balgor

crangeon8214 with your interests UCI would be a very good match. You should come out for a fly out. Check out Don Saari, the man runs the IMBS and is just an academic stud, incredibly nice guy and is very willing to work with graduate students.

Hmmm, you should fly out to UCI for a visit, the department will reimburse you up to $500 (At least they used to). The department isn't in Madison's league with placements, but people who wanted academic jobs have gotten them. Also an admission offer here, guarantees you a slot in the heavily subsidized graduate housing. $500 a month for your own room in a 900 Sq Ft 2BR which includes cable + internet + utilitiles + parking. Its like receiving an additional 6K a year. The department is pretty friendly and our attrition rate is much much lower than UWM. 18 people in my entering class: 2 took voluntary MAs, 1 left for personal reasons and out of the remaining 15 13/15 passed their oral on their 1st or 2nd try and the remaining 2 still have another shot. I've heard at UWM attrition run 33-50%. At UCI, if they admit you they expect you to graduate. Living here is great, last weekend I went down to SD and went whale watching (saw 5 whales) and clubbing and next weekend I'm driving up the PCH to Santa Barbara, Monterey and SF for spring break. Well, I guess you can go to Devil's lake, Door County and the Dells..... Trust me as a former Midwesterner CA is soo much better.

Yup, I'm a 2nd year at UCI.

I heard through the grape vine that admission offers will be limited this year, due to funding cuts.

Hmmm, my failure rate for LD relationships is 100% (2 for 2). So, anecdotally I have to agree with that 90% rate. Then again my failure rate in relationships in general is 100%. A better metric may be to compare average time to failure (ATF). My ATF once a relationship went LD is 3-4 months, while in a "regular" relationship it is 18-24 months. Just another thing to be aware of before you head off to some far flung place for graduate school. However, it is super easy to meet new women in an academic environment. They outnumber guys at most schools 60-40.

Go to the best place that you have received funding from, which looks like UK in your case. Their placements are pretty good and their list isn't just a bunch of places that people have gotten jobs from over the last 30 years. I can't tell from the cherry picked list how good MSU recent placements have been, which is what you should care about. You have a 50/50 shot at graduating with a Ph.D. so assuming you have a RA Von-Neuman Morgenstein utility function you should take the insured option.

On spring break now, so I'd thought I'd drop my 2:2cents:. So far, I love it here in Irvine. Don Saari is almost like a fictional character in that he is almost too good to be a real person. Neumark is also a really cool guy and if you're into macro and you visit talk to Branch or Garfinkel 2 of my favorite profs here. So far, I haven't found the coursework except for Porrier's Bayesian econometrics class to be that challenging. I take off 2-3 days a week to go the beach, hiking/mountain biking, dim-sum, sushi, Vegas whatever you get the point the possibilities in LA are pretty much endless. I do have to cram for finals/midterms, but the beauty of a quarter system is that cramming works. The weather is doesn't need any more superlatives, but coming from the East Coast I don't miss my morning ritual of hacking my car free from its patina ice. The department is very strong in the applied micro fields (Labor, Political Economy, etc) and is aggressively hiring more macro faculty. If, you have any questions drop me a PM or reply to this thread.

Its an easy decision from an academic standpoint, go to Wisconsin. Unless, you really really hate cold weather or need to live in a large diverse city (Madison and yes I've been there, is a nice small city, but it is not diverse and the "culture" seems to be centered around drunk undergrads who make up 20-25% of the population during the school year). I personally would never fo to school there, but I'm from a big city on the east coast and after doing my undergrad there I just hate the Midwest.

What are your other options? If, you have a decent funded option from elsewhere take it. Wisconsin isn't known for its faculty support to start with and the faculty support for an unfunded student will be zero. I'm just have anecdotal evidence from my department and the department I did my masters in, but unfunded students have a much higher attrition rate than funded students and given Wisconsin's already high attrition rate I'm guessing you have less than a 1 in 3 chance of getting funding your 2nd year.

Probably not, looking at my copy of MWG it says "International Edition Not For Sale in the US.

Good, keep those evil Political Scientists and there new fangled ideas like Post-Modernism segregated from our sacred bastion of Neo-Classical Economics. (Note: Going to Irvine b/c they have a Political Economy track)

You'll do fine, I got into a few top 50 schools with funding and a couple of top 30 programs w/o funding with like a 2.9 GPA. My math GPA 3.3 econ 3.7 and I went to a top university not exactly known for its grade inflation. The top 10 are probably out of the question, so realistically you'll most likely get into a top 20 w/o funding and a top 30 w/ funding.

Wow, indifferent professors who can't teach, international grad students with a poor grasp on English.... You just described 50% of the graduate programs in any mathematical field.

If you are an American, fill out the FAFSA and max out your subsidized loans which are interest free as long as you are in school. Come on can you turn down interest free loans? Even the unsubsidized loans have extremely low interest rates and easy repayment terms. apropos, you'll be living in West Lafayette, it has to be inexpensive there and it is not like there is much to do there anyhow. Then again I heard they raised the state fair ticket prices for 2008. You'll probably be able to get by on your stipend.

Yo! Future Anteater here too!