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As we get into these last few days, remember to take time for yourself. The treatment effect of program is extremely difficult to disentangle from your own personal fixed effect. We will all find a wonderful place where we will thrive and succeed. Deep breathes. Take it one day at a time. We got this!

I declined offers from Columbia, Duke, Cornell, BU, UMD, and Penn State, and told UPenn, Brown, and UW-M to take me off their waitlists. Hope I've been of some help!

Hey guys, I would like to thank you all for participating in this thread. This has been the most successful Sweat Thread of the last few years, and I hope that this trend continues in the next years so that future applicants will have a reliable source of information during the applications. Also, congratulations for surviving the application season, everyone! Just submitting an application is already a huge milestone. For those who received some acceptances, it's time to finally reap the benefits of your efforts. For those who were unsuccessful, life goes on (trust me, two years ago, I applied the first time and also didn't receive any offers. It felt like the end of the world. It wasn't.). I hope you all the best.

On this final day, I am wishing you all the best of luck. May waitlists move in your favor, may offers flow your way, and most of all may you begin the long road to a PhD in economics. We have all put in so much work to get to this point and don't let any result from today dissuade you from that. Congrats on getting to this point! Only the first step of many on our long roads ahead.

Got a dream offer, will soon give up an offer and couple of WLs where I was informed I was close.

If you are not gonna accept a Waiting list offer, please decline/let the school know. Don't wait to decline, it will help waiting list applicants.

PROFILE International Student from Latin America. I applied two years ago, so if anyone is curious, you can check my post in the Profile Results 2022 page. Type of Undergrad: US News Top 15. Lower for Econ (around 30) Undergrad GPA: 3.92 GRE: 170Q/163V/5.0AW - The GRE is noisy. I had a higher verbal score from previous years, but I decided to submit only this new version with 170Q. Btw, I had to take it a few times to get 170Q. Was it worth it? No idea, but once you are already going through all the effort of doing a predoc, you might as well cover all the bases. Math Courses: Calc I,II,III (As); Linear Algebra (A-); Intro to Math Reasoning (A); Real Analysis (A); Intro to Op. Research (A); Probability (A); Math Stats (A); Numerical Analysis (A); Intro to Math Research (A); Topology (A); Problem Solving in Math (A); Intro to Stoch. Processes (A); Math Meth. in Fin. Econ (A); Algebra (A) Econ Courses: Undergrad: Principles of Micro/Macro, Intermediate Micro/Macro, Stats for Econ, Econometrics, Monetary Theory, Game Theory, Advanced Macroeconomics. Senior Thesis (I/II). All As Graduate: Microeconomic Theory I (A-), Econometrics I (A); At top 5 Predoc: Financial Economics (A+); Macroeconomics (A - Didn't receive grad before submitting applications). Letters of Recommendation: Two well-known professors from predoc. One tenured professor from undergrad. All super positive (they all explicitly told me that). Definitely, the only important difference from my previous application. Research Experience: Two years working as a predoc for two Top 5 professors. RA as an undergrad for two years for undergrad professor. Senior Thesis. My thesis was not ready when I applied the first time, but now it was. Second most important difference from previous application, I would say. Teaching Experience: Math Grader + Tutor for two years Research Interests: Macro-Finance. For finance applications, I emphasized the finance part. Finance interviewers always asked me "why a PhD in Finance and not in Economics?", so this is a questions you must be prepared for. SOP: Looking back at it, my previous SoP was very bad. I believe that are two strategies you can follow: either you write a very detailed research project and portrait yourself as someone "who knows exactly what they want to do in the PhD", or you portrait yourself as someone "who wants to explore, but that have had a very good preparation so far". I chose the latter strategy, meaning that my SoP detailed the most important projects/topics I had encountered during my career, and briefly mentioned one or two topics I am eager to study during the PhD. RESULTS Economics: Acceptances: Berkeley, Stanford, Columbia, UPenn Waitlists: UChicago Rejections: Harvard, MIT, Princeton, LSE, Oxford. Finance: Acceptances: Chicago Booth, Northwestern, Yale SOM, NYU Stern, UCLA Anderson. Rejected: HBS, Sloan, Stanford GSB. Comments: The only major thing that changed in my profile was the predoc. Nowadays, the proportion of students that get straight into an Economics PhD without a predoc/masters is super small. The good thing is that, although I tried to avoid it, I believe I am now much better prepared to start graduate school than I was two years ago. Try to find a predoc program where you will work closely with your advisors (who are somewhat important in their fields), and in which your advisors' interests are aligned to yours (aka. they want you to get into a good program to say so). I was super lucky to get into an amazing predoc program in March (after getting rejected from most PhD applications I had submitted). Nowadays, almost all spots are filled in December. What would you have done differently? I sold all my bitcoins back in 2016... Seriously, nothing. I enjoyed my time in undergrad a lot, and I don't think that, as an international student, I would be able to emulate the offers I received this year had I done anything differently back in undergrad. Good luck to all future applicants, and remember that the application is extremely noisy. As my final words here in this forum: Thanks a lot for all the posts, messages, and replies I have read over the past 5 years. Urch has helped me a lot since I first started to dream about getting into a PhD back in my freshman year, and I hope future applicants will continue to take advantage from this amazing resource for many years to come.

