apropos

MSU, like many other land-grant universities, has relaxed undergraduate admissions standards. They take more than 70% applicants. If your wife can't make it at first attempt, she'll probably be accepted after spending a year or so at a local community college (assuming she receives good grades..).

Quite honestly, I don't know which one is "safer." There are just too fews data points on both schools. I think they're probably about the same in this respect. Maybe you should just follow your interests and see where you would possibly fit better..

Nah, such large number of offers is usually given by schools that give lots of unfunded offers. Since Rice probably funds everyone, their yield rate is much better than 1/5.

Here is my 2c. I had offers of admission from UCI, Purdue, Colorado, Iowa State (all with funding), IUB, MSU, and TAMU, but was rejected by Rice, Virginia, UT Austin, UNC, and UIUC. I don't think that these outcomes necessarily have to imply the rankings or the level of difficulty of getting in (although, IMHO, except for Rice and TAMU, these outcomes coincided more or less with my personal preference relation at that timee). There is some randomness involved, and I suppose small departments that take only 10 students or so might look at your SoP and interests more carefully. Regarding how Rice (and Purdue) admissions work, I believe they won't make any offers unless the currently outstanding offers are declined. Since there are a whole lot of strong applicants who treat Rice as their safety choice. I suppose that a lot of offers are declined, and so Rice has to make additional offers. If you look at the record of offers from Rice on thegradcafe you can see that they were making some offers well into mid-April. This is different from departments like MSU or TAMU, which make an offer of admission to something like 50 people (most without funding) and expect about 20 to sign up for Fall semester. Once Rice or Purdue fill their class of (at most 10 students), they send rejection letters to everyone else (this happens in April or so). This is based on my personal experience and observations. I heard that last year 380 applied to Purdue's econ program (I was actually surprised by this number, I thought they should get less). If you're ready to enroll without first year funding, then I think universities that tend to make unfunded offers are a better safety.

They also have an assistant professor who studies business cycles.

Do you live close to those schools? I think you should visit all the schools you're seriously considering. This should make some things more clear. Of course, as you know, MSU is just in a whole different tier compared to your current options. Also, check their current course and seminar schedules to see what subjects are not active there. That should make it easier to reduce your choices. Ask the directors of admissions whether any key faculty members will be leaving or on the job market (by now this information should be available at least internally).

Yes, California's recent budget cut for UC could send a shock wave on the academic job markets. Blame the subprime crisis. Other states are possibly in the same situation since their budgets often rely on property taxes.. I wonder if the subprime situation is also affecting the job market for people applying for private sector jobs.

I just got an email that was sent to everyone in the economics department that announced that the department succeeded in hiring two senior metrics professors. Both of them were the school's top choices. They are Justin Tobias from Iowa State and Yong Bao from Temple University. Tobias is works in microeconometrics and Bao is a time series guy. We also have an assistant professor from BU hired last year who works in time series. The plan is to offer both field courses in econometrics every year (until recently, only microeconometrics was taught regularly). So Purdue econometrics is now in a good shape. Now I don't feel upset that I wasn't offered funding at MSU last year... I believe Rice still has 2-3 senior faculty members who focus on applied econometrics, time series and panel data.

I have heard from a Finance student that Purdue's finance department is heavily geared towards empirical issues in corporate finance. If that's what you want to do, then Purdue should be worth your consideration. When it comes to financial markets, they do have some professors who work in subjects like international finance, market microstructure, continuous time finance, and behavioral finance, but I probably won't be too far off from the truth to say that they have only one faculty member for each of these subfields. The Math/Statistics departments run a fairly active program in mathematical finance, with graduate courses and seminars, which could be a good resource for asset pricing people. One possible inconvenience here is that finance seminars are offered in alternating years. Next year it's financial markets, the year after that they'll teach corporate finance again, and so on. So in your second year, you will have no choice but take courses/seminars in corporate finance (and mathematical finance perhaps). I'd agree with pevdoki1. UMN's economics department has outstanding reputation within macroeconomics and financial economics. I'd be surprised if their business school was not on the same level. And while colder, Minneapolis probably beats living in West Lafayette.

I haven't talked to them about the admissions process. I was an applicant last year, and I could tell that our DGS was anxious to hear from me well before April 15th so they could pass my offer of admission to other people if they had to. BTW, Jack Barron, the director of graduate programs, is fairly accessible to graduate students. He, together with some graduate office staff take any interested graduate students out for a free lunch every other week or so where you can voice any concerns. Many professors, including him, also go out for a drink on Friday afternoons to nearby bars. Grad students are invited to come. (only first pitcher is supposedly free).

By the way, pevdoki1, given your interests and the offers, I take it you won't be coming to Purdue? If you're sure of that, it would be nice if you notified the adcom asap because I believe, based on my email exchange with the director of graduate program, that they try to pass the declined offers to other applicants.

Actually, I would say that those academic placements aren't bad for Clemson's ranking. Clemson does not even show up in US News ranking, and yet, on average years a bunch of departments that do show up there do not necessarily always get placements into universities like Ball State or University of Georgia. (both are research universities, and the later grants PhD in economics). A lot of schools that have only 10 job market candidates or less would generally consider their mission "accomplished" if they get just one placement into PhD granting institution. I know that schools ranked between 25 and 40 do not always manage that.

