economistsdoitwithmodels

Please recontact the schools and ask for a deferral, don't throw 2 top 5 admissions away.

BrothersKaramazov lady, I will disagree with most of the people here. You should not take any more math. Take some history courses, political science, and perhaps even literature. I have been shocked at reading the profiles of most people here as sometimes it seems redundant to even go to graduate school - they have done most of the coursework already. Try to work on your intuition, pick up running, build little scale models of Star Wars spaceships, learn a dead language like french, or a useful one like spanish, or just read the Economist and the Financial Times a couple of times a week. That will do wonders not only for your application but also for your life. And you might think I have no clue of what I am talking about, but I was lucky to go to a top 5 school for undergrad and lucky enough a second time to get into another top 5 for graduate school. In my opinion, and in the opinion of most of the profs I have met and worked with, applicants tend to give way way way too much weight to math courses and forget than in the end, economics is a social science and not just a dumber cousin of mathematics. Good luck with your summer and your MA!

Marco.... then your friend should try to apply to the PhD program in Public Policy at JFK school of gov't at Harvard or even better, just take some evening classes at the extension school to get the name on the diploma. I am sorry for the sarcasm. However, the thread is a little bit frustrating and your friend's arguments are embarrassing for all of us who are foreign. Don't get me wrong, I think it is totally legit to want to get a top 5 degree. Whether it is for the quality of the program or for the doors the diploma will open or even for the tasty food they serve at the seminars, if someone is obsessed with a big name it is a matter of preferences and no one should judge someone who would want to transfer from great programs like Brown or Rochester to MIT or Princeton. However, claiming that a PhD from Duke will make it almost impossible to get a job in the government of a foreign country and THAT is why you want to transfer is - in the words of the great Jesus Quintana - laughable. In any very poor country PhDs in economics - be it from Chicago or from the University of Green Midgets - are scarce and having one gives you a great advantage when it comes to getting government jobs. I am from a small and poor country and although my friends probably think that Duke is a brand of deodorant and that Yale is a company that makes Lift trucks, the people that hire researchers for the Treasury or the Central Bank have a really good idea about the relative quality of the programs. And it is true, they don't care that much about your research and for that very reason they just want someone who is equipped with the technical tools to forecast stuff or do some sketchy econometrics to support this or that policy. And even if it was true that the Thai bureaucrats only hire top 5 PhDs and rather not hire anyone than hire a Duke Phd, why the hell would your friend want to work for dumb people like that?

Econapplicant, I deferred for a year at Harvard. I just told them I was feeling a bit burnt out and wanted to spend a year reading fiction, traveling, and doing a bit of research. It was a great decision. Talk to a professor at Princeton about it. Carefully explain your reasons and say that you feel burnt out and even though you have no doubt you would get through the first year, your ability to enjoy your experience would increase considerably by having a year to give some perspective to your undergraduate experience. To strengthen your application you should work for a professor at the school you want to attend or the NBER in Cambridge. However, I would really advise you to get away from academia and just read the Economist and the Financial Times while you are away from Lagrangians and all that stuff. Regarding the possibility of reapplying I would advise you against it: Princeton is a fantastic school and reapplying might be risky. Those are my two cents. Enjoy your time off if you end up taking it.

All the Harvard dudes with the MS in Stats where undergrads at Harvard and had advanced standing... that's when you get the MS in statistics. I actually don't know anyone who has gotten the MS in Stats while they were on the Phd program.

Barcelona is awesome but UPF was a formal prison!!! it is as an ugly building...

Pepperdine without a doubt

It's a no brainer... go to LSE I was an undergrad at a top 5 and will get my PhD at a top 5 and most of the smart kids that I know that wanted to take a break from the US for a couple of years went to LSE. They all agree that the Mathematical Economics degree gives you a great background that will allow you to dominate all the technical skills you need to succeed in the coursework of any PhD program and also to do great research. Good luck.

Econ 2006... also keep in mind that that particular Harvard grad finished the program in 3 years so she is indeed an outlier.

I disagree with PCG when she/he says that famous profs are not the best letters. Famous professors almost always place their students very well. You should email several of them directly and ask them if they need a full time RA. I am really being serious. Your profile looks great and many profs at top 10 universities - and at the NBER - hire post-grad full time RAs. I see no reason for someone with your resume not to land a good job as an RA - act quickly as many profs. also hire full time RAs for the summer months. That would be a lot better than taking more courses: you have already proved yourself in the classroom. Good luck.

