I was surprised with my admission process outcome

[viveco]

Hey, is my case a bit different. I would not say that I got into some of the top schools, but given my profile, the result were nothing less than stellar. Let me post my profile first

School- Some Indian university which does not rank even in top 50 Indian econ schools
GPA:- I stood first in MA coursework
Math:- 2 papers on math econ, top scored in both (90+), Econometrics (85+)
Economics:- Micro, Macro, International Econ, Fiscal Econ etc (all 75+)
GRE:- Q-750, V-680, AWA-4.5
Research exp- Worked as RA in a decent B-school for 2 years and coauthored a research paper in the best Indian Journal
Recommendation- Two from econ profs who did their Phds from my graduating university, they are not known even in India, one from agecon prof who did his Phd from Ohio State
SOP- just discussed my research experience and indiacted my current interests without sounding too rigid

Result
Admitted- UNC-CH (TA), Pittsburgh (no funding), UIUC (fellowship), OSU agecon(TA),Oregon State(TA), Penn state(TA), Virginia Tech(TA), Michigan State University, agecon dept(TA)

Did not admit- UCB, UCSC, Cornell, Rutgers

Despite not so great GRE Q and almost no math courses, I think my results are no less than miraculous.What are your views?

[Lokayot]

Congrats! Your results aren't bad, the research paper really helped you I guess.

[viveco]

@Lokayot,
I also think the same, but other parameters like maths, recos and GRE Q were certainly not the best. I am trying to figure out what worked for me, in 8 out of 12 schools, so that guys with similar background find that they also stand a decent chance in some of these schools.

[asianeconomist]

Probably your LOR's read "the best student that I have ever taught............he can fly........he can conjure miracles..."

Congrats.

[Lokayot]

"Math:- 2 papers on math econ, top scored in both (90+), Econometrics (85+)"

If you had to write papers for math, I wouldn't think that you are necessarily bad in quantitative stuff. Besides, your ability in economics is what matters most. You might have the best tools (read advanced math skills) but if you don't know how to use it (i.e. due to lack of significant economics skill), you are not going to produce anything worthwhile. People have entered top US econ departments with one year of calculus.

But I see your point. Since you don't come from a well-known university, quantitative skills become relatively much more important. Are you going into agricultural econ? That might be a reason though, I would think that the competition in that sub discipline is relatively less intense compared to macro, micro for instance (although I might be wrong).

[viveco]

Thanks asianeconomist.
Lokayot, i am indeed heading to agecon program at mich state and the reason cited by you is true but the first year coursework in an agecon program is pretty similar to econ.Moreover, there are other reasons other than math to go to agecon program, research interests and the prof with whom i wish to work.
I spent the entire summers to hone my math skills . Infact my profs were surprised to find out that i chose msu over the econ phd from UNC.

[viveco]

@asianeconomist

But you see that I come from an unknown school with recos from unknown profs. I am not sure even if they right things like " the best student that I have ever taught............he can fly........he can conjure miracles..." would carry how much weight. Although one of the profs for whom I was RA, did tell me that he has ranked me as top 1% of the RAs that he has worked till date.

[asianeconomist]

Originally Posted by viveco

@asianeconomist

But you see that I come from an unknown school with recos from unknown profs. I am not sure even if they right things like " the best student that I have ever taught............he can fly........he can conjure miracles..." would carry how much weight. Although one of the profs for whom I was RA, did tell me that he has ranked me as top 1% of the RAs that he has worked till date.

Well, seriously, jokes apart, there is a high probability that your LORs did the trick for you.

I got into MSU Ag Econ Masters in this admission cycle. In fact, the Grad director (Scott Loveridge) explicitly mentioned that if I completed my current Masters and applied for the PhD next year (along with the similar LORs and GRE) then they would pretty much gurantee a funded offer. One of my LORs (the better one) also read nearly identical to yours.

You've got to realize that 1) Unless you happen to come from a reputed institution, your LOR writer will normally be not known to the Adcom. 2) The content of the LOR is much more important than who'se writing it.

I can say for sure that I had a worse profile than you (except the GRE perhaps) and had quite similar admits. Also, QGRE: 750 is not as bad as it sounds for an Ag Econ department. I think Wisc. Mad. ARE's incoming class has an average QGRE of 760 (they have it in their website).

Anyway, I do hope that my previous post did not offend you in any way. I was just trying to be funny (quite futile in the final analysis though !).

[viveco]

@asianeconomist,

no offence taken, i took your post in jest. I can relate with the results at MSU agecon, but the econ admits at UNC, Penn State and then fellowhip at UIUC were something more surprising for me.

[state_school'08]

Just curious, but why did you apply to Oregon State and not University of Oregon? Oregon is typically ranked significantly above Oregon State.