The way I see it, MSU and UIUC are graduate programs of comparable quality. So, a big difference in funding like you have would definitely sway me towards UIUC. In my case, I was choosing between Purdue, MSU (without funding) and some other schools (most without funding), and so I went to Purdue. I didn't not get funding off the waiting list at MSU. I did get a very good impression of MSU's department when I visited it last year. I'd say if you're interested in MSU, you should definitely arrange a visit, and if you conclude that MSU is your top choice and you are 100% sure that you will enroll with funding, then you should convey this information to the graduate program director.

pevdoki1, I don't know anything about Rutgers, but if you like monetary econ and get into Indiana, have a close look at that school. This department has a broad expertise in various subjects in macro, and in particular, among monetary economics people, they have prof. Leeper who is well known in monetary circles and I believe he edits a major journal in that subject. Regarding placements, they often place people into Federal Reserve banks, but placements into solid research universities seem rare. I visited that school last year and was impressed (but they didn't give me any funding..)

If I went to TAMU, I'd get a truck and a hunting rifle and go out to hunt like the guy from "No Country for Old Men" on weekends ...

Probability 1 sounds kind of incomplete. The adcoms will not notice that since they don't read course descriptions, but if you care about knowing the material well enough to take courses that assume prior knowledge of probability, you should probably take a course that also covers random variables, transformations, CLT, etc. Enough has been said about real analysis, just search the archives. It's very important to have it although there are strong applicants who get into very good PhD programs without it. In the end, it may also depend on who is going to teach your theory courses. At Purdue, Micro 1 and Micro 2 are both taught by mathematical economists, and yet they're so different in their approach. Micro 1 is taught in such way that all math you need is a working knowledge of multivariate calculus and optimization. Homeworks were mind-twisting, but they're rarely about math. Micro 2 is a different story. It's taught by professor Aliprantis who likes to prove and derive every simple little result very carefully. You will have much easier time in a course like that if you have taken a decent undergraduate real analysis course (e.g. something that covers elementary point-set topology well, you'll get to use much of it). Also, both of our first year Macroeconomics courses make references to various parts of SLP, which again has very mathematically rough parts, but I don't think mastering this book is essential to doing well in our first year courses.

If your school offers it, consider taking a more advanced course in linear algebra.

Wow, that's a lot of rejections. At least you did get some decent offers so far.

Last year, they were sending a steady stream of rejections and acceptances well into later half of March.

It looks like you can benefit from getting a Masters degree before applying for PhD. It seems like most students from China and Korea are taking this route. Consider getting a masters degree from a place like Iowa State, Eastern Michigan University, UIUC, etc or in China perhaps first. "The more applications, the better works" well if the bulk of your applications are sent to departments where you have a reasonable chance of getting in. If you send them to a department where you have little chance, sending more applications obviously won't help. If you want to reapply again, consider schools that are supposedly no more difficult to get into Iowa State. For example North Carolina State, Colorado State, U Colorado- Boulder, Washington State, University of Houston, Florida State, University of Kansas, University of Tennessee, etc. Good luck on the rest of you applications.

Actually, with the exception of a few selective and highly supportive departments, like say Berkeley or Minnesota, I think 50% yield is quite normal. This probably means that a quarter drops out due to academic reasons, another quarter leaves on their own, the rest graduate. 5 years to get a PhD is a huge commitment, specially to people who are already very smart and hold an undergraduate degree.

Looking at these numbers, it seems like we don't have it too bad at Purdue, specially after adjusting for the cost of living. After subtracting all the fees, it's about 15K/year before tax this year (assuming you don't have some kind of grant or fellowship which it seems like some advanced students may still get). Other schools probably increased their stipends since 2005 though.

The top 10 will certainly ax applicants with major holes in their application. The rest are probably a fair game for admission without funding (more realistically look at the schools below 25 on the usnews economics ranking) if your overall GPA is above 3.0 assuming you have a good LoR, good math course selection, GRE score, etc. Now, if your overall GPA is below 3.0, a lot of school won't even let you apply, so you should certainly raise it or obtain a masters degree first before applying.

Most of big 10 college towns aren't great (but not too bad either), not just U-C. I live in West Lafayette, have visited Bloomington and East Lansing, and talked to people who live in U-C. They're all basically similar in many respects, and I can't imagine Iowa City being much better or worse than this bunch. Any differences are marginal. The only really good Big 10 towns are probably Madison, Minneapolis, Evanston/Chicago, and perhaps Ann Arbor. On the bright side, crime is minimal, cost of living is low, and these little towns are fairly compact and well suited for college lifestyle. You don't need to get out of town to do any of your shopping. Most big 10 universities bring a good selection of cultural events to campus during normal academic year. Chicago is 2 hours away from U-C or West Lafayette. So, if you feel bored there, having a car could be handy. Living here year-round will probably get boring indeed, specially if you're single. I intend to seek employment elsewhere during summers.

There are rumors that Purdue might have some faculty changes (people leaving or joining faculty). I don't want to post additional details now because nothing is set in stone. However, things will be probably clearer a month from now, so I'll come back to post the details. Last year two senior professors left, Abrevaya(metrics) to Texas and Camera(macro) to Iowa, but the department hired only two new assistant profs to replace them (one from BU in metrics, one from Stanford, public econ), so I think what happens this year will be important to see where this school is heading (e.g. is it able to attract good senior faculty or not?).