I am so tired, please give up extra offers and just let it go. It is already 14th

PROFILE: Type of Undergrad: International Top 200, combined major econ, polisci and phil Undergrad GPA: 94/100 Type of Grad: econ MA in the same International Grad GPA: 95/100 GRE: 170q/164v/4.5a Math Courses: Minimal (dedicated "math camp" like course before grad school) Econ Courses: Practically first year phd cycle, all with great grades Other Courses: PoliSci/Phil Letters of Recommendation: 2 from professors I RA'd for, 1 from another professor I took a course with, all known in their fields Research Experience: academic RA (1y), Government (1y), public research institute NGO (2y) Teaching Experience: 3 semesters Research Interests: applied / labor SOP: I felt it was strong but don't think it matters one bit Other: RESULTS: Acceptances: Northwestern, UCSD Waitlists: NYU (finally accepted on the last day, did not send a video) Rejections: Harvard, MIT, Chicago (Griffin), Upenn, Columbia, Berkeley, Stanford, Yale, Princeton, LSE Pending: - Attending: NYU Comments: What would you have done differently? Should have also applied to business schools and not only econ departments but overall I'm happy with the results.

And, guys, if you already have a better option, ask to be removed from waiting lists that you are SURE you won't accept. This helps to speed up the process 🙂

With a lot of the top programs, they had minimal acceptances that they offered, but it appears many top programs (Stanford, Columbia, Yale, Princeton, etc.) offered many of the same people. When those people finally make a decision (and hopefully disseminate that information to the rejected schools in a timely manner), the waitlists will begin to move. This is all to say, if you have multiple offers and are waiting on waitlists to move, do everyone a courtesy and reject the dominated offers (i.e., choose one of the offers).

Updated with new info

I’d echo this. The program I’m going to next year I almost didn’t apply for, and it was last on my list, but after learning about it I genuinely prefer it to others that I had ranked above it at the beginning. Your preferences can change, even within a few months.

IMHO: Loan debt for sb like you, a student, is poison. Unless you have a rich family don't do it. From those two you have offers from choose the one that has better placements from your research areas and better professors in your research areas. Attend to your selected program super happily and tryhard for 5 years. If you cannot publish great paper(s) by studying in these two departments, you also couldn't with top 10/20. If you can, top 10/20 will amplify the success of your future academic career but you will still become successful from those two.

Congrats! Also, seems like WL for Stanford is starting to move according to GC. Maybe the ripple down effect will start soon. Fingers crossed for all of us!

It’s specifically Stanford and UChicago, I’ve heard — they have longer waitlists than normal, especially Chicago, and that’s screwing everything up.

Rejected my BC offer. Good luck to those waitlisted. Can people that are no longer interested in BU reject their offers? This would really help those waitlisted.

I accepted my offer and rejected the rest and high-ranked waitlists last month, good luck everyone!

