RaaR

where in israel is there a good MA program in mathematical economics? i think bar ilan has one, but it's obviously not good. if your goal is phd in econ (either in israel or us) go to the joint hebrew/tel-aviv MA program. if you want to be an economist you dont need more math beyond that acquired in the math BA program. by the way, as a student in that joint MA program you can register as a student in the hebrew univ's 'center for the study of rationality' where you have a large selection of courses in mathematical economics, taught by the very best. good luck!

what is top3 in israel? there's either tel aviv or hebrew univ for economics. anyhow, my suggestion - go for the joint hebrew/tel-aviv research MA, finish the first year with 90+ grades (not hard to do that, especially with your math grades), and you'd get in great places. probably not harvard/mit (given undergrad score), but top 10 for sure. with your current profile im not sure you'd be able to get in those places. you'd be eventually placed much lower than you could applying directly from undergrad rather than going for that joint MA thing.. very easy to get to the top places from there. by the way the 'A' 'A+' are meaningless in israeli scale. anything short than 90 is not good for top10/15. 85-89 is marginal.. unless the 85 in econ is due to the first year BA core which usually drops the average quite a bit

One needs 10 solo-authored publications at top5 journals (or other equiv.) to get tenure at Booth (given no 'negative' points earned along the way)? Sounds somewhat exaggerated. Seems to me 10 solo-authored at top5 would put you at a full-professorship position rather than tenure.. Many tenured profs at those places have perhaps one or two top5 pubs (sometimes coauthored), if any. i hope your colleague handles this well; seems like a discouraging situation to me to be honest (or rather 'mission impossible').

what's the big fuss about advisors anyway? 99.9% of the work you'll do is independent.. on your own. you'd be lucky if your advisor reads your work at all. the only situation it matters is if you are coauthors for a project, and even then it is not a problem to continue working as before through skype. anyhow, just get a different 'formal' advisor, and do your own thing. if you're good you could publish your work regardless of who your advisor is.

yep will be there most likely :) problem is they offer another summer school (in econ growth) that runs concurrently with this one (reflecting on the excellent department politics.. haha; seems like the macro people are not very fond of the theory guyz, and vice versa), and since i'm more into macro i think i'll find myself attending the latter.

Israel's awesome, and so is doing phd; research is much fun (though lots of bs). what field did you get into eventually? i hear applied theory and development is the thing now. btw i noticed UoT did exceptionally well on the job market this season.. definitely making it a top school now. u did well ending up there

Definitely Canuckonomist. but i know him personally so i'm not sure if my vote should count

getting forwarded for an MA award pretty much means you got the award, soo - congrats (quick advice: go to Queen's with it; they'll give ya an extra 5k just for coming with a sshrc). for phd chances are around 50% after being forwarded (but for this you have much stats on sshrc's website).

the prof. definitely likes you, but this is a bad letter. it could be because he doesn't know what should be said in such a letter (rather than he doesn't hold you in high respect). Adding a sentence saying 'i've had several students who went to top phd programs in the past; all of them did very well. This student shows greater promise than these previous ones' (with perhaps more specifics about those past students) will make this a strong letter which could let addcoms compare you to others. oh well... the strongest and most important signal is pedigree anywayz; so if you're an undergrad in a top 20 program, then don't worry. if you're from a noname school - trust me, it doesn't matter what that prof. puts in the letter.. they won't take you anyway.

I completely disagree with the two views given here. The OP ranks first in a very recognized graduate program (toulouse), which sends students to the top schools every year. I think this gives the OP an excellent shot at the top programs, and if I were him/her I would definitely apply to 20 schools in the top 30. Given this high score in the graduate program, I am not sure how much the undegrad scores would matter. Also, I am really not sure 3.5 from China (also depends which school) is not-equivalent to 3.7+ in US; this depends on the ranking of the 3.5 in the OP's undergrad cohort in China (which he/she didn't mention). Anyhow, I would say go for all 30 in the top 30 (not just 20).

Haha funny story. Some of these professors are really crazy ignorant people.. don't take the blame on yourself. Listen - don't take any recommendation from this guy. God knows what he'll write in that letter if he'll even submit it at all. Just consider some other professors.. there's so many of them. Take someone you did well in his/her class who likes you and has time for you, and who shows some minimum amount of interest-in and sympathy-to your future.

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~90% in one of the top schools in Canada is very good, but I believe still requires a good MA first (with better grades). 95%> (in the MA) should crack the top 10 or 5. Otherwise, if you did double major of math/econ, then it's worth a shot right now.

Untitled - I do not claim to speak on behalf of the people in this forum, however seems to me like people around here really appreciate your hard work on this very much (and I'd add - rightfully). However, because of this I thought I should make a quick comment. I find the data you present to be very misleading; it definitely does not provide a correct picture. To be honest, the data you present is a bit useless. Why? Because you mix data on students from different schools/countries. In some schools in the UK (and other countries) above 70 is very good, yet in my school it's considered a fail. To get into the top schools from my school one needs an average of perhaps 95+; this certainly does not have any equivalence in the GPA system, so how can this be put on a graph together with applicants from other schools? If you could arrange this data into countries, or even better, into schools, then this would be extremely beneficial. Otherwise, I believe it depicts an incorrect picture. Then again, people for some reason do not post their schools' names, so this data might be completely unavailable. All in all, I do not want this message to come through as if your hard work is not appreciated. It is because of this that I thought of making this remark (since why put so much effort into this? This effort is only worth it if people reveal their schools), and since I hope people who consult this do not get confused or mislead.

