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How Selection Is Been Done


italos

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Ok guys!For a long time I wanted to post that. Let us discuss how selections are been done in several schools.Those include UCLA,Princeton,Harvard ,Columbia, NYU, Marylaland ,UCI, and many others....mostly about the top 20!

I have know many academics from those schools and by asking them I understood the following.My sources:

UCLA Roger Farmer

Columbia ;Mike Woodford

Princeton:Lars Svensson

Mayraland:Enrique Mendoza

UCI Fabio Milani

Harvard :Alberto Alesina

 

It was rely funny when talking about this with Mike(Woodford) I used a term largely used among Central Bank Economists :"The Segrets of the Temple"!!!:D

 

I will proceed with an example as it will be more comprehensive. Suppose we have 800 applicants as it happens frequently to be the case in the top 10

 

The first thing they look is the Quantitative GRE score!If you are below a certain cut off standard (UCB states if 760 test should be retaken) then you are OUT ! No one will ever see your complete file even if you have excellent records and LORs

Suppose now we are left with 200 applicants. Now is time for the most important thing;THE REFERENCE LETTER

As Roger Farmer told me he first looks at the NAME and he asks him self: Do I know him?Then of course he reads it.If it is a good letter you 're still in the game.Other wise.......:(.Note that if among your referees you have only one that is well know then they will put a part the other letters and you will end up with one letter in your file:Here is the question;From who do you ask the letters?

At stage 3 now we are left with only 100 applicants.Life is more easy now!

Now they look at the file.I you already have a Masters then you have an advantage ....except from the case you come from a US university or a very good undergraduate program.

Stage 4 candidates now are say 50.We want to admit 25 plus a waiting-listed, ok? What comes next?A direct email/phone call to the referee to ask additional information :Those could be the character,if the things stated in the LOR are true,grades and other.

S/he replies and that's it.Is done!

 

To sum up as both Mendoza and Milani told me the MOST important thing is the LETTER!!!!!!This is what makes you admitted or rejected!

 

So now you know everything!

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Pretty much what I thought as well. However, from what we were told in a phd application information session, they don't really care how famous the guy is, as long as he/she did a good phd. For instance, my certain LOR writer is a Harvard PhD, as well as a potential one. Although they're quite unknown, they both know what it takes to do a top PhD, as so are quite credible
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It seems to me that everything on your CV is a necessary condition for entry to the top ten but not sufficient. Especially for internationals and at the top 5. The LOR is by far the most important aspect. However, it is non trivial to get somebody credible to stick his/her neck out for you, but then again getting a chance to show your stuff to such a person is in some way determined by luck.

 

Not sure where italos is hanging out on the weekends but hes had more top economist face time than I expect to get during my entire phd.

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It seems to me that everything on your CV is a necessary condition for entry to the top ten but not sufficient. Especially for internationals and at the top 5. The LOR is by far the most important aspect. However, it is non trivial to get somebody credible to stick his/her neck out for you, but then again getting a chance to show your stuff to such a person is in some way determined by luck.

 

Not sure where italos is hanging out on the weekends but hes had more top economist face time than I expect to get during my entire phd.

I agree. All factors are necessary but not sufficient. That being said, a low GRE is generally a fatal issue whereas others can often be overcome through SOP or LOR. I'm talking mainly about poor GPA that was dragged down due to one poor year that can be explained by extenuating circumstances.

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  • 5 months later...

Yeap in a sense. Faruc Gul at Princeton looks mostly on the technical issues after the LORs.Again a guy this year at the Graduate Cafe' said that has been accepted at Princeton with GRE Q of 720.But he said that he had a LOR fron Stanley Fisher!

 

Note also that in Italy they do not do as much maths as in the US.In the UK much less.But still people are admitted to top schools!

 

Who are your LOR writers and how are they?

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There must be some difference across schools. Harvard and Princeton are top schools, Columbia is second tier, Maryland third tier and UCI fourth tier. So the selection criteria cannot be the same for schools that are so different in quality of PhD program.
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Yes there are. On a frequent topic in this forum about offsetting low performance due to health reason,Williamson from Harvard told me that for first (after filtering with GRE) they look the grades.They receive too many applications and all applicants will have a stellar GRE ,good LORs ,good grades...Every LOR writer will say that this student is the best ever had, often making personal calls and writing emails.But as he told me the competitiveness is too high and there are too many applications!They are not going to presume how would you had performed were you all right.Literally,he said ''ok.next file!''.He is advising that those students should not apply to the top 5.

Schools outside the top 5 range know that they cannot compete MIT,Stanford, etc and might look at the particular reasons that brought the applicant to the poor performance(better stressed in the LOR) .

 

I recall Reactor some time ago wrote that s/he asked a prof. in a top 10 school(not known if top 5 and which one) and s/he got the reply that whether an applicant had poor performance due to health reasons they look the other parts of the application.I am interesting to read his/her views on that!

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  • 5 months later...
I heard from 4th years at Berkeley that the 1st round cut off was 780 Quant and 3.8 GPA, but that still left over 300 applicants.

 

Are 4th years actively involved in the selection process?

 

That 300 after the first cut number seems plausible... but I'm not sure why they would arbitrarily cut off GPA...

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