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Palimpsest

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Everything posted by Palimpsest

  1. I think you make a reasonable point, jeeves -- that is, going into a PhD you have to be willing to work as hard as you can and still know things might not work out. Working through adversity is obviously going to be a big part of the next 5-6 years. However, the OP is at a point where taking real analysis is not just a matter of obtaining knowledge to be applied toward a future goal -- it's a pretty significant signal as well. The OP could be considering the future benefit of learning RA + possible benefit of doing well vs. the cost of time and effort + possible cost of a poor signal to adcoms, in which case a sufficiently high probability of a poor performanace could make it worth foregoing. Basically, my point is that I'm not sure it's an explicit fear of failure, but more a strong distaste for the consequences of said failure. At the same time, the OP could indeed do very well in this class. I think a lot of us have the habit of underestimating our ability and this can be a liability -- Harry Lime's comment has a large grain of truth to it.
  2. Yes, I truly pity those who picked Harvard this year. They're screwed.
  3. Greg Mankiw's Blog: Melitz to Harvard
  4. Resources for the Future - RFF.org, if you're in to environmental/natural resources.
  5. Profs are definitely knowledgeable about this kind of thing, but I also think that it can't be easy for them to keep up on/have good information about every move in the job market + placements for every top 10-15 school, especially outside their field of specialization. We also again run into the problem of distinguishing between quality of faculty and quality of grad training.
  6. PROFILE: Type of Undergrad: Public, Top 40 Econ PhD program Undergrad GPA: 4.0, Economics (Honors) and Political Science GRE: 800Q, 740V, 5.5AWA Math Courses: Calc I-II (AP test), Multivar. Calc (A), Math Stats I-II (A, A+), Linear Alg. (A+), ODE (A+), Undergrad Real Analysis (A+), PhD Real Analysis (Withdrawal). Econ Courses (PhD-level): Micro I w/MWG (A) Econ Courses (undergrad-level): Standard intermediate and field courses (A/A+'s), Intro Econometrics (A+) Letters of Recommendation: Were very strong I think. One from PhD micro prof./informal thesis adviser (Stanford GSB PhD), one from current boss (Harvard KSG PhD), one from well-known metrics prof. (Fellow, Econometric Society & ASA). Research Experience: RA for econ prof (lit rev.), Honors Thesis (Simple game theory application), RA at economic think tank (co-authored journal submission) Teaching Experience: Limited tutoring. Research Interests: Public, Energy/Environment, Development, Applied Metrics. SOP: Focus on learning more and more rigorous methods to work on the types of problems I've encountered in my job. Attending: Michigan (tuition waiver + health) Admitted, Declined: UMN($), UMD($), Duke($), UCSD(TA$) Rejected: Harvard, MIT, Yale, Berkeley, Stanford, NWU, Columbia, NSF What I would have done differently: I think I did all I could beyond going to a slightly stronger undergrad school 6 years ago -- sticking with grad analysis would have destroyed me as a person that last semester of school. No regrets at all, I went in thinking Michigan was the most likely outcome, and there you have it. Tough to turn down solid money from very good programs, but UMich felt like the best fit overall by far. For all the talk about randomness, my results were unbelievably coherent.
  7. Also, I think we're overlooking that no specific person is being asked for their age as part of a registration process or anything. The nature of this board is such that not posting on a certain thread is not interpretable as omitting undesirable information. If you don't want potential employers finding your age, don't voluntarily post it on the internet.
  8. Just talked to Mary (or another female Michigan econ dept staff member). She said hard copy acceptance letters are in the mail. I'm supposed to email her if it doesn't show up in the next day or two. BTW, she said the Michigan flyout is Friday, March 27.
  9. Has anyone that spoke to Mary heard whether emails will be going out? I got my admit online, but need flyout + funding details sooner than later. Condolences to those who weren't as lucky with UMich.