With a Chevening they'll take you anywhere in UK. Apply to LSE or Oxford's MPhil. UCL I heard is fine as well. Don't consider the other places (at least not with a Chevening).

Getting a Chevening and doing your MA in one of these UK schools is definitely an excellent option.

Haha actually a bit surprising but everybody here tries to avoid Rubinstein's class; it is considered the hardest and many fail (something that almost never happens in the other courses, which also usually have very high averages, sometimes close to 90), so the very few that get 90+ in his course, have no problem collecting a rec. Regardless though, there is a line of superstars who teach or visit here regularly as part of the new joint MA program (of Tel Aviv & Hebrew U's) including Helpman (harvard), Angrist (mit), Mokyr (nwu), Wolinsky (nwu), Weil (brown), Galor (brown), and others who are faculty members here but also teach at the US schools; there are ample opportunties to get good recs here. Yes, the ties with the US schools are quite strong. This also bodes well for our PhD students who have these faculty take part in their dissertation committees, and upon completion usually go to Postdocs at these placs. Anyhow, all course materials is in English (including assignments, etc.); some lectures are given in English, but the core courses are currently given in Hebrew (for now, I know they'll change it). An international student with good standing will get full funding here (tuition + stipend). Wassal, with your excellent standing you'd have no problems securing funding here.

This may sound like crazy advice, but perhaps it would help you. As a very close neighbor to Israel, you can look into doing your MA here (at the Hebrew U, or Tel Aviv U). We have many arab-speaking students here (I'm at the Hebrew U). Agreements we have with Egypt will let you come here as a student. As for continuing for PhD - these places are truly excpetional. Each year many students from here go on to top 10, and not even with very high grades (it is really not that hard.. my feeling is that coming from other places you have to be a superstar to get there, while from here you need to be good but not amazing [unless you want to go to harvard/mit, where you'll have to be at the top of your class to do that]).

I am not sure anybody here can tell you anything insightful without knowing from which country and school you come from (and if they try, I'd say they don't know what they talk about). In general I have no idea why people post their profiles here without this info, but I guess that's irrelevant for this post. Anyhow, it could be that 90% average from where you come is extremely competitive for top 5, and it could be otherwise. Talk to your profs and see where past students from your school have gone to (with an equiv. performance to yours), then talk to these past students and see from which profs (in your department/program) they got their letters. I didn't have a look at your course list, but course-wise you certainly don't have any deficiencies, since having a BA in math and MA in quan. econ definitely makes you very well trained for econ phd.

Erased (I misread the post)

Doesn't Ottawa have a numerical grading system? (well perhaps I am mixing with some other university). If it is numerical, an average above 85 should do it. To be competitive for the better funding packages (OGS, SSHRC, or other competitive internal ones) you'll need a (much) higher average than this. If Ottawa does use the GPA system, then 3.9+ should definitely do it. In short, they'll take you in (if not in all 4, then for sure in some of them), the question is with how much money.

Great profile; great grades. You'll definitely get in the MA programs you mentioned. The only question is with how much funding. My guess though is that you'll get good funding options at either of the TOP 4. Don't worry though about admission; each of the schools would be happy to take you in.

You apply at the University in which you are registered at the time of application. If you will be a senior next year, intending to apply to a Master's program in the year to follow, you will submit your application to your current University (where you do the undergrad); if on the other hand you already start the Master's next year, then you will submit your application to the University where you'll do your Master's. Also, in that case the application would have to be for the PhD fellowships competition and not the Master's one (since you supposedly will already be attending a Master's program). The deadline for submission is around October/November each year (depends in which University). I would suggest to carefully read the instructions on the SSHRC website. They have lots of information which is important to be familiar with in most cases.

"Income Distribution and Macroeconomics", by Oded Galor & Joseph Zeira, Review of Economic Studies, 1993 Here's a link: http://www.webpondo.org/dmejia/GZ.pdf

I also did my undergrad at a school with an extremely bad econ department, yet a very good business school (though it's not the one you're at, as you have a 4.0 GPA system and at my alma mater it was on a 4.3 scale), continued on to do an MA in econ (at Queen's), and now doing a phd. Here's my impression: not doing the BA at one of the top departments pretty much excludes you from the top schools without doing an MA. The process is random, so I don't say there's no chance, but if anything chances are very slim even if you're very good. Put simply, top programs hardly take chances on students from weak econ departments (referring to Canadian students only). I'm talking from my own experience, as well as from others'. I finished first in my class in undergrad (summa, etc.), yet the top programs decided to go for other Canadian students (undergrads/grads) with similar credentials but from the top programs. This kind of sucks for students who went to a school with a bad econ department (since who thinks about it when he/she goes to undergrad), yet I perfectly understand why it all works this way, and why they tend to pick students from UBC/Queen's/UoT,etc specifically. Moral of the story: continue to be stellar at your undergrad, take lots of math (even get a math minor/major), and then go to one of the top departments for MA (though I'd recommend Queen's specifically). There are many advantages for taking that route even if you end up getting an offer at a good department right when you finish your undergrad.