HayakWasRight

Wow. Thanks, everyone :). I guess I have another thing to work on over the summer before "math camp".

To current econ Ph.D. students: have you been required to learn or have you even found use for LaTeX in writing math-heavy papers? Alternately, do you believe the Microsoft Word Equation Editor to be a sufficient substitute? None of my current profs use LaTeX, but none of them are tech-savvy at all either. Basically, would it be worth my while to learn to use LaTeX? It might help to know that I'm entering a Ph.D. program in Economics and Econometrics this fall. For those of you who are unfamiliar with LaTeX, it is a program used to write documents that require lots of mathematical formatting. If you have seen math exams or assignments posted online in pdf format, they were probably written using LaTeX or a variant.

I think, if anything, the Verbal section should always be placed ahead of the Quantitative section, with the Writing before the Verbal. Since so many people in the sciences get 800's, Verbal could be used to help decrease that number by attrition. I think just about all of us could get an 800 if we were in a relaxed setting. There's nothing in there that we didn't see in our first years of high school. But to see how well people will do after two hours of other examinations would give admissions boards a better idea of how students deal with pressure. Though personally, I'm against the SAT and GRE as they are currently structured. I don't see how scores based on 28 questions, 35 questions, and 2 questions (for GRE sections) can really tell admissions committees much about a student's qualities. The only reason that anyone misses Quantitative questions is that it has been seven years since we learned anything about geometry.

I should probably clarify the fact that I completely expected the rejection. When I received the email response (where she spelled my name correctly, I might add), I wasn't even phased. I knew it was a long shot and am perfectly happy with the program that I have selected. It just bothers me that so much is made about being very polite to everyone with whom we correspond, because the academic community is very tight knit and word of rudeness gets around, and then to be rejected in such a manner. If, someday, I become the Director of Graduate Studies at a university, I will handle things differently. There will be none of this "allowing even obvious rejections to wait until the very end" thing. Even low ranked candidates deserve to know their status so that they can spend more time considering their remaining schools or employment opportunities. I know they receive "many applications from qualified applicants", but I guarantee that there were some applications that they could have discarded back in December.

Here's mine, in the style of UCSD's rejection letter, though I do actually have a decent admit. Dear Graduate Admissions Committee, Your rejection of my application for graduate study in the Economics program, at the University of Whatever has been carefully reviewed. I regret to inform you that you have not been selected for rejection. A number of factors are considered in evaluating each institution. Please be aware that I received a very large number of rejections and many excellent universities could not offer admission. Unfortunately, I am only able to extend rejections to a limited number of qualified institutions. Thank you for your interest in my voluntary servitude for the next 5-6 years. An official letter has been posted on the rejection status page of your rejection letter at [insert link here]. I wish you the best in all your future attempted rejection endeavors. Sincerely, [your name here] Graduate Assistant (yeah, you're funding me too, fools!) Department of Economics University of Whatever, Nowhere, USA In terms of actually turning down offers, how do you remove yourself from waiting lists? I'm still waiting for a couple of schools and know that no matter what they offer, they can't beat where I'm actually going to go. I have a couple of low level admits to turn down as well, but, not to sound snobby, they should have seen this coming.

UPenn needs to get its act together. I was told four weeks ago that letters were to go out at the end of that week. Then, early last week, I was told that letters were on their way, but they gave me my electronic rejection anyway. So, today I finally received the actual letter AND THEY SPELLED MY NAME WRONG. My last name is a very common, American/English name, and they botched it. I guess it just hurts because they were my top choice and they couldn't even get my name right.

Based on a study I read, economics is supposed to have the third most competative applicant pool (toughest being physics, next being pure math). This means a combination of GRE's, GPA's, and other factors. As a demographic though, I can imagine econ phd applicants to be more obsessive than the others, simply given the nature of our studies. The more that people know about competition on the open market, the more worried they are likely to be about the relative strengths of their applications. The level of paranoia is raised because our friends and professors tell us how amazing our scores are, and then we come to a forum like this and see dozens, if not hundreds of more qualified applicants.

