Haha hey how do you know my fondness for sleep!
I agree that I was thoroughly impressed by NYU as well (caveat: this was my first flyout). As was said everyone is incredibly positive, even first years (the ones who were there anyways heh). And especially 2nd years!
They really really put off the impression that this is a place where student/faculty interaction is very much common and encouraged, and there seem to be many great avenues to present research informally among faculty and classmates. I was also really excited to hear about some of the field courses (in particular political economy - and how Persico, Lizzeri teach the sequence --> in a manner that seems very much in tune with the aspects of thinking about creative papers and getting into research).
I felt that NYU really really takes its training very seriously / rigorously and it seems Ok's math for econ II course is a big hit.
I think there was 1 girl who did not pass prelims? But in any case the failure rate is very low. There were alot of positives so much so that I was trying to think of some negatives. All I have is that:
First year is hard (fair enough)
You don't get offices in first year, and when you do they are shared offices (this I think this reflects the fact that this is NYC we are talking about, and space is hard to come by).
It isn't uncommon to take 6 years to complete your PhD (roughly half do?).
The econometrics 'presentation' was a bit lacklustre compared to the other ones (I think this may have reflected that due to circumstances a few the faculty were not available for it)
As you can see I am grabbing to find negatives. Program appears to have very solid training, and there appear to be many opportunities to get started with research, and discuss/present it among your peers/faculty.