betahat

Don't worry - Christy is very nice, friendly and easy to talk to. She'll make you feel comfortable and help with the conversation. If you really get stuck ask her how W&M has changed since she was an undergrad or what advice she'd give to someone just starting out.

Don't worry about. Most US programs are familiar with UK grading. I would just write a paragraph explaining UK grades (e.g. what they are out of, what percent get distinctions, that the scale is distinction/merit/pass, etc) and paper clip it to the envelope containing your transcripts. If the online application won't let you proceed without enterring a GPA, email the graduate assistant to find out what they would like you to do.

Two thoughts: 1) While not ideal, you're math background isn't horrible. You did very well in multivariable calc/linear algebra course you took. I might try applying to PhD programs and tell them that you took as much math as you could and are planning to take real analysis in summer school before enrolling. You might be okay... The letters don't need to be written until December, so I'd go over to the econ dept, tell them you're really interested in grad school and offer to work *for free* 8 hours a week (a prof may be impressed by the initiative and offer to pay you anyway, or at least hire you even though he normally doesn't hire undergrads). Don't email them, bring your resume and transcript and show up at their office hours. 2) I believe the World Bank and IMF hire recent graduates (their application deadlines are very early!). Visas are not an issue if you work for them. Both are in Washington DC very close to George Washington University (a good place to take math) and provide the opportunity to get to know good economists who can write letters. 3) I believe student visas allow you to work part time in the USA. I've heard of overseas students enrolling in something like the Harvard Extension school for courses, using that to get the visa and working 20 hours a week as an RA for a (Harvard/MIT) professor at the NBER. Although you want to line up the RA job BEFORE coming. 4) I know someone who got a part time job as a nanny (to get the visa + somewhere to live + some money) and then enrolled in classes in a local college. Although you have to be very careful going this route because some families are really horrible and exploit a lot. That said, educated western European nannies with good English are in very high demand... 5) If you can't make the USA work, I'd try to get a as an RA job for a year somewhere like IFS - they have good researchers and many LSE/UCL profressors are affiliated with them (they'd be good people to know for letters). Good luck!

Thank you for the aggregate information on Chicago, but it why doesn't Chicago publish it's full record of placements each year (i.e. a list of where everyone who was formally on the market went) as many of it's peers do? From the aggregate we can tell things like: 51% get academic jobs, 28% of academic placements are in top 20 schools (14% of total placements are top 20). So on average around 3 of Chicago's students get a top 20 job each year. However, we can't see if those 2-3 good placements are always in the same field, which schools in the top 20 Chicago's placing at, or the kinds of academic jobs the other 70% are getting. We expect any top department to do well by it's top students. What happens to that next bracket of students (top 10, but not top 5)?

It depends on the school. If they have a paper submissoin system (i.e. your recommenders or you mail the letters), it's probably not a big deal for the person organizing them to add one more page to the file. However, in some of the electronic systems you only get codes for 3 people to electronically submit letters. You could always send the 4th in the supplementary materials (and you may want to do that anyway to make sure that if they only read 3 it will be the 3/4 you most want them to read. If you're really concerned about a particular school this is a good question to email the grad assistant or whoever they list as the department contact for application questions.

Individual faculty tend to have strong personal preferences about things like this. If you're currently in grad school, then you should ask your advisor or the faculty you may end up working with. Faculty have generally told me that it depends on why it isn't of the caliber of things you expect to write later. If it's a solid answer to a less than earth-shattering question (ie it's not going in a top journal because of the sexiness of the question, or the lack of a fancy answer, not because there's anything wrong with the paper), then it's okay. If, however, it's going in a second tier journal because it has some flaw that a referee/editor of a top journal would catch and object to, then it will hurt you.

Since a masters is *not* a pre-req for beginning a PhD program and many go straight from undergrad, I don't think that will be an issue. The bigger issue is that when it's time to ask for letters (early Nov at the latest) the faculty at the new program won't really know you and they won't even have first semester final grades... Asking them to wait for final grades is the same as asking them to write it over Christmas. That's a lot to ask of someone who you don't know very well and may not go over well. Anytime you have a weak spot (e.g. undergrad grades), the letters become really important b/c the schools will be looking to them for assurance that the issue has been overcome and that you really are a good bet.

I'd add UC Davis (esp if one of your refs is from there) and Brown. If your intersts are related to poverty, development, labor, etc they're stronger in those areas than their overall rankings. Maybe U of Texas, Austin as well. You may not have some of the flashy bells and whistles, but you have a solid profile. It can't hurt to apply to a few higher ranked schools (something in the UCLA/Michigan range). Worst case scenario you get a rejection letter. Admissions are quirky and you never know, they might decide to take a chance on you. Good luck!

Yes and no. Yes: When faculty write letters of recommendation they often say something about the school's grading scale if they are a harsh grading school. For example: "Gauss has taken a very challenging course load and earned a 3.5; quite an accomplishment at a school where courses are generally curved to a C+ and As are rare." This also comes through when faculty are asked to compare the student to others. No A: When they are comparing you to another applicant from your school you both had the same harsh grading, so if that student has a higher GPA they will notice. So, if the school has a rule of thumb that says admit the best student 2 applicants from Chicago, it will matter. No B: Sometimes the university has minimum gpa requirements for admissions and fellowships, etc. To my knowledge, these aren't scaled by school.

