ImProcrastinating

Lol, nice. Regarding the original thread: there are a billion other threads about this exact same topic. The consensus is that transferring to a higher ranked program is very, very difficult, but does occasionally happen. How much the TM consensus reflects reality, though, is another question.

Tough call. I won't take sides, but here's a few points: 1) Maryland is more highly ranked, but the difference isn't huge. Georgetown is still top 30 or 40. 2) Especially given your B in an Analysis, a high grade is important. The competition might be slightly less fierce at Georgetown. 3) The stress you'd incur by going to Maryland might make you less likely to get an A. 4) If you can, check out which professors will be teaching the classes. If one's much more well-known than the other, that could be a factor if you need an LOR.

I don't think this should be a tough call. Colorado is top 50, GW isn't even top 100. Not to mention, Colorado is fantastic in trade...

Nice! It'll be good to see you around next year.

Another quote, this time from NYU's FAQ: "The GREs typically set out necessary rather than sufficient conditions. We look for strong quantitative skills. We know that the GRE does not test those skills adequately, but if you score below some threshold (say, below 740) you either had a bad day or there is a problem with the mathematics background somewhere. Do we immediately condemn you on those grounds? Not at all, but if you have low GREs you will have to have that much of a stronger application elsewhere to "make up" for it. Conversely, if you have 780 or 800 don't sit back and relax. Many of our applicants achieve perfect scores, many more than we can admit. The rest of your application will be looked at very seriously." As I recall, other schools' FAQs say very similar things.

I also vote against the probability course. Summer sessions in general and with Baby Rudin in particular are insane.

I don't think there's any need to retake at all. Everyone knows the GRE is a random event, and a 780 is statistically indistinguishable from an 800. Your ridiculously high verbal and analytical scores should help too.

Chicago, Stanford, and Cornell.

I'm just an RA at the IMF and these are just my impressions, so take them with many grains of salt. To answer the OP's question, many of the established economists come from top schools, and many don't. My boss got his PhD from a school ranked around 70. But I think the younger economists are more likely to have come from top schools. The recent job market presentations are almost exclusively given by graduates from the top 15. So maybe the IMF is getting more competitive over time, or is developing a preference for graduates from top schools. As for SF_Haole's question, out of the two dozen or so economists I know at the IMF, not one is a U.S. citizen. As a white American this also makes me sad.

Hey, I was there. All in all I was very impressed. The grad students seemed very happy, and the professors - even the very famous ones like Sargent and Ok - seemed extremely approachable. I think they take graduate student advising very seriously, and maybe their success on the job market this year was due in part to that. I tried my absolute best to get anyone to say anything bad about the program and I couldn't get much. The biggest gripe was that first year is hard but I think you'll get that everywhere. Though NYU has prelims, the failure rate (after 2nd attempts) for the past 4 years has been 0%, which is extremely reassuring. The entering class size is usually about 20 and only 10 were on the job market this year, so I'm guessing some people still leave for personal reasons, but it's nice to know you almost definitely won't have to leave unless you want to. I checked out the first year housing and it was surprisingly nice, the apartments are huge considering they're in Manhattan. Obviously I don't have other flyouts to compare it to, and I'd bet every top 15 school looks fantastic on flyout day. But I was really, really impressed. If you have any specific questions feel free to post them or PM me.

It's too bad you can't relocate to Fairfax VA, George Mason would be perfect for you. To answer a), you sound like you have a successful career already. I don't know much about the IBank world, but it seems hard to believe that an MA would help you much at this point in your career. So in that sense it's not productive. But if you'd enjoy it, then that changes things. Don't know anything about Fordham so I won't answer b) or e). As for c), though I have no idea, you might want to check out CUNY. They've got a solid econ program. d) What exactly are you looking for, besides an excuse to read Hayek, etc. for class?

Getting a better grade in a more difficult course would help a lot. That said, you should think hard about why you're not doing well this time around, and about how likely it is you'll do well the next time. Another C would completely sink your chances. Then again, taking the next course might be valuable simply to find out for yourself whether you like/are good enough at math for a PhD to be worthwhile.

