TomRod

Wow, Chateauheart is still commenting? Good to see old posters around on occasion!

Underground Mormon economics mafia. In all seriousness, there is a pretty tight network.And the BYU MCEL is a fantastic program (I went through it's precursor's precursor's precursor). JSchnel is spot on about most of the students double-majoring. Also, lots of TA opportunities for undergraduates since they have no graduate program. At the end of the day you have a lot of really well prepped students whose recommend writers has close connections to most of the top 100 graduate programs.

Texas is strong in IO, labor, and econometrics. During my time there, I noted that Wooldridge sends his manuscripts to Abrevaya for prooftexting (among others, of course). Sandy Black is a powerhouse, but also currently serving in the Council of Economic Advisers.I don't know if or how she is maintaining graduate student advisement.

I hear they recently got a placement at Princeton. Both the UCLA guy and the Princeton guy were IO.

Congrats moneyandcredit. Best of luck with it.

Where are you going next fall? What was the deciding factor for that program? What surprised you about the process? Good luck, class of '19!

Do well on the GRE and you have a shot. RA grade is a bit low; if you have an opportunity to take RA 2 or Econ Math I'd recommend doing that to patch the grade. You'll need a 3rd letter. How well do your two currently know you and your research interests/capacity? Coding experience isn't often valued by admissions, though it certainly helps afterwards. What schools specifically are you looking at? Who do you want to work with?

I agree with tmnod. Also consider getting to know the advisor's network, especially as they invite people the school to present. This means go to the IO/Marketing seminars early in your graduate career, read the papers, get to know the seminar speakers, speak with them about your research interests, go to conferences, etc.

No offense taken! Maryland's just not a school I've had much interaction or contact with.

Good question. I often hear Maryland compared on rank with UT. But I've no idea of their strongest fields. They did a lot of hiring in 2009 with the financial crisis, so that might have been helpful. I recognize only a couple of their faculty (especially Pablo, a coauthor with Dean Corbae, who taught at UT before moving to UW-M), but that's probably my fault for not knowing more work in applied micro/labor.

I've always heard of Maryland as a T30 place. Best way to answer the question (and I'd do it for you if I had a bit more time) is to look at relative placements with comparable institutions.

It can be. This particular student went with the professor at his request.

I'm not sure what comments you're reading. I've enjoyed my time there and had a ton of fun. Supportive faculty, lots of funding for resources (although still a little low on the stipend). I could verify specifics if you fill me in on the issues you've heard. Thinking about it, up until the end of my second year there was some stress (qualifiers/comps and 2nd year paper (essentially another comp in research paper form)). But I found my cohort and those above and below awesome to work with, and most of the professors were great sports about mentoring us. Attrition used to be a lot higher, but that ended with my cohort. They started bringing in smaller groups and were less risky with admitting nontraditional candidates. The department building itself is a bit dated, but that seems to be par for the course. There are a few professors who can be hard to TA for, but ask around when you get an assignment. There is usually a bit of time for shuffling if that is needed. A married couple (assistant profs) left my second year for Toronto, and another for Wisconsin-Madison (took along with a very good friend of mine from my cohort). Beyond that I haven't seen any churn under this department chair or college dean. Some first years of past cohorts have taken issue with the macroeconomics comp being unexpected, but I attribute that to the new professors that were hired (and the working out of kinks). Again, this is going to be common in top 30 departments. Perhaps I'm hopelessly out of touch; I don't know. But I've certainly enjoyed the program (and am kind of sad to be leaving soon, as it's growing by leaps and bounds).

Funding after the first year depends on the program. There is always something like a mathematics or philosophy department that need people from outside their program to fill grading roles and such, so unfunded doesn't necessarily mean nothing at all will be available.

UT's IO group is awesome. I'm there now, finishing, and it's growing by leaps and bounds. I can highly encourage it if you're willing to work hard. David Sibley, Eugenio Miravete, Stephen Ryan, Stephanie Houghton, and Haiqing Xu are currently there, and I understand there could be another additional senior hire this next year. If they go through, either of the ones they're looking at, would be an awesome addition to the department. Econometrics at UT is also pretty nice. Jason Abrevaya, Stephan Donald, Haiqing Xu, Brendan Kline, and Sukjin Han, if memory serves correct, are the theoretical econometricians. All the empirical IO folks do applied econometrics, as well as the microeconometrics/labor field folks. I don't know much about Pitt or Irvine. Penn and Wisconsin are great schools.