Type of Undergrad: Internationally unknown Asian University Undergrad GPA: 3.83/4 Type of Grad: Top 10 US Econ MA Grad GPA: 3.93/4 GRE: 155+170+3.5 Math Courses: Calculus 1-3, Linear Algebra(ug+g), Probability, Statistics (ug+g), Real Analysis Econ Courses: Adv Macro+Micro, Adv Econometric, many electives (urban, development, international, public, game theory etc) Other Courses: Quantitative Social Science Letters of Recommendation: 1 prof from another university whom I did ra, 1 ra emeritus prof, 1 ap of my predoc Research Experience: 3 Teaching Experience: statistics, econometric, international economics Research Interests: Macro development/distribution, micro experiment, labor SOP: regular SOP Other: NaN RESULTS: Acceptances: BSE/UPF, Geneva, York, Stoney Brook Waitlists: UNC, Warwick, Notre Dame, Georgetown, BC, UVA, UZH, CEMFI, Bocconi, UC3M Rejections: UMN, NYU, Columbia, Upenn, BU, Rice, ASU, UA, UCSD, UCD, Duke, UW, UMD, TAMU, USC, PSU, TSE, SU, Bonn Pending: MSU, UPitt, SSE, Syracuse, Purdue Attending: BSE/UPF Comments: Really tough circle. I applied as many as I can to maximize the chance.

Might delete this later but here we go... PROFILE: Type of Undergrad: Top 50 US Undergrad GPA: 3.71 (3.9 Econ, 3.6 Math, 3.85 the last two years) Type of Grad: none Grad GPA: n/a GRE: 170Q/162V/6AW Math Courses: Multivariable Calc, Linear Algebra, Intermediate Linear Algebra, ODE, Abstract Algebra, Real Analysis, Statistical Data Analysis, Probability, Math Stats, independent project Econ Courses: Intermediate Micro/Macro, Intro Econometrics, Cross Section Econometrics, Mathematical Economics, Game Theory, some field courses, honors thesis Other Courses: A few CS classes, a handful of PoliSci classes Letters of Recommendation: Undergrad thesis advisor and two Fed economists I worked with. All three got their PhDs from top 10 schools. Research Experience: Summer RAship for a well-known public policy professor, semester-long internship at a think tank, honors thesis, two years of being a Fed RA Teaching Experience: I tutored pretty much every Econ class Research Interests: Broadly public and labor SOP: Felt decent about it I guess, tried to tailor each according to the department Other: I don’t check any diversity boxes, but I put a lot of effort into my personal statement anyway RESULTS: Acceptances: Minnesota, Maryland, Boston College, Rochester, UVA, Indiana, UCSB. All full funding. Waitlists: UCLA Rejections: Princeton, Chicago, Yale, Northwestern, Penn, NYU, Michigan, Wisconsin, Cornell, Brown, Duke, UCSD, BU, JH, USC, Penn State Pending: None Attending: Minnesota Comments: I feel pretty good about the way this cycle turned out. Getting the Minnesota offer early definitely helped blunt the impact of the later rejections. In terms of actionable advice, I guess I should mention that scrolling through past years’ profiles and the CVs of applicants I knew really made me feel like I wouldn’t get in anywhere, and it was only after I started talking with my writers that I got a (mostly accurate) idea of where I might land. So go talk to your professors. What would you have done differently? “Done better in undergrad” and “not gone to college during a global pandemic” are the easy answers, but I’ll spare you those and mention that I wish I had reached out for more RA opportunities earlier on in my college career, in order to immerse myself in research and start on the track towards grad school when beginning my coursework. I definitely think this would’ve opened up more opportunities down the road.

Yes, not getting any offer is truly saddening and hurting. They take candidates based on the applications they receive and can't take every excellent student that applies. My student this year with a similar profile as another one I placed in top 5 last year (i.e. similar or even higher GPA, near perfect GRE, 10 papers, research experience, etc etc, though different in some perhaps very obvious other ways) couldn't even get into a top 20 this year and was waitlisted at several top 30. It's very tough all round and the schools must make a difficult decision. If he had not applied to a handful of top 100 schools, that would have been the end - zero offers. If you're still interested in this PhD thingy, the best line of action would be to prep for next year and shoot for the places you believe you deserve, yes, and maybe even much higher place, but also consider some lower places that would fight to have you join them. A student told me this year that a certain top ~100 program promised to increase their stipend by a whopping 20K/year if only the student would ignore a top 50 offer to attend their own program, lol. For an international student, that is some large temptation right there. Anyway, you have a right to feel sad about this painful application campaign this year. I wish you a more successful outcome next year - if you choose to still apply. If there are any comma in your profile, this is the time to start patching it against next year applications.

