Please evaluate my profile + school list reality check

[nash12]

Originally Posted by italos

What do you mean by saying that age could be a disadvantage?

I meant that 31 is on the higher side to be starting a phd in econ, even though its common in business schools. Usually 25-35 is considered to be the peak of a resercher's career.

Having said that, the IMHO also has a great record which (if he manages good letters) can turn into good results in the applications..!! That is why I'm encouraging him to be less risk averse and aim higher.

[italos]

Originally Posted by nash12

I meant that 31 is on the higher side to be starting a phd in econ, even though its common in business schools. Usually 25-35 is considered to be the peak of a resercher's career.

Having said that, the IMHO also has a great record which (if he manages good letters) can turn into good results in the applications..!! That is why I'm encouraging him to be less risk averse and aim higher.

Now I see.I though you were meaning that his age could be a factor in his admission process by influencing negatively his admission.

[breakz]

Originally Posted by italos

Now I see.I though you were meaning that his age could be a factor in his admission process by influencing negatively his admission.

The problem lies in future job market outcomes, not grad admissions.

[italos]

Originally Posted by breakz

The problem lies in future job market outcomes, not grad admissions.

Not that adcoms will think: ''He is too old and by the time he finishes the program he will be already around 35 so lets prefer a younger applicant''

[jeeves0923]

In the U.S., anyway, it is illegal to discriminate on the basis of age. You don't even have to tell them how old you are on the application - only that you are of legal age to be employed.

[italos]

Originally Posted by jeeves0923

In the U.S., anyway, it is illegal to discriminate on the basis of age. You don't even have to tell them how old you are on the application - only that you are of legal age to be employed.

Even though it cannot be controlled! Besides the date of birth it appears on the transcript(at least in my uni does) and it should also appear on the application form(I cannot recall right now)

[jeeves0923]

It is on the application form, but they cannot require you to fill out that date. It is not legal to reject someone because they left that question blank.

My transcript does not include my birth date. I believe that is standard in the US, anyway.

[Oikos-nomos]

Hi Profgif !!! (This time i'm writing it the right way )

Wow, i didn't know your profile was that strong. However, as you and others said, you lack of good LORS, and therefore, connections. To be honest, I think this is a major problema.

I'm sorry that you took that course and the professor didn't consider supporting you, it's really weird, as you said you were among the top of the class. Maybe the guy wanted to give out only a limited number of recommendations, and they all were for students who had prior connections with him.
Still, i find it hard to believe that you weren't able to get a decent recommendation letter from an economist with some connections.
I think (don't know much though) that in Uni Los Andes there must be at least some moderately known economist that would be more than willing to write you a letter. I also heard that the summer courses there where quite good, many times lectured by well reputed professors from abroad.
You should try to knock as many doors as possible and see if someone gets interested in supporting you. You have a great profile, i'm sure that if you talk to somebody and show your credentials of work with them, they will agree to give you their support.
A good LOR is the only thing, in my view, that is putting you out of top schools. So, try by all means to get it, it could prove to be worth the effort in the future.

Best luck!!!

[italos]

Originally Posted by Oikos-nomos

Hi Profgif !!! (This time i'm writing it the right way )


A good LOR is the only thing, in my view, that is putting you out of top schools

Yeap LOR is the most important piece in the application file.This is what it gets you in or out!!!!!!!

[Profgif]

Many thanks to all for your comments. I guess now is no time to be timid for me, and there are still two small opportunities: one with the Oxford professor and one with a Warwick professor, I will probably take all my chances with them. I haven't before, because I thought that getting a possibly cold letter from an international professor who knows me little could be worse than a letter from a local professor, but if I understood well, without the international connection I won't get into anywhere anyway.

The Oxford professor didn't tell me directly that he wouldn't give me a letter, and I didn't ask for it either, but I felt that he had said no implicitly when I talked with him. Yesterday I found out that I got a perfect grade in his class, but his course was only graded through take home exams and I don't know whether other students also got a perfect grade, (furthermore, several students probably worked in groups so their grades were perhaps inflated). Anyway, I'm thinking in sending him an e-mail together with my CV and a writing sample asking him for the LOR directly, right now it seems that I have nothing to lose, (I have already lost without the right LOR). The Warwick professor knows me even less, I have only known him from a four hours conference in which I practically gatecrashed (for lack of money), and I barely talked with him a few technical sentences afterward. Later I found out that he had said to some students, friends of mine, that, if asked, he would help a good student from the university where I am studying now, that's all I know about him.

With regard to Uni Los Andes, mentioned by Oikos-nomos, I’m surprised someone knows it, but it is definitively the right place to be if you are in Colombia, it's extremely well connected sending an estimated average of six students to top PhD programs per year. It would take a long explanation of the Colombian situation to understand why it's difficult for someone like me to study there, but to make a long story short, Los Andes is for the wealthy or politically powerful Colombian elite, and the rest of us go to public schools. Paradoxically, top public schools publish much more than Los Andes overall (but not in economics anymore), but these schools are even less well known, and because of lack of resources, the quality of their professors has been diminishing in the last decade.

I still have two questions derived from what I have read in the forum. Exactly how well known a professor needs to be to have an actual chance of admission at a top university? I could probably get a letter from a central bank economist who has published with Teräsvirta (but this economist is not a professor) or a letter from a mathematician who studied under Sergiu Hart (the game theorist), but these recommenders would most likely be unknown abroad. The second question is that I routinely read that people have LORs from professors who studied at top schools (let's say at Harvard or Chicago, etc), but it's clear to me that many of these professors would also be virtually unknown except in their own universities or countries. Since the LOR form does not ask directly where the recommender studied, why is this important if at all? Do they write where they studied when recommending the student or do they add a seal from where they studied? And are these recommendations advantageous only at the university where the recommender studied?

Again, many thanks to everyone for their advice and positive comments!

(By the way, I will probably return to my country to teach so I guess age is not so much of a problem since there is still a lack of top professors in many of our schools. However, I would add that age, more than a problem for adcoms or for future employers is a problem for the mind, after all what could be more of a problem than experiencing your own decline! )