Bayern

About the hiring, the department is actually planning on hiring two faculty members next year. As we are losing two tenured faculty members at UCSB, basically UW will try to attract at least one tenured faculty from somewhere else, and from what I have heard, a list has already been made. I have no idea about which fields the hires are going to be for. Given that we lost a couple for labor and metrics, my guess would be it that it will be for one of those fields. About the attrition, it hasn't been bad in the past years. Last year, current third-years, only 3 out of 22 left. Basically 19 is left out of 22 people. First time around many people fail the cores. So out of those 22 people, only 8 people passed both first time around. But given the later chances, 19 people made it through in the end. Our class year is pretty big, over 30 people, and that is why the fear that there may be higher attrition. But the pass rate of the first round of cores has been proportionate with the previous years. We will have to wait and see how the big class effect plays out...

Universities are usually lot more relaxed about the deadline for letters and transcripts. This happens quite often actually, so don't stress :)

In 2009, I got my first offer from a top-50 school on April 9th (which also happened to be funded), and the second offer came on April 13th. I am sharing this because, if offers do not come in for you in the coming weeks, please do not be disappointed; things can roll on until April so patience can be very handy. Good luck everyone!

Roughly, few weeks, but less than a month. Sometimes universities may even express it, or allow you the option of paying for a courier service, in which case it may be a matter of days.

Given your high CGPA, I would assume that you got very high grades in your math classes as well. Given your GRE and grades, you can definitely try top-20. You didn't mention how strong you expect your 3 letters to be, or whether you have potential research experience. That info can help someone to judge your profile and maybe say how competitive your profile will be for top-10 schools. A good idea for you will also be to look at profiles of past applicants, and where they got in - it is in the thread Profiles and Results 2010.

I had the same experience with Cambridge when I applied a couple of years ago. Basically they let me know in late April that I have been rejected, but I had already accepted an offer by then.

In 2009, I got my acceptance at UCSB in late March, so do not give up hope if you are not accepted in February.

And about the grad level math/stat course, it kind of depends on your purpose for taking the class. If you are trying to impress the adcom, then taking it Pass/Fail may not help that much. If your main objective is to prepare yourself for gradschool, then I guess it doesn't hurt. If your objective is both, then the answer may become tricky, but I think in general people would suggest on taking the risk and taking it not Pass/Fail. I do not know what kind of schools are your target, but graduate level math courses are not really a necessity for an application...

Auditing mainly means sitting in for a class, doing all the homeworks, etc., but not really enrolling for the class, so no grade is being assigned at the end of the term.

I did use the 'Relevant coursework' to list the important math courses. I also separated the professional experience from research experience. Under research experience I mentioned work at WBank, with professors, etc. while with professional experience, I just mentioned internships at banks or NGOs. I did this mainly so that I can write more details about the research experience, and not so much about the professional experience. As kipfilet mentioned, Top-5 school may be a good way to go.

Not an expert on this topic, but from what I have heard from senior phd students here at my university, they are applying to all the post-doc positions that are available, but not very hopeful of getting one given the bad market and level of competition. I can only share this experience, but I guess we are at a special time period where getting a job is difficult than usual, but I would agree with Nanashi, postdocs are usually quite competitive given so few are available.

I believe so. I am currently in a top 30-35 econ program, but we have a public policy phd program here, which is top 15. And to be honest, their work in applied micro is extremely interesting for me. However, from the feedback that I actually got from the people in public policy there, I will actually be better off staying in the econ program, rather than moving there (which wouldn't have been a problem). This will work as long as I can get my main adviser to be from the econ department. Econ brand name is pretty important here. As the saying goes, you can get jobs from econ to the applied fields, but it is lot difficult for the opposite to happen. This is basically what I have experienced, and it seems your objectives are not too different.

If you get into the main econ program, usually you can work with the applied people in the other departments, as long as you have someone to be your committee chair from your main econ department. It is usually likely, that the main econ program will be lot more prestigious than applied econ or public policy programs, so it best not to change your program unless you are absolutely sure.

Thanks untitled. I actually had no idea about this suit.

Repeating myself, and this is not a book that is on economics: Guns, Germs, and Steel - it basically describes how the world power is divided in the way it is right now. The book is written by a biologist who starts the description right from the evolution of human beings. Really interesting.