  10. Also check out Jim Boyd. He has a couple of really good papers outlining the concepts behind biophysical endpoints (sort of like final goods in regular GDP) as well as some more on the Banzhaf-esque price indices discussion. I think the problem with this statement "I know that it would be fairly micro-oriented for all of the numbers that are compiled into natural capital, but I would think that once you compile those (probably from some kind of secondary data) that the actual assessment would be more macro based," is that we are really far from that happening. I'm actually working with Jim right now starting to compile some secondary data. Basically, we need to figure out what kind of data we have, and what kind we need to be collecting in consistent time-series. Jim said it took 80 years to really figure out GDP, and we're several decades away from green GDP, but someone has to lay down the groundwork. BTW, the Costanza $40 trillion estimate is truly an abuse of ecosystems valuation and widely panned in the environmental economics community.
  11. my friend already had UCSB contact him about a missing test score report. just an anecdote, but it's an encouraging one.
  12. Maryland has a courtesy deadline of Dec. 1, but the hard deadline is Jan. 7. From the website: "To facilitate the processing of applications, the Graduate School requests that you submit the Online Graduate Application by the Graduate School's Priority Processing date for Fall 2009 admissions, which is December 1, 2008. The official online application deadline for the Ph.D. program in Economics is midnight (Eastern Standard Time) on January 7, 2009. This is the final deadline for international and domestic applicants."
  13. I plan on being drunk in the woods every weekend, far away from the internet and gradcafe. Unfortunately, my Monday-Friday job requires me to sit in front of a computer all day with no internet restrictions whatsoever. I'm screwed.
  14. I feel like half the posts on MR are just Tyler Cowen trying to prove that he's hip or a renaissance man. If you like environmental, Environmental Economics is pretty great. John and Tim are smart, funny, and self-deprecating.
  15. Not sure if anyone had been speculating on this one before, but according to Greg Mankiw, Raj Chetty accepted an offer from Harvard.
  16. I agree that you should take intermediate micro and macro. With your interests and background, you should look at programs like Carnegie Mellon's Engineering and Public Policy Department (Engineering and Public Policy), or any number of operations research programs, such as Stanford's MS&E (MS&E), which I know to be a very flexible curriculum.
  17. Can you elaborate? I've heard a lot of rough things about UW as well, in terms of instability and high attrition, so I'd be interested to hear what your prof. had to say. Thanks!
  18. Can't speak to the fields as well as Cooper probably could, but keep in mind that Iowa is a fairly small department with a few pretty good researchers, so that might be the reason for inconsistent rankings, depending on how various methodologies deal. I bet Cooper's other admissions outcomes would be some indication.
  19. I asked this question in my profile evaluation. Your situation sounds so similar to mine it's scary -- PhD Analysis just eats your time up, and when you're also taking PhD Micro, doing research, and taking another class, it's really expensive time. My thoughts on it are that you aren't trying to get into PhD Math programs, and if you can show proficency in Grad Micro and UG Analysis, the PhD Analysis drop can be discussed briefly in your SOP. Basically, you took on too much and had to make a call one way or another. The major differences between your profile and mine are that I did slightly better in UG Analysis and have a slightly more consistent GPA across my econ/math record. Still, you'll have the PhD Micro under your belt, so do well at that, and I bet the advice I got will mostly apply: http://www.www.urch.com/forums/phd-economics/86770-profile-evaluation-thanks.html Especially note Big Tuna's remark -- he got in pretty much everywhere, though his W was in PhD Abstract Algebra.
  20. Thanks for the extremely useful information all! Anyone else have anything to contribute?
  21. That's good tip, thanks. I still would like to know about the pure econ departments though (though it seems clear that NYU puts some emphasis on PF and PE), as it would be crucial for me to be able to take a field sequence in public. For instance, it doesn't appear to be offered this year at Yale: FALL Term Graduate Course List 2008
  22. Could anyone tell me from experience what Public Econ/Public Finance looks like at Yale? I've read some posts that say it's essentially non-existent, and wanted to get some more information along those lines, as it's one of my major interests. Also helpful would be information regarding public at Columbia, NYU, and Minnesota. I've already sifted through faculty profiles, etc., but I feel that the current students have a great feel for what's going on, so thanks in advance!
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