I guess it depends on what you mean by "top schools," but I have heard the following (not necessarily 100% confirmed, though) Stanford, NYU, UChicago, Columbia, Duke, Cornell, and UW-Madison have made at least 1 WL offer Yale has said that they plan to release some more offers today No word on any others (i.e. Penn, Princeton, Michigan, Berkeley, etc.)

Fingers crossed that some waitlists move over the weekend!

Let me just add something from the other side: Econ departments aren't going to be offended if you decline. In fact, they will appreciate hearing from you as early as possible.

Apply for top 30/40 also. Even if you don't want to go to those programs, having some fully funded acceptances will make you feel much better. And who knows, maybe you liked one of them at the end and accepted it.

Type of Undergrad: International, SU which is top ~300 (US News), started undergrad architecture related, then switched to business (finance major) with econ too Undergrad GPA: ~3.6 Type of Grad: Econ MA (JHU), Certificate in Mathematics for Econ PhD (BAUM TENPERS Inst) Grad GPA: 3.98 GRE: 168q/158v/4.0awa Math Courses: Real Analysis, Linear Algebra, Differential Equations, Multivariate Calculus, Functional Analysis, Dynamic Programming, Stochastic Calculus, Measure Theory Probability etc, see list https://baumtenpers.com/course-curriculum/ Econ Courses: All from principles, intermediate, MA and up to PhD level Micro and Macro Theory as well as several other field level courses in economics. For the PhD econ sequence, see https://baumtenpers.com/course-curriculum/ Other Courses: Finance modules from corporate finance to financial markets, derivatives theory, etc etc. A handful. Architecture, building, science krapoli courses not so necessary. Letters of Recommendation: 1 prof from JHU whom I did some research with (hired me unpaid research assistant) and supervised me to produce 1 full research paper and contributed to another theory based research. 2 profs from BAUM TENPERS Inst who were coauthors for the theory based research. And another prof from JHU who taught micro Research Experience: From around January 2023 to the time I applied. Wrote a research paper under guidance from prof who hired me as unpaid RA and contributed his research with the other two profs. Less than the standard 2 years experience, but rich enough and goes well beyond data slamming and regressions. For one project, I was basically verifying computations in a proof to some macro-finance model to ensure the computations and solutions are correct. Did some regressions too, lol, basically perhaps ran 2000000000000000 regressions, lol Teaching Experience: None, so perhaps a big fat major weakness Research Interests: Financial economics, closely similar things SOP: Good enough, perhaps very good? Other: Did MA while simultaneously taking heavy math courses in the online program and also working to make ends meet, tough, which resulted in 2 bad math grades that eventually sank me, I think RESULTS: Acceptances: Rutgers, GSU, Fordham, forget now (turned down their requests to speak so didn't advance), Texas Waitlists: WUSL, a bunch of several others, perhaps Rejections: All US top 20 + UK top 5, one or more after doing interviews Pending: Attending: Texas Comments: Very hard year. I applied far, perhaps not wide, and target the very top places as some other good places I could attend. What would you have done differently? I would have done more serious/relevant math while at undergrad to give me time to focus on other things and save me the stress of having to take math as a master student. I would have not gotten 2 weak math grades when I did take the serious/relevant math that I took online (I was doing it while working and doing my MA), but I am glad I took those relevant math courses, up to 7 or so of them, and didn't have to pay an arm and a leg to take them as I was already paying 60K for my in person MA. Overall, I am ebullient with my outcome and think I took all the right steps and did all I could do, and I believe my outcomes are great given that it was impossible for me to get those fancy predocs anyway. If you are an international student who doesn't have serious math on your transcript, your application fees to a top 30 school are at risk of likely being a free donation to those schools. They will gladly take your money and ding you. There are easier ways to enroll for online math courses these days, and some of them are incredibly cheaper than you ones you all know of and are effective enough to do the job of making you competitive enough to get into a good program. Plus in my own case, the program didn't only provide online advanced math courses, I also took advantage of the mathy econ courses, PhD level, and the application support (essay, cv, reviews, advice etc) that the program provides. Also, I applied only finance, which takes just 4 out of 100000 applicants. I should have applied econ too Finally, the application period can be intensely rigorous, so please take care of your mental health while at it and it is better to not go it alone.

