thehurricane

The Vanderbilt Law & Economics Ph.D. program may be a good fit for your interests and background. They are one of the premier programs in Law & Economics, and they accept JDs seeking PhDs.

Mostly Harmless Econometrics is a good intuition builder, but OneArmedEcon is right that it is light on the theory and will not help much with that particular aspect of what you encounter in the first year. So if you just want to motivate the concepts that you will learn in the first year, I would recommend Mostly Harmless Econometrics. On the other hand, if you are looking to get a head start on the material, there are better options out there. I am not familiar with Peter Kennedy's book.

I'm surprised you all care so much about down-voting, and I hope you realize that you have only been encouraging the trolls by complaining about it. Complaining only exacerbates the situation, because what could be less helpful than complaining about unhelpful post ratings? I've down-voted some of the bitching in hopes you would figure it out how useless you are being, but it hasn't worked. Long story short, don't feed the trolls. Downvoting should probably be restricted to users with over some number of posts (like negative rep), but until a change like that is made just accept that it will happen periodically.

Ouch...that is pretty meager. But if I recall correctly it is on par with what they offered last year. It might be worth trying to bargain with them if you have better funded offers. I'm not sure about San Diego in particular, but I know of cases where this has worked at other UCs.

Outside of lying to make it happen, I see nothing inherently wrong in entering a Ph.D. program with the intent to leave after receiving a masters degree. Accepting a fellowship with this intent is a little dicey, but there is a direct benefit to the department if you are working as a TA or RA. Would the department prefer to weed out this type of student in the application process? In most cases yes, but the departments know a percentage of their matriculated students will not make it through the program. It's just the nature of the admissions game. To answer some of the OPs questions: The main difference between a Stat MA and an Econ MA (Econometric focus) in the eyes of prospective employers is that the Stat MA is generally better versed in the subtleties of statistical theory and methods, whereas the Econ MA is better versed in economic theory. Depending on the job, either one could be more desirable. For the kind of job it seems you are interested in, they tend to prefer Econometricians, because most of their modeling draws on economic intuition, which a Stat MA will have little of. So your best bet would likely be an Econ program. You could take the econometrics field courses, and possibly some graduate statistics classes to supplement your knowledge. Keep in mind there are some downsides to trying to sneak your way into an Econ Ph.D. when you really want just a MA. First off, you will need a better profile to gain admission ceteris paribus. Secondly, unless you are a standout within your program, it will be difficult to pull off straight A's in your classes. Your future employer likely WILL care about your grades (since they will be comparing you to a bunch of terminal masters students), and the grading tends to be less harsh in the terminal masters programs. But if these downsides don't deter you, your plan might be worth a shot.

I'll second what baffourakoto said. The good news is, since you are not interested in forecasting or the long term relationships, your fix will likely be as simple as differencing your dependent variable once.

I think of "Top X" not as a measure or cutoff, but as a notational convenience. Not many, if any, here are using a hard cutoff of X. But instead it is a way to convey "I am interested in schools roughly of the caliber found at X", which is much easier than typing out a large list of institutions. So, basically, I'd argue that you are over-thinking things.

The test is not desired to assess teaching ability per say. Rather it is a free (for the school), standardized, rough metric that they can use as a safety net to minimize the risk of admitting a TA who struggles with basic speaking tasks. Many schools, especially public schools, are bureaucracies looking for blanket rules to expedite the otherwise slow approval process to admit a candidate. In fact, I believe the minimum TOEFL speaking requirement is something established on the University of California system-wide level. Maybe in your case it is a bad rule, but it is a rule they are stuck with, and it does help occasionally in situations like yours to out a candidate who cannot really speak English. You bear all the costs here, and at least to the administrative assistant fishing through applications to make sure material has arrived in order you might as well be from Mars. The average american is not going to know much about your country or care to know much about your country. If you didn't know this already, get used to it, because the US is a very self centered country. Also, requesting an exception is different from granting an exception. If you were on the fringe already, this could easily land your application in the reject pile. In the UC system it takes 4 administrative people just to move a class from one room to another. As simple as your request seems, it will be a hard sell and the person ultimately making the decision will have no affiliation with the economics department.

