MJ7

Different departments have a different emphasis on the kind of research they expect their PhD hires to have done in the past. The Research department is obviously the most critical here, but functional (fiscal and monetary) departments are similarly topic-focused. Area departments (the "mission teams" APJ was referring to) tend to be more welcoming towards different branches of thesis work. Finally, albeit all of these differences, virtually all fresh PhDs at the Fund get placed through the EP program - a 3 year program, where you rotate between two different departments/assignments, and get placed as a permanent staff member afterwards. This is ever more true today than a few years ago, as there has been a large effort to homogenize recruiting efforts across departments, especially at the junior level.

George Washington University - but usually unfunded.

I would say it matters quite a bit what university you come from. Of course anywhere you go you'll find exceptions - as an illustration, I even know a handful of economists at the IMF who only have a masters degree; however, other factors rather than degree pedigree aided these people: 1) prior work experience in national central banks/finance ministries (these are usually mid-career economists, but some younger ones exist) 2) masters/PhD's from specific schools outside of the top 20 that cater to the IMF/World Bank/UN, such as University of Kiel (Germany) and the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. These 2 have extremely close connections to the IMF, and regularly place 2/3 graduates every year into their EP (young economist) program. 3) PhD from Georgetown/GWU. They are local universities very well connected and with a reputation for producing World Bank/IMF economists. As with any other goal you may have in life, I would obviously advise you to go for a top 20 vs not. But if you feel your profile is not likely to get you there, then these lower-ranked well connected universities are much easier to get into and relate pretty well to placements in the said institutions. hope this helps!

rankings have just been posted online

I agree with the other posters that U Maryland is the most reputable math department in the area. However, depending on where you work/live, I would recommend GWU or Georgetown instead, or even George Mason (the college park campus can be quite a distance from common residential/work areas like Dupont, Adams Morgan, and Foggy Bottom) If you live in the state (Maryland or Virginia) for more than a year you can claim resident tuition at UMaryland and GMU, which makes a huge difference. I took a class at GWU - my experience was great and it helped (I think) my admissions. What class were you looking to take?

I think assistantships are considered alongside regular working income, so they should be taxed at approx 30% or so in the US, unless your country has a particular tax exemption agreement with the US (which happens more often than you would think). Here's a link to access those treaties: http://www.irs.gov/businesses/international/article/0,,id=96739,00.html On a similar note, does anyone know if fellowship stipends are taxed?

congrats! :tup: that's an awesome turn around - it teaches all of us to never lose hope (in life, more generally).

This is a very interesting article in its own right, especially for those of us torn between US and Europe. Thank you for the reference!

Ask your admissions contact how typical it is for a 2nd+ year student not to get some form of funding (RA, TA, research grants, etc). That will clear the uncertainty regarding future expenses. Also, given your interest in the Fed, ask someone at Goethe what (if any) their placements in the American job market have been over the recent past. If they have no record of placing people in the US (even outside academia, etc), then IMHO it's not worth your time, since it is not likely to serve your goals. Is waiting for another year and re-applying an option?

lol, I don't think it is...one of my cohort who eventually went on to MIT and was one of those "1 in every 20 years" kind of genius kids did not have a facebook account until his first year there.

Forgot about TSE's 1-2 PhD admits a year...that's right, then you might wanna move it closer to the mid-tier

see where they rank here, and ask your undergraduate coordinator/department director/advisor who they think you could get most valuable recommendations out of. Edit: Noise was too fast for me :)

UPF>TSE>>>Bocconi>PSEULB Don't know about Warwick

Attending: UC Berkeley (1st-yr unfunded) Other Offers: BU ($$), Carlos III ($$), Barcelona GSE ($), LSE MSc REsearch, Bocconi ($$), Geneva ($$), Stockholm MSc Research Comments: feel very blessed just to have the opportunity; was a very tough call though because of the poor financing relative to my other much lower ranked offers, and distance from home (Europe)