Given that your undergraduate institution does not have a well-recognized economics department, it might be very hard for you to get into a top 15 program right away. However, besides taking real analysis and a bit more math and doing well - as other people suggested - you should consider taking a year off. Working as a full time RA for a professor at a top 15 institution, at the NBER either in Cali or in MA, or at any Federal Reserve Bank would increase your chances of admission significantly. Besides giving you the chance to prove that your education enables you to do good research, it would give you 1 or 2 letters from well known economists. Good luck.

I think it depends in his ec classes. Graduating summa cum laude requires almost a 4.0 which at Harvard is very hard to get. Now imagine one of his economic courses was graduate micro and he got an A in it. Does it really matter he only took calculus? Furthermore, there are a couple of math courses that only the top kids at Harvard take that teach metric topology, linear algebra, multivariable calculus, ode, and some analysis in one year. If you get an A in that class you don't really need to prove yourself any further. In addition to that, everyone who says the letters are important is absolutely right. Writing the best thesis at Harvard is also a huge deal and any hot shot professor would be happy to sponsor a kid like regardless of how many math courses he took.

I think another advantage of Harvard over MIT is the quality of its other social science departments. The sociology, political science, and psychology departments at Harvard are remarkable and attract very smart graduate students. Even though the two schools are physically close, it is very likely that you will end up working with your fellow students and with faculty from your own department. And given the quality of its faculty and the excellence of the rest of the departments in the university, I think Harvard is a better choice.

I agree.... Rochester beats Duke and Brown.... good luck

The elegibility for funds is indeed limited. I agree that this could lower the chances of admission. However, the most important determinants of whether you get into a school or not are your GPA and lors. And when it comes to those, an international student who got his BA at the US is compared to the rest of the US applicants and not to the rest of the international students.

I am an international student who got his undergraduate degree from a US university. According to my professors, every student in my position, was considered a domestic applicant when considered for graduate school.

europeean.... barcelona y so, so, so, so much better than new haven that the adcom at yale did you a favor. You should send a thank you note.

When you say that the benefit of keeping your application in play is 0 because you know you are going somewhere else, you are assuming that you don't get a benefit from receiving a fat envelope in your mailbox (ahhh, everyone loves getting their egos fed by offers and letters of praise from professors)... furthermore, besides the marginal benefit of getting in, there is also the benefit of using your offers in lower ranked scores to negotiate a better deal with the schools want to attend.... therefore, you don't pull it.

Unfortunately, they notify everyone at the same time. However, I do not know how the wait list works.

Who's paying for it all? Maybe in public universities discriminating against foreigners makes sense. I do not think it makes sense for private unis. The endowment of private universities comes from donations of alumni and also the state through research funds. To maximize donations, I think it makes sense for the university to accept the applicants who are more likely to succeed and donate money, regardless of their nationality. To maximize the inflow of research funds, it also makes to accept the best and brightest regardless of their nationality. Why? Because public funds to boost research go to the places that can make the most out of them and those are the places with the best students. Having said that, international students at most colleges comprise less than 10% of the student population and although the percentage must be greater for graduate programs, I don't think that they are a majority when compared to americans. You can also make several other arguments in terms of the benefits of having the best international students at US universities. Not only in terms of giving the US the lead in terms of research but also in terms of contributing to the education of US citizens. A high quality foreign student can positively influence his US classmates and make the most out of the tax paying population's dollars invested in universities. The same for teaching undergraduates, helping US students get better acquainted with other cultures, promoting a better image of the US abroad, etc. I just think that there are plenty of arguments not to favor americans over foreigners in - at the very least - private universities if you want America to continue leading the market for higher education.

antichron, will we be classmates? would you go anywhere else?

Harvard notified on a monday last year and I think MIT did so in the middle of the week but I can't remember very well.

congrats on the acceptances... the fellowship does not come on the email, it comes later when they mail you all the stuff. They give fellowships to everyone (different amounts but everyone gets support). And yes, they send an email to everyone admitted at the same time. Good luck!

congrats antichron, that's fantastic news.... as I said in another thread, Berkeley mails acceptances. Harvard and MIT email them, probably next week or the week after.

Regarding the profile of the person admitted that is not hard to believe. LORs are by far the most important component of your application. Furthermore, test taking abilities are not necessarily correlated with someone's promise as a researcher so a strong LOR from a famous person can make adcoms forget about subpar GRE scores or GPAs. I disagreee with the claim that publishing as an undergrad is tough. Many undergrads work with grad students or faculty at top universities and end up publishing as coauthors. Furthermore, economic letters doesn't have that much reputation.