I have a hunch that this has to do with the speaking section of the TOEFL. Some schools have a minimum required score on this section for an applicant to be offered TA funding. These schools tend to be cautious with multi-language countries (Canada being the exception) because in some cases the regional accent is thick. One of my classmates is from an Asian country where English is an official language, went to an English speaking university, and speaks immaculate English, yet was still required to take the TOEFL. @Ellie certainly any Quebecker who fits your description should take the TOEFL because they do not meet the requirements to have it waived. Whether they could get away with not taking it I do not know.

The ides of march marked the end of most of the admissions game last year. But as others have mentioned, the loose ends can drag on past April 15th, especially with wait list decisions.

Columbia does not have a terminal masters program. Also it is not necessarily true that attending the masters program and doing well will help one gain acceptance into the same school's Ph.D. program. NYU for example is notorious for not admitting their masters students into the Ph.D. program (occasionally they will admit one in a given year). But I do think your current strategy is the right one given your profile. Masters programs and low ranked Ph.D. programs are your only realistic options at this time. I'd suggest looking at the following list to give you ideas for where to apply: Alphabetical List of U.S. Graduate Programs in Economics Best of luck!

:) Texas - Austin, Arizona, Kentucky :luck2:UNC - CH, Iowa :( UIUC, Cornell, Duke, Michigan State

Duke Masters is one of the more competitive ones in the US and we've had candidates with much better profiles get rejected in recent years. I'd characterize Purdue and Iowa St. as far reaches, and I have little knowledge about your chances at Oregon. The rest are hopeless. I'm not sure where you stand in your application process but if you still have time to make changes I'd suggest scrapping applications to: mich st. u wash seattle ohio st. u illinois boston col. penn st. u iowa u virginia and applying to a few more schools outside the top 50. You run the serious risk of not getting any admits with this list. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news :( (or predictions at least)

That seems like a steep price to pay for a domain name. If someone wanted to resurrect econphd.net or even just wanted the domain name to make a buck, why would they pay $25,000 when they could just buy something similar such as phdecon.net for much less? It might take some time to attract the same level of traffic, but if the owner put the word out in the appropriate places, the traffic would come.

The returns of waiting a year are less clear when one is locationally constrained. OP's profile/math grades are such that he/she may not even be a lock for SB or Irvine. It really depends on the strength of the letters and quality of the R&R pub. If OP isn't already a fringe candidate for UCSD or UCLA waiting a year probably won't change that. It is different when one is willing to apply all over the country, because spending a year profile building has the potential to improve admissions results SOMEWHERE in the rankings. According to US News UCLA and UCSD are tied at 14, and Irvine and SB are tied at 42. There is a big enough spread between these that the admission returns of waiting a year could be zero.

Econometrics, Finance, and Macro are the ones that stand out to me.

UCLA does not allow you to apply to two programs. If it's just those three schools that are an issue maybe it's worth the $300ish for both of you to apply if it keeps your S.O. happy. If there is no way you can afford all three, applying to two or one of them might be a good compromise.

If your heart is not in it, attempting an econ phd is a bad idea.

I agree wholeheartedly. But it's still possible that having applied before, while clearly not the reason an applicant gets rejected, is hurting that applicant on the margin. We just don't know one way or the other. The key here is that its hard to move upward in the rankings substantially in one years time. Especially towards the top end of the spectrum.

Many of our recent non-first-time applicants have been rejected a second time from most if not all of the schools that rejected them the first time. Those who placed well often did so at a school that they did not apply to the first time around. So while it's hard to say definitively whether or not it would "count against you", I wouldn't be so quick to assume it will not. To the OP: What would you do in the year between this cycle and next? Sitting out a year seems like a high price to pay for something as trivial as the GRE. Unless you totally bomb it you should probably apply this year.