The key is to do really well in whatever you do since adcoms may give it more weight than the rest of your transcript (since you've been out so long). If you can take grad micro at a top dept and think you'll do well in it, then I'd do that. Holding your own will show you can still do the math (being able to survive grad micro, especially the GE part, is one of the main reasons they require the math!). Also, most programs will let you test out of micro when you get there if you've taken it before and it's similar enough across programs that people tend to be sucessful in doing that. That said, if you're still in touch with profs from a top dept: ASK THEM AND DO WHAT THEY SAY NOT WHAT PEOPLE ON THIS BOARD TELL YOU!!!

I'd be most worried about what the faculty at my school would think if they found out... especially since most of the faculty won't really know you in any other context yet... Not mentioning the name of the school won't be enough to make it anonymous. Any regular reader will have a pretty good sense of what part of the country you're in etc, and anyone from your dept or familiar with it will probably notice having the same exam that week and other similiarities. Once one person in your dept finds out about your blog everyone else (including the faculty!) will know about it pretty quickly...

Given the recent events at Penn my sense is that this is a real post, and even if it's not, others from that school will probably be facing these issues. First, if either of the unavailable profs wrote letters for you in the past, you may be able to use them. Faculty often keep previous letters and then just change the first paragraph if you ever ask for another. You should talk to the former secretary of the profs and see if there's a previous letter in the files. If there is, the dept may be willing to send it with a note explaining that the letter was written for a different purpose. The indicted faculty member is still well respected as an economist and while folks are disturbed by his alleged recent behavior, a letter from him would probably still be valuable. In terms of the Nobel laureate. If he still has office hours listed, it's probably worth a trip to drop by and ask in person. He may just be swamped with email and not have noticed yours. If that's not possible, a hand written note (reminding him who you are, explaining what you've been up to since graduating, and asking for a letter or rec) is less likely to be ignored than an email. Another option is to email/call his assistant, explain that you're a former student now applying to grad school and wondering what the best way to get in touch with him is.... Finally if these don't work. You should go see another prof in the dept who gave you an A or the director of undergrad studies. Bring: your transcript, your papers/exams for that class AND other good ones, CV, etc. Explain who you were planning to have write and ask them if they could write one based on a chat with you, your performance in their class and the materials you brought. In my experience faculty/depts will go out of their way to be helpful to good students who want to do PhDs and will be well aware of the situation. Good luck!

I can see the value of doing an Msc at LSE after you graduate, but I can't see how summer school there would do any good (especially since you said your school is known to their admissions folks). The summer school is incredibly expensive, each session is only about 3 weeks and I've always gotten the impression that people think of it as an excuse students use to get their parents to send them to London for the summer...

You'll probably have much better choices if you do a 1 year masters in London first (assuming you do well on the first round of mock exams before Chirstmas). Also if you do well overall in the masters you can usually get admittance to the school's econ PhD and then the year isn't "lost." Of the departments you listed: Brown and Boston U. are probably the best for your interests. BU's star students seem to place well (http://www.bu.edu/econ/graduate/placements/index.html). I think UMASS, Amherst might be a heterodox department, but I'm not sure. Does anyone else know?

NEVER take any advice you hear on this forum over the advice you get from an MIT prof who knows you. They actually know what everyone here is giving their best guess about. That said, here's some advice to take with a grain of salt: 1) The "rules" matter a lot less when you did your undergrad at a top 5 and faculty the adcom went to grad school with are in a position to assure them that you're a good bet and to compare you to students at a top 5. 2) Print-out the course description of the LSE metrics course and enclose it with the transcript 3) If prof who taught the grad class is one of your letter writers, ask him to emphasize the technical nature of the course and that you'll survive the first year courses 4) Have a chat with the letter writer closest to you. Tell her that while you can clearly do the math you are concerned that you haven't formally taken that many courses. In addition to getting her advice, she'll now know that she may need to send an email to a friend or say something in her letter. 4) Apply to all the top 10 programs. 5) Also apply to the 1 year MSc in economics at LSE. You can get permission to take the PhD level metrics course and possibly micro, they'll demonstrate math as forecasting your ability to survive those classes is the point of the math guidelines in the first place. The courses are similar almost everywhere and most PhD programs will let you test out of them if you've already taken them so the year won't be entirely "wasted." Also, your MIT profs can make the introductions and help you get an RA job with one of the devo people there. You may decide later to skip LSE and get an RA job at the NBER and take math classes (or PhD micro) if you don't get in to a top PhD program, but that can be arranged in April whereas you should apply to LSE earlier than that if you may want the option. See if you're eligible to apply for the "Friends of the LSE" fellowship and the Gates Fellowship (it may only cover studying in Cambridge, but it's presigious and they'll like an MIT person who spent a year as an RA in a developing country). 6) Remember, it's all about option value. You don't have to decide what to do until April and you won't know how you'll feel until you know what the choices really are. Good luck!!!