Let us forgive the forever waitlisted and forever ghosted. Good night.

To clarify - I got all of the official offers in the last hour. I have not been purposefully holding onto multiple offers for a long time. Now, I am just frantically trying to make a decision lol. Declined BU.

Feel free to make your choice. But if you choose BU or Duke please decline Wisconsin ASAP as it's my last hope. Have stayed up the whole night to wait for it. Thank you!!

One would only hope that all the close to 20 or more posters here have seen this Profiles and Results 2024 - PhD in Economics - Urch Forums and are getting ready to post their profiles and results there to help future applicants and keep this place lively like it was in our days, 2009-2010. Past few years have been unfortunate as people strategically avoided the thread. I hope/trust this cycle would be better.

Just got accepted off of my second-best waitlist. I have declined my other offers (including BU, Cornell) and requested to be removed from other WL (including UCSD). Good luck to everyone!

Oh, it was only a comment. I already declined all other offers and committed. I'm just staying around to collect info for my friends.

seriously wiring it down to the 15th? unbelievable.

finally got the NYU rejection lmao, what a joke to spread them out over weeks

Rejected Maryland and PennState this week. Good luck to people on the waitlist!

Just rejected UBC and Maryland too. Good luck!

Can people start sharing if they know about waitlists moving? It will hwlp with all our anxiety 🙂

This. Ultimately, for a given individual I don't think it hugely matters if he/she attended a top 10, top 20 or top 30 program. The median outcome even at top 10 schools is an industry job like Amazon these days... The biggest difference is basically "quality of life" during the PhD. Higher ranked departments offer bigger stipends, better facilities, and more research funding but not always better training and mentoring such as publishing with advisors.

I think they might be referring to people who have already 100% made up their mind (and no amount of funding would alter their decision). For example, someone who knows they are going to Chicago, but has not yet declined NYU, Columbia, etc.

I don’t think it makes much sense to choose a school that has worse advising because they have a higher rank. First of all, the US News ranking is a weird metric to use in my opinion, and if your goal is to do good economics, which it should be if you’re pursuing a PhD, then the school with better advising should be chosen every time.

I would just go for Penn if I was the case. Advising might be slightly better for UW but I would say it's not that significant enough to choose madison for it. Also Penn does have name value if things do go south.

Here is my take on visit days. I think they are invaluable, and I only attended online. I agree that the program structure across a lot of the departments is similar, but it is useful to hear directly from the faculty and the students. What kind of advising support is offered (can you meet with faculty regularly, do they back candidates going to private sector, what are they doing to improve placements)? What is it like living in graduate housing? What kind of culture exists between students and students-faculty? These are some questions better addressed in person or zoom, than over emails, in my opinion. Of course departments present their best version, so evaluate accordingly.

Last week of the cycle, LFG! If any of you are already declining offers, it would be helpful if you can post them over here 🙂

Go back and talk to your letter writers. They know you better than anyone here.

Were WL students invited to the virtual visiting day for wisconsin? Just curious.

They have two levels. The higher one is 36k for the first two years and 31k from there onwards. The lower one is 31k for the first two years and 28k onwards. I was originally offered the higher package but then it got changed to the lower one. You are entitled for summer funding from the end of second year. Teaching starts from year two and possible substitution with RAship is available from year three. I declined their offer already, so good luck to everyone on their waitlist!

To my knowledge, they have not yet sent them out. A friend of mine reached out earlier this week, and they said they were hoping to send more information out today (3/29).

I added some more info for additional schools that have been asked about (UC Davis, Virginia, etc.)

I have no idea - I just know that "at least some" of the people on the WL are. I.e. the 2 people I know personally who are on Stanford's WL have been invited to visit day and told they are "very high" on the WL. It's totally possible that everyone on the WL was told the exact same thing, though, so I just said "at least some" (could possibly be "all" but I am not 100% positive).

Madison's visit day is April 5th, so expect things to move a little bit after then.