@gloomsdale there is nothing wrong per say with applying to only top programs if you have a profile worthy of a top admit and you are on the fence between fields. It's just a silly game to play when your probability of acceptance at a top economics program is essentially 0. If your profile is anything like lessthanjake's i'll go on the record now with my prediction that you will end up in law school.

I'm interpreting your measure literally and assuming you are referring to Ross Levine. If Ross Levine wrote you a letter of recommendation saying something to the effect of "lessthanjake is top 5 material, you should accept him and here is why" then you would have a good shot of a top 5 admit. The question is, will he? I've never met the guy, but many professors, big name or not, are very selective about who they write glowing letters of recommendation about. Say he writes you a letter and you are woefully unprepared for graduate school. When you fail out of the program it reflects poorly on him. So he may only be willing to write a glowing recommendation if you are a stellar applicant to begin with. A letter from Ross Levine saying "lessthanjake is smart and gets good grades and is an OK research assistant" is not going to do much for you in the top 5. Speaking of research assistant, what do you mean by "intend to do research with". Do you have any indication that Ross Levine will LET you be his research assistant? It is rare for university professors to seek out UG research assistants, and when they take them it's generally someone with more math/metrics background than you currently have. If you do have a shoe in with Ross Levine then there is hope. Otherwise it will be an uphill climb. You should seriously re-evaluate your cutoff for acceptable programs. There are superstars sprinkled all throughout the top 20. Brown is a fringe top 20 and graduate students could feasibly have Ross Levine as their thesis chair and the department regularly places students into good academic jobs. Brown is also well below your cutoff in the rankings. Putting aside the possibility that you wouldn't want to go to graduate school at the same school you did your undergrad for a moment, what about Brown warrants exclusion from your application list? Applying your own criterion to undergrad, you were screwed the moment you matriculated to Brown because it's not top 5.

This debate is silly. Your chances of getting into a top 5 program are approximately zero. Rushing through a bunch of math classes is a great strategy to get admitted somewhere, likely somewhere in the top 20 in your case if you successfully execute your plan, but the top 5 programs have the luxury of cherry picking Jesus profiles out of the applicant pool and you will not be able to get yourself into that category in a timely fashion. Have any of your letter writers placed students in the top 5 before? Your only hope is that one of them has and is willing to vouch that you are top 5 material. The good news is that you can likely get a top 20 admit if you successfully execute your plan. A placement that most if not all of us here will agree is a good stepping stone to a career in academic economics. In fact, some of us think of the top 30 or even higher is a good stepping stone to a career in academic economics, although there would be more dissention the higher we went up the rankings.

Trick question. I would have come up with a palatable plan B months ago in case my non-offer of admission fell through. Since apparently you haven't, perhaps you should start trying to do this? On a separate note, maybe you should spend some time re-evaluating why things didn't work out for you. You threw quite a few numbers into your hypothetical, as though they mean much on the margin. They don't. Most likely you either aimed too high, your LoRs weren't great, or you sent bad signals in your SOP. I feel as bad for you as a stranger on an internet message board can, but this was a pointless rant. Bad things happen sometimes. What choice do we have other than to handle the situation as best we can.

Put bluntly, you have yet to do anything academically that demonstrates your ability to succeed in an Economics Ph.D. program. Admissions committees across the board will be hesitant to extend a funded offer for this reason. Yes, if you have a dramatic turn around and ace your up and coming math classes and then do very well in a masters program your admissions outlook will improve significantly, but you have a very small margin for error at this point. Anything short of stellar and you will just affirm your inability to succeed in Economics Ph.D.. Top 20-30 is borderline unreachable at this point and even Top 50 will be an uphill climb. Would you still be interested in Econ Ph.D. at a school ranked 50+? Would you be willing to accept an unfunded offer? If the answer to both of these is no then you may be wasting your time.