brand name; micro theory; weather 11. UCSD: safety school; econometric theory (White) 12. Penn State: safety school; IO (Krishna; Vuong); I was admitted to the phd program with funding before 13. Columbia Sustainable Dev't: for career shift if I realize based on the admission results that I'm not good enough to do a PhD at a top Econ program Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YoungEconomist Posted October 29, 2007 Share Posted October 29, 2007 How bad is a 750Q GRE really? This guy has a pretty good profile, where do you think he could get in with the 750? Where could he get in if he had a 780? This is a serious question, and something that I am not knowledgeable about at all (which is why I am asking). I am taking the GRE in a couple months, and I'm just wondering if I get something in the low or mid 700s, what will this do for my grad school options. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asianecon Posted October 29, 2007 Author Share Posted October 29, 2007 When I applied two years ago with a 750, I was accepted by Penn State (with full funding), Oxford (MSc), etc BUT rejected by Northwestern. So I guess a 750 won't preclude you from top 25/30 schools but probably will for top 15. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YoungEconomist Posted October 29, 2007 Share Posted October 29, 2007 When I applied two years ago with a 750, I was accepted by Penn State (with full funding), Oxford (MSc), etc BUT rejected by Northwestern. So I guess a 750 won't preclude you from top 25/30 schools but probably will for top 15. Well, my target schools are in the 25 - 50 range. I am hoping to get a 780 or 800 on the QGRE, but if that doesn't work out, I am trying to get a sense of what scores are acceptable and disastrous for the 25 - 50 range. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flipecon Posted October 30, 2007 Share Posted October 30, 2007 hey asianecon, from which country are you coming from? you from ateneo? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asianecon Posted October 30, 2007 Author Share Posted October 30, 2007 Yep. We're from the same batch (Management Engineering-Eco Honors 2000 entry) but I left after the 2nd year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
econdreamer Posted October 30, 2007 Share Posted October 30, 2007 Asianecon, are you going for MEDS or Econ Dept at Northwestern? How do you think about the relative strength (and weakness) of them? I also need to make this decision. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jlist Posted October 30, 2007 Share Posted October 30, 2007 Dear Asianecon: Your profile looks quite strong. Please drop me a private email at Jlist@uchicago.edu and Jim and I will send along an email letting you know some details about Chicago. For example, what we are both up to right now and what you can expect to find if you matriculate. Of course, I can promise nothing right now, but your file will be quite competitive. Best, John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
econphilomath Posted October 30, 2007 Share Posted October 30, 2007 Dear Asianecon: Your profile looks quite strong. Please drop me a private email at Jlist@uchicago.edu and Jim and I will send along an email letting you know some details about Chicago. For example, what we are both up to right now and what you can expect to find if you matriculate. Of course, I can promise nothing right now, but your file will be quite competitive. Best, John Ok so I hope your insecurity problem has been overcome by now.....:D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polkaparty Posted October 30, 2007 Share Posted October 30, 2007 Ok so I hope your insecurity problem has been overcome by now.....:D What about the rest of us!? :hmm: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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