Ouch. I won't lie, that's a bad course to do badly in. But there's still hope. How far away are you from applying? I got a C- in Dif Eq my first year in college and still managed to get into NYU. Canecon I believe did poorly his first couple of years, and got some great admits. So if it's early in your career, and you do great from now on, I think you'll be fine. If you're close to graduating, and going to as high ranked a school as possible is really important to you, you might want to think about a master's. This will give you more time to make up for your C, in more difficult classes. Simply retaking the course, if for some reason you think you will do much better the next time, would help but I doubt it would make up for it completely.

unless you really like Austrian economics, go to Georgetown. It's higher ranked in just about everything, plus they're funding you.

You're usually much wittier, Harry_Lime. That post wasn't funny at all.

If you mean financial turmoil, and not the recession in general, some indicators to look at would be: Private sector credit from banks and nonbanks LIBOR The spread on long-term vs short term interest rates House prices / average time on market of houses for sale / number of unsold houses I'm there there are billions more...

I don't think the value added from attending a top 20ish instead of a top 30ish overcomes all the other benefits you mentioned from staying at your current school. The course flexibility and increased research potential at the top 30 sound like a fantastic combination; the lower costs help too, I'm sure.

or maybe the fact that this is how we choose to spend our free time is a good sign that we're choosing the right career paths?

Straight from micro theory, an indirect utility function depends only on income and prices. The usual assumption is that it is strictly increasing in income. So money does indeed enter all of our utility functions. Also, (as Veroniquaz and Nalfien alluded to), monetary macro models the role of money in a few different ways. One of these ways is to introduce money - not just goods - directly into the utility function, to represent the usefulness of currency over barter. Of course, given the context that "money" was being used in, I think my first point is more relevant..

I'll be there, staying the night of the 29th. We should definitely meet up and do something that night - maybe the grad students will have something planned? If not, I'm from NYC so I know a couple places. When are you planning to get there?

I would be a little more cautious about the OP's chances. First, I think schools at the lower end of the top 50 would be good as reaches. 4.0 GPA in two master's is pretty solid. But I think you should have top 100ish schools as safeties. The problem is few people have even ever heard of Ohio University (unless you mean Ohio State University?). I'm guessing this also means your LOR writers are not well known and don't have significant connections to top 50 schools. In any case, the admissions process is incredibly random, so it's better to apply to a very wide range of schools. Second, I'd probably suggest applying next year instead of getting an RA job. Considering you already have two master's, you're probably on the older side. I think adcoms have a preference for younger applicants, so the sooner you apply the better. An RA job working for a well-connected professor would be worth it, but I'm not sure that's a realistic option for you...

I think you need to refine your question... If I were a millionaire, and my only other option besides unfunded Berkeley was never getting an Econ PhD, then I would go to Berkeley. If I were dirt poor, and my other option was a fellowship from MIT, I probably wouldn't...

While American is not LSE, I wouldn't look down on it too much. I was considering getting my MA in math there, and one of their professors told me they sent a student to a PhD in Econ at MIT a couple years ago. I ended up going to a program ranked very similarly to American, and got into NYU. Another kid from my program went to Northwestern last year. Top 5 might be pushing it, but if the OP excelled there he might have a shot at a top 10. He certainly shouldn't count on it, but as he said, he's just shooting for funding at a top 20. Considering he got a top 20 offer already, I don't think that's too much of a stretch.

I've heard that NYU students can take courses at Columbia, and vice-versa. How deep does this cooperation go? If I end up deciding I like a field that Columbia is better in, like international trade or development, can I take all those field courses there? Can I have a Columbia professor as one of my dissertation advisors? Or would I just be limited to taking one or two classes there?

I think an important question to ask is how much an MS in Stats will help your profile for PhD programs. If you've already taken a few stats and econometrics courses, and done well in them, then an MS won't help you much, if at all. If this is the case, it's an argument for going to BU; otherwise it's an argument for American.