boldwolf

I'll also add that it seems this is a very personal decision. You should look deep within and really ask yourself whether you prefer policy work(KSG route) to 4-5 years in a PhD program. Me thinks people here can help you with which of these PhD programs is better and that sort but such career questions demand your own assessment. Ask friends family who know you personally. That will be best IMO. Good luck. Congrats too for the admits.

Institution: Rochester Program: Economics PhD Decision: Rejected Notification date: 3/5 Notified through: E-mail Comments: Insert your choice 4 letter word.

Institution: CMU Program: Ph.D. Economics Decision: Rejected Funding: -90(including gre report) Notification date: 2/26/09 Notified through: Checked ApplyYourself Website @ 9.15am Not looking good at all...

^^I think asquare said something like you can blacklist a particular poster in which case you can't see his/her post... maybe you should do that quickly before your pc suffers... I'd follow my own advice but I have a strange sense of humor

delete

Definitely something to feel cheerful about if you get rejected: even if it doesn't fund a student at least the fly-out attendees can count on more pizza.

So any hints on when Rochester might start releasing....I called a couple of weeks ago to check if my recs had been received. No one picked up.... I guess they knew it was some pesky applicant.

Wow! Great admit! Congrats! Is that the Fellowship admit TMers are waiting to flood in? Is that you on gradcafe?

I have a feeling that adcoms prefer to give out decisions on Fridays. Let's wait and see. The first major wave will likely come Feb 13-20. This wait is mind-wracking.

You should aim for higher ranked schools. Your undergrad is UoC. Lots of Math. Hard major. If you have intermediate micro and macro I dont see why you're not applying to higher ranked schools too. I will say add more top 20s, and more reaches too.

If you have a border-line profile(that is, strong but not a clear competitor at top schools) then I think taking a risk with an excellent paper at the schools which encourage sending in excellent samples is sound. But if your profile is already strong then don't risk it, other than for the required ones. What I mean is if you're a quarter-back and you're 6 points down with 1min to end the game, then throwing risky end-zone long passes is a good idea. Anyway that's what I think, but remember I'm an applicant just like you.

wustl

I dont know if I really get it but at least a few schools let you scan copies of your transcript and upload it for review. If they admit you then you send official copies. I think it is to streamline the process, and personally I wish all the schools did that instead of asking for 2 sometimes 3 official transcripts for whatever they're gonna use it all for.

The first one seems good. And also look at recent dissertations, like over the past 2-3 years. The third one, I wonder how many professors will bother to reply(If you're thinking of professors). Most likely they'll quickly look for the delete button.

Mercenary school... or find a headshrinker(if I can afford it after all these application costs)