Type of Undergrad: top 5 ivy, econ PhD program top 15 Undergrad GPA: 4.00 Type of Grad: N/A Grad GPA: N/A GRE: 790Q, 670V, 5.5AW Math Courses: Calc Series (I-III), Intro Stats, Intro Econometrics, Linear Algebra, ODE, Real Analysis (single var), all As Econ Courses: Intermediate Macro and Micro, Intl Trade, Intl Monetary, Political Economy, Senior Seminar Other Courses: plenty of polisci courses and thesis Letters of Recommendation: two reasonably well-known econ profs I took classes with, knew me very well; 2 unknown econ profs (1 I took class with, 1 senior thesis supervisor); 1 math prof I took class with; 1 econ PhD boss at policy institution (I also mixed and matched for schools that only accepted 3 LORs) Research Experience: RA'd for 2 semesters + worked as an RA at a public policy institution for ~2 years Publications: One working paper, co-authored Teaching Experience: 1 year, intl trade Research Interests: political economy, institutional analysis, public economics Statement of purpose: Tailored to each university, mentioned particular faculty I was interested in working with Comments: I had much higher expectations at the start because 1) had no idea really how much LORs mattered and 2) underestimated competitiveness of the applicant pool. Was afraid my previous experience in banking would kill my chances, but in retrospect I don't think that was a real factor - LORs are everything What would you have done differently? Taken grad-econ courses and especially taken more advantage of LORs at my institution, being careful to develop connections with well-known faculty through RAing and field courses. Most of my cohort placed into MIT/Princeton/Chicago, and those were the main differences in our profiles

Thanks again, guys! I've just accepted Berkeley/declined BU. This was my gut feeling, but I'm glad to know reason and general consensus are on my side. :)

Yes, I was guaranteed TA and tuition/fees after the 1st yr. I'm thinking in terms of overall life income, graduating from Berkeley might actually give me an overall better financial standing than BU, so taking the present value of future expected income it would actually be better albeit the 1st yr low. Thank you so much for your responses! It's really helped me more than you can imagine (I'm a terrible decision-maker, and even more so within an hour).

I just got a last minute boot off the BU funding waitlist, which means I get approx. 1-2 hours to choose between UC Berkeley 1st year unfunded, and BU fully funded (18k+ stipend, waivers, health, 5k summer). My interests fall mainly in political economy, but I care more about the potential for future placement, and job prospects not only in academia, but also policy organizations. I was ready to take Berkeley already, which means I can go, but should I take BU instead? What would you do in my shoes? I'm not looking for long discussions given the time frame, just the one sentence revealing your preference. Thanks a million!

I declined my UC3M offer yesterday (the deadline for first round offers), so I think more people should be hearing back soon.

As someone who did not manage to go to the flyout, I second the usefulness of such impressions (and yes, while they are simply personal views, they are still very useful information). Thanks in advance to all who decide to brief us on their experience!

I think it has to do mainly with 1) particular faculty of interest to certain subfields; 2) high reputation and value of its Masters programme (reputation by association). And here's one ranking where they come at #78: https://econtop.uvt.nl/rankinglist.php But yes, if I knew what I know now and had done more thorough research about what departments are well-regarded, I probably would have applied to Tilburg, Louvain or Toulouse instead.

I went to undergrad in the state of NY - not sure how that is any relevant to the discussion at point about diversification of the student body away from Italians... I agree that there is a preferential selection towards European students, but that has to do more with EU educational policies of exchange and funding (Bologna, Erasmus, etc). Plus, I don't think one can fairly generalize: I declined Barcelona because of lack of funding, where there are at least 10+ scolarship funds exclusively for Latin American students; LSE has a LOT more scolarship awards for non-EU students, especially for those from the developing world: Awards for Overseas students - Awards for Overseas students - Awards - Diploma, LLM, MA, MSc and MSc (Research) programmes - Scholarships for study at LSE - Financial support - Student Services Centre - Students - Staff and students - Home and Turkey, Morocco and Algeria, for example, are very well represented among European universities. If anything, I would say Italian unis are in fact the exception rather than the rule - one of the principal reasons being, IMHO, that they have to accomodate loads of Italians wanting to study economics who don't speak any English and hence have to stay at home...

No, I probably won't either, but there are still a few people I have to speak with to make a final decision. I'm European, but not Italian, and my undergrad degree is from the US...I think they are trying to diversify their student admits, although you are right in general the student body is overwhelmingly Italian. I was notified on March 28, so I don't think March 15 held true for anyone...

awesome.:tup:

That makes sense - did you weigh this against any lower ranked funded offers? On the bright side, you'll have an extra incentive to succeed in the MSc (your own $$), and will for that reason come out stronger from the program. It's a great school, and I think honestly in terms of faculty/location it's even a better fit for me than Berkeley, but the investment is too much for me...