reddavies

I'm really surprised by how well people seemed to be able to predict there results as well. The closest I could predict were probable rejections from my reach schools and hopeful acceptances from my safeties. The rest was just shear hoping.

PROFILE: Type of Undergrad: BA/BS International Affairs and Economics, Math minor at top 50 U.S. Undergrad GPA: 3.92 Type of Grad: N/A Grad GPA: N/A GRE: 168Q, 164V, 5.0AWA Math Courses: Calc III (A), Linear Algebra (A), Intro to Proofs (A), Computing in Math (A), Math Finance (A), Real Analysis (A-), Math Stat I-II (A,A) Econ Courses: Intermediate Micro (A), Game Theory (A), Economics of Crime (A), Money and Banking (A); Taken Abroad: Public (1st), Econometrics (1st), Dynamic Optimization (1st), International (1st), Advanced Macro (1st) Other Courses: C/C++ (A), plus a bunch for my international affairs major that probably aren't relevant Letters of Recommendation: two economics professors, one stat professors. Think they were okay. Research Experience: one semester RA, the work wasn't very technical though Teaching Experience: N/A Research Interests: Applied Micro (education, crime, etc.) SOP: okay, definitely could have been better Other: Studied abroad for a year in the UK RESULTS: Acceptances: Duke ($$), Cornell ($$), UT Austin ($), Brown (no $) Waitlists: Penn (eventually rejected off the list) Rejections: NYU, Yale, Caltech, UCLA, Michigan, MIT, Princeton, Columbia, Stanford, Berkeley, UCSD, Northwestern Attending: Duke! What would you have done differently? Hard to say. I'm really happy with my results. Personally, I wish I had dropped my international affairs major and done just econ and math, but I'm not sure that would have necessarily helped my profile. I went into the process thinking it was almost all about the math background you had, but I think more and more that your letters and research background count for a lot more. I think schools look at fit as well. The schools I got into seemed to fit me really well and a few that I thought I'd get into but didn't, turned out not to fit me all that well. Also, I wish I had been more active in finding research opportunities. My results might have been better if I took a year or two offer to work as an RA, but honestly I really want to move straight into the PhD and Duke is an amazing place with great placements so I'm really happy with how things turned out.

Duke!

Institution: NYU Program: Economics PhD Decision: Rejected Funding: Notification Date: 3/21/2012 Notified Through: E-mail Posted to GC: No Institution: Cornell Program: Economics PhD Decision: Accepted Funding: 5 Year Funding Notification Date: 3/19/2012 Notified Through: E-mail Posted to GC: No Good to finally be done!

Institution: UMich Program: Economics PhD Decision: rejected Funding: N/A Notification date: 03/15/12 Notified through: email Posted on GC: No Comment: Looks like it's going to be Duke!

Institution: Columbia Program: PhD Economics Decision: Rejected Funding: Notified: 3/13 Notified through: email to check website Posted on GC: no Comments::blue:

Unfortunately I think that's pretty common. (80% might be a bit high though.) Here's the statistics for Duke for comparison. I bet you could find similar statistics for other programs. http://gradschool.duke.edu/about/statistics/admiteco.htm

Wow. Kind of surprised so many people are picking Duke over Michigan. Is this because of the people they have doing education research specifically or do people generally think Duke is a better program?

Same boat on both Cornell and Michigan. Plus NYU and Columbia. Haven't heard anything from all four. Think this might be a marginally positive sign for Cornell (maybe an unfunded admit), but probably a bad sign for the rest.

I'm not sure if this is true at all so definitely take it with a grain of salt, but I would guess that many adcoms might sort applications partially by GPA or might have filters that include GPA (along with your GRE score). So if you've got near perfect math and econ grades, but Cs in all your other classes you might not get looked at too closely. Plus having bad grades in other classes probably would give them a bad overall impression. I wouldn't stress about the difference between an A versus an A- in an English lit course, but I think low grades could hurt you.

It's a couple hours outside the DC area by bus. You could fly into DC and then take Greyhound out to Charlottesville.

Isn't UT Austin ranked a lot higher than gtown or USC? I really don't know much about USC, but why aren't you giving more thought to UT?

Institution: University of California, San Diego Program: Ph.D. Economics Decision: Rejected Funding: N.A. Notification Date: 3/9/2012 Notified through: E-mail Posted on GC: No

Institution: Princeton University Program: Economics PhD Decision: Rejected Funding: NA Notification Date: 3/8/2012 Notified Through: Email Posted on GC: No Comments: Kind of expected it :-(

Anyone know what up with Michigan?