PhD Admissions Next Year Covid-19?

[wheeter]

Will PhD admissions at the top 10 places be more or less competitive next year? As students of Economics we should be able to figure this out. Curious what other people think.

 

Couple consideration that come to mind

-Recession causes more applicants

-International Applicants may not apply this cycle?

-Funding constraints cause PhD programs to downsize cohorts.

[HistoricalEcon]

Will PhD admissions at the top 10 places be more or less competitive next year? As students of Economics we should be able to figure this out. Curious what other people think.

 

Couple consideration that come to mind

-Recession causes more applicants

-International Applicants may not apply this cycle?

-Funding constraints cause PhD programs to downsize cohorts.

 

1) You are making assumptions. Are we in a recession? Will it get better or worse? And if so, will this recession have a different effect on graduate applications?

 

2) International Applicants may not apply this cycle? How come? Didn't you say that recessions increase applicants

 

3) Funding constraints might mean less funding but the cohorts size might remain the size. Are we certain that funding constraints will occur? If so please provide evidence.

 

As a Economics Student, I think it's too early to make reasonable predictions. Especially during a time Economists can't even comprehend.

[dogbones]

From what I’ve seen in other threads, it seems like it may be more competitive next year, but ultimately that’ll depend on the percentage of applicants who applied this year who were able to find a program that is both sufficient for their needs and feasible given visa constraints...

[ahududu]

1) You are making assumptions. Are we in a recession? Will it get better or worse? And if so, will this recession have a different effect on graduate applications?

 

2) International Applicants may not apply this cycle? How come? Didn't you say that recessions increase applicants

 

3) Funding constraints might mean less funding but the cohorts size might remain the size. Are we certain that funding constraints will occur? If so please provide evidence.

 

As a Economics Student, I think it's too early to make reasonable predictions. Especially during a time Economists can't even comprehend.

 

1) I think we're definitely in recession, even last quarter the GDP saw a steep downward trend, let alone what is going to happen this quarter - literally nothing is open and running. I cannot even comprehend the negative percentage in GDP this quarter. Two quarters of negative GDP growth rate or more is the definition of a recession. During this unprecedented times, a lot of recent graduates from undergrad or master's will not be able to find jobs (let alone losing them if they have any) so they may have more incentive to do PhD since at least their time would not be wasted by sitting at home.

 

2) International students may not be able to come to US since they may be prohibited to enter the country in the first place. That would also decrease the # of applications but cannot predict how much.

 

3) You may be right about this but still it is a good question that can be debated so I don't know why you're so unwilling to even discuss about the possibility of underfunding.