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.

Then I'd focus your choice on which of your choices best serve those fields. UW-M is a great school, OSU and Vanderbilt have their strengths. Best of luck!

You may have mentioned this already OP, but what fields are you interested in? I would let that dictate decision more than a soft constraint like floating a year with no funding.

Shorthand of people?

Is earthlings an autocorrected word? I'm not sure I understand the connotation otherwise :D

There is some competition to work with Sandy, but that's with the current years. In the cohorts ahead and behind me there were a number of people who wanted to do macro that switched to labor. My impression is that, yes, you'll have some competition if you work with Sandy, but she's uber efficient and lovely to work with. I don't know Oli very well, but my understanding is he is rock solid. APs can direct students. There can be difficulty, of course, because an APs primary job is to obtain tenure. I reckon that it comes down to how independent you are If you are 100% sure you want to work on monetary, and WUSTL has a group you'd like to work wtih, of course go that route. Texas has strong IO, labor, micro theory, and econometrics. Finance also, if you would like to work cross-disciplinary with the UT Business School. If you're somewhat undecided on your field, UT is a great option. I'm not too sure on the specifics at WUSTL. They do have one of my favorite energy economists, Joseph Cullen.

As with all things, coauthoring with students will depend on the student and the professor's relationships. I think an apt analogy can be drawn between coauthoring and dating. David Kendrick has coauthored recently with students. I'd recommend asking the others directly. I'm not familiar with B-school faculty, but let me know someone in particular and I can ask around.

I'll probably be at the Q&A and maybe lunch.

1. If you're worried about a TA assignment taking too much time, the department has some flexibility in assignment. They know you need time on your courses! But for myself, I found TAing intro maco/micro really helped develop a deeper intuition of the material. You might request that opportunity, perhaps? But no, you won't be at a disadvantage; virtually everyone else will be doing a TAship too. 2. Hmm. We have three of the top junior hires in macro the past few years, and a few others that do macro/labor. They're actively hiring a senior macro hire or two in the next couple of years -- just in time for you to start getting advising, I reckon! :) 3. There might be some people at the B-school doing macro. More finance there though. We usually have a student or two every year with an advisor over there, I'm sorry I don't have more information, as it's not been a focus of mine. 4. You can have an advisor from another department. Google recent graduate Seyed Reza Yousef (World Bank) and current candidate LiangFei Qiu. 5. The attrition rate is falling for structural reasons. Years before me prelim attrition was roughly 50%. Now it's down, I think, to 10, 20% at most--these from what I've seen are people leaving because graduate school isn't a great fit. 6. There are other reasons people leave. I don't have good figures since the attrition rate has fallen, but it appears percentage-wise people are staying. I think a big reason for this is they started bringing in smaller cohorts -- 16 instead of 32, for example. 7. Yes. This year we've had placements at UCLA and UF for within the US. This can be advisor specific, so when you look for advisors (not just general programs) see how they're placing. You can usually find that information on their website. General advice: all in all, I recommend looking at departments because there are a group of people there you are interested in potentially working with. If you pick just because the department is "good" by some ranking, you risk being disappointed for a number of reasons. If you pick because you want to work with one person, there is a chance that person could leave. Don't worry so much about US News ranking. Go somewhere that complements your current skillset and the questions you're interested in.

Hi y'all. If you come and would like to chat, let me know.

Hi folks. Current UT 5th year. Questions?