philosophking

i'm attending umass which is unique because it is lower-ranked by most standards but is said to be highly prestigious in terms of heterodox schools. what do people think of this scenario? do you think i'd have a hard time getting a job if i'm looking for a nice liberal arts college? also, i'm wondering how your phd institution feels if you apply for other places after getting their MA if you've been admitted to their phd program. will you have problems finding profs from there to give you letters, terming you perhaps as a "traitor"? also, i've heard that along similar lines to what other people have been saying, if you go to one of those schools and end up ranked top or near the top of the program (in a sense, be the "star" of your class) then you still have great chances of landing a nice position. obviously this goes for any institution such as even MIT or Harvard, but i think the difference between no.1 and no.5 at umass is much bigger than say no.1 and no.5 at stanford, as both those students would probably still have stellar prospects

depending on where it is it could also turn into a great letter of rec. this is especially true for econ phd because i've read on this forum that it is preferable to have at least one math prof write you a letter.

how is structured vs. reduced-form econometrics a political issue?

UMass! institutional and theory

i am an american who was admitted without funding. i basically sent a letter to the dgs explaining my situation very nicely and that i would like to go but with considering financial options i could not. she replied saying there was little chance i could get funding. i did not have offers from other top schools though, so that may have been the reason for the bias against me. i'm not sure though. i have somewhat heterodox leanings too.

i don't know if you're asking with regards to this year or following years, but AIER has one, but the deadline passed for this summer.

hopefully going to the AIER summer program :)

keep practicing problems. problems problems problems. the hardest marginal difficulty is to go from a 790 to 800, where some additional strategies come into play, but to get a 750 i really believe you just have to familiarize yourself with the types of problems and take tests under real time

Hey everyone, I just received my admission notice from UMich's grad school this morning (8:30), even though I already knew I got in last week. Now I just have to find a way to get funding for first year :-D *so* happy about this admit...

does the size of your baguette matter?

do you think there is a bias in NSF fellowship awards towards more practical research programs? (aka was i stupid for applying for one and putting down that i'm interested in micro theory/game theory/institutional?)

I had a quick question about penn state-- it looks as though the trend is for them to do this in waves, offering different levels of funding at each wave. the first one was the 18k taship people heard about on thursday/friday, followed by a 15.5k/15k half taship (whatever that means) that people have heard from today. can anyone confirm this as an actual trend, and do you know if there will be a third wave and when it will occur?

i'm excited for you, good job!

I received mine yesterday

Here's the thread I created when I got my email: it also talks about what I did when I was talking to the grad secretary and stuff like that. http://www.www.urch.com/forums/phd-economics/65577-rejection-nyu-waitlist.html

do you guys think they emailed a lot/all of their decisions out?

i heard penn state was next week, like monday or tuesday. i heard this from the secretary who said the director got back on wednesday and they're on spring break this week.

huh. nyu is 15? i thought it was 5-10 with yale, columbia and those guys.

grahamcoxon-- thanks for the words of encouragement. coming from a tier 3 has been such a stress for me during apps and i really hope something pulls through because i am definitely overqualified for the undergrad institution i'm at. i got into michigan and it sounds like from asquare i'm gonna have to fly out there to have a chance for funding (which i'm almost completely committed to doing at this point, after having only one other admit from umass). i am so motivated to do phd work in economics that i would do anything at this point, lol. the email was indeed solicited, i emailed marjorie (marge?) and her email can be found on the economics dept.'s website. i thought she said something about a general email being sent out to waitlists/rejects on march 15 or around there, but i am not sure about this. good luck with your pursuits.

I wanted to update this to let other people know who may have a similar situation. First of all, Marge was really nice to talk to. She said my letter means I am on the 3rd of 4th wave of waitlistees. She said that I therefore don't have much chance of getting in. But because NYU is pretty much my top choice at this point, she told me that I should begin to contact specific faculty that I am interested in working with and let them know I am on the waitlist but that I am very interested in the program and working with them, etc. She said to be as *specific* as possible, meaning I'm going to be reading papers this weekend and writing emails early next week. I even contacted my letter writers and asked if they knew anyone or had every worked with anyone at NYU to see if something would pop up there. Overall, I'm not too hopeful but I am going to be hyper-prepared for anything, meaning tons of reading this weekend and praying to god. I'll probably be waiting until the 14th to make a decision now, though.

I have a question asquare-- You said you did not initially receive funding. What was the process you had to go through in order to get your "very generous" funding package? I am very interested in Michigan as it is a reach school for me with some nice heterodox leanings (I also got into UMass but realize it doesn't have the same kind of placement record). Therefore, I would like to know how I would go about looking for funding offers. Also, would you mind me PMing you with more detailed/personal questions about my specific situation? Thank you for your help!

ugh... i got in but apparently without funding. what am i supposed to do? this is like a top 20 school right? where would people rank it... i don't think it's worth it if i got into umass and i'm interested in heterodox, what do people think?

thanks for the encouragement. I plan on calling them tomorrow, and offering to send more information regarding my application if necessary. i'll post on this thread again whenever i hear new info... this could potentially be huge for me. i'm from a tier 3 schools but have very, very good credentials. we shall wait and see.

isn't this a little dangerous to do on this site? i'm pretty sure faculty from some schools look here occasionally.

yeah... i suppose the font staying the same confuse people, but that last line is indeed mine