Have you asked UPenn if they'll let you defer admission for 1 year since you have this nice fellowship you'd like to use? Some programs will let you defer if you want to use the time for something prestigious. That said, if you want the PhD go to UPenn (you can list the prestigious LSE fellowship on your CV with a note that you declined the award). The only caveat is that if you want to end up in Investment banking or consulting or business in general, then you can do that with the LSE masters and don't need the Phd (1-2 years instead of 5). While you could certainly leave UPenn after 2 years with a masters in econ, the finance Msc from LSE might actually be more useful in the business world. Is there a specific concern you have about going to Penn? What's making you hesitate?

Pre-PhD they generally pay $25k-$40k, have 9-5 hours, some will pay for you to take a class at a local college, and they generally have good benefits. Many think tanks will require a 2 year commitment. You generally get hired by the researchers/small group of researchers you'll be working for directly and fit is very important. These think tanks have many different types of researchers ranging from first-rate quantitative economists to very qualatative policy work and lots of non-economists. To be most useful for getting into grad school you really want to work for an economist whose opinion and work is respected at the places you'll be applying. Post PhD it's harder to get hired (than pre). Many of them have their own equivalent of the tenure process, although the ability to get grants and contracts is weighed more heavily than in academia. Some, such as Urban Institute, are almost all "soft-money" (ie grants and contracts) and after a few years expect you to be have enough grants and projects to pay your salary and eventually your RA salaries as well. At the ones with more endowment style funding, it's important that your work doesn't upset major donors too much. In general, policy relevance, good verbal/people skills, being able to sell your research to a non-technical audience, etc are all crucial for getting hired at a think tank.

Berkeley hasn't posted this year's placements, but from what I've heard they did well (ie positions beginning Fall 2007). I know they have 2 Michigan Econ, 1 Wharton, and 1 RWJ at Harvard. Anyone hear of any others?

Accept LSE and then apply to the US programs in the Fall. If you get in you can decide to stay or go. If you don't get into your dream program you're already in LSE's program and they never even have to know that you applied. If they want to keep you and you want to stay the US offers will put you in a good position to negotiate for better funding. I know several people who applied to US schools while in the first year of the MRes and are now in top 10 US schools (partly because they wanted to get into a US school and partially as insurance because LSE has been known to cut their PhD classes). LSE is very Chicago-esq, not just in the class cutting, but also the star-system philosophy (ie we decide early who our top few students are and invest in them and everyone else has a hard time getting advising, etc). Most US programs will let you test out of micro and econometrics (or give you credit outright) so you probably won't have to repeat most of the coursework if you do move to a US program. Good luck!

Be careful. Erik Eyster (listed on Oxford's placement page 2003) did NOT do his PhD at Oxford. He did his PhD at Berkeley (Rabin's student). He did a post-doc fellowship at Oxbridge. I don't know of any US schools that count the academic jobs of their post-docs in their placement pages...

Funding is extremely difficult for overseas student's in LSEs MRes/PhD who don't get gauranteed fellowships from the department BEFORE they begin the program. Since there's an extremely high cost to switching PhD programs, once they have you there, there's no incentive to give you money next year (when they could give that money to a student who they are trying to get to come). So, if you don't get funding now, I imagine it would be hard to get something from the Department later (although I don't know for certain). That said, the student the dept. ranks first for the ORS (3 years of overseas tuition) usually gets the fellowship. Still you won't even be able to apply for that until next winter. TA-ing will not help you that much. Unlike in the USA, you don't get salary + tuition when you TA at LSE. Instead they pay you a flat amount for each section you teach and do not give you a tuition waiver. The maximum teaching load is 5 sections for the year (ie teach the same thing 5x each week). The salary for that won't even cover tuition. Summer school teaching is fairly well paid (although it kills your summer research), but there are very few slots and professors give them to their favorite students. Finally, after the first year you can TA the one month stats-math camp which is also very well paid, but takes over the month of Sept. RA-ing is paid by the hour (and not well paid, there's a set pay scale) and like teaching you do not get a tuition waiver. Most professors do not have large research budgets for RAs and use them much less than profs in the USA.

What do you think LSE uses the money for???

Table 1 in Athey, et al (http://www.aeaweb.org/annual_mtg_papers/2007/0105_0800_0603.pdf) has the average PhD completion rate (not just quals) for students admitted to the top schools (including Chicago) and the percent of ALL PhD completors at those schools getting top 20 jobs.

LSE has some good micro-theorists, but they're very traditional and except for Eyster (who is very young) don't really have anyone behavioral. Looking at their course offerings it doesn't look like they even offer a field in behavioral economics...

I think anything of a clear monetary value (e.g. gift certificate) is very awkward. How about a thank you email/note now and then before you graduate a small thoughtful token gift (e.g. a plant, a box of chocolates, a friend gave a prof who liked tea a giftbox of really good teas, etc).