After graduation, I'll be joining Sam's Army at the 2006 World Cup in Germany. Then I'm going to come back, get a head start on semester 1 and try to find an apartment near South Bend by the beginning of August (pre-math camp). I also plan to catch up on all of the reading from which I've been distracted due to the thesis.

I think the way it works is that you should go ahead and accept the offer that you have in front of you. That way you at least have something. If you get an admit from your top choice after April 15, you have to get written dispensation from your second choice school before you can accept the offer from the other school. At any rate, best of luck to you. I'm pretty sure that this is the case, however the wording of the letters I've received seems to imply that the April 15th date is a committment date for funding rather than enrollment.

I've gotta agree with Economicus on this one.

I emailed the grad secretary earlier this week and got the unofficial rejection. She said that the rejection letters are in the mail and should be received by the end of this week. I already knew mine was coming, I just wanted to get it out of the way, so I could send an acceptance with a clear conscience. She actually sent me two emails. The first time she told me to wait, cuz it was in the mail. Then, about two minutes later, she sent me another email telling me that I was out. I guess she just felt bad for me or something lol. At least she was nice about it, so even though it was my dream school, I don't feel too dejected.

I dunno, to me that sounds like an academic death sentence. I'm guessing you would probably be black listed from the admissions process at any reasonably good university. They might even send "Phys Ed Masters Program" (and yes, such things exist) grad students after you.

I expect that just about all of us will have a steep learning curve when we arrive at our various destinations in the late summer. I think the key will be seeing what happens in the first semester of grad studies. Just like freshman fall has been the toughest for me in both high school and college, I expect this coming fall to be the most challenging academic time in my life to this point. However, just like we coped with those hurdles in the past, we'll get over the bump. Unlike most majors, where people go to grad school because they don't know what else to do, econ majors are in it because we have some sort of goal or focus that allows us to push through. I don't know about the rest of you, but I too feel a bit burnt out at the moment. I suspect that a large part of this is because of the stress related to the grad school application process. Since all of my applications were sent off by the middle of December, I've been playing the waiting game for nearly four months now (and am still in it to win it). I think if we had to wait until May, I'd snap. But once all of the decisions have been made, our diplomas are in our hands, and we can go our various directions for the summer, the burnt out feeling will pass. I know this, because I know why I want to go to grad school. I am confident that when the time comes, I will be able to step up to the plate just as I have before. My goal for the summer is to rebuild my motivation to work as hard as humanly possible. I guess my advice would be to sit down and really think about why you want to go to grad school. If you can't thoroughly convince yourself that grad school is where you want to be, then a competative program isn't where you belong. None of us can afford to go into this half-hearted. So really consider what you want to get out of grad school. If you find a reason, then the burnt out feeling will pass. If not, make room for someone currently on a waiting list.

The further I get into the theory, the more I am intregued by experimental and behavioral economics. In both my environmental economics and game theory courses, we used online simulators provided by Virginia Tech and UVA. These included varieties of the ultimatum game, rock/paper/scissors, hawk/dove, and others, along with a tool that allows you to customize the game for your class. I don't have the link, but I'm sure you can find it on their department sites. We've spent innumerable hours in our game theory class on these games and the writings of Bowles. Also, if you couldn't guess by my user name, we read a lot of Hayak as well.

Hey, I will be attending Notre Dame (Economics and Econometrics) beginning this coming Fall and my areas of interest are microeconomics and political economy. I saw postings for 5 tenure track positions, including a new chair. Their goal is to grow the department until it at least equals, if not exceeds the size of the Economics and Policy Department (which currently has 15 profs, I believe). This said, they're also supposedly changing their focus from heterodox to neo-classical theories with the aim of getting more articles published in mainstream journals. Allegedly, there's some sort of direct connection between a school's Economics Department ranking and that school's overall undergraduate ranking. My recommenders have been advocating Notre Dame to me, even over places that are currently higher ranked. Maybe I will see you in the fall.