IPreferPi

Update: Got my AWA scores back. 5.5! Completed the hat trick of getting 90+ percentile on all three sections lol.

Native English speaker. Spent about 3-4 hours per week a month before I took the test. Primarily focused on Quantitative, but went through about 500 of the 800 words in Barron's Essential Words for the GRE. Q 800 - V 710; I'll find out my AWA score in a week.

Real GRE: V 710 Q 800 PowerPrep 1: V 580 Q 680 (took it at the beginning of the summer before I began to study for the GRE) PowerPrep 2: V 660 Q 750 (took it day before exam) Big Book: V640 Q740, V660 Q750, V750 Q800, V 680 Q770

Here are the rankings: 2010 Rankings: Doctoral Programs in America - Home - The Chronicle of Higher Education. Interesting, to say the least (Arizona State is in the top 20?)

Marginal costs more than outweigh the marginal benefits. Definitely wouldn't recommend it.

Well, PhD econ programs almost universally require the GRE. GMAT is generally allowed for finance programs, which I'm not applying to. I'm not really sure what you mean regarding verbal, though I've always found Sentence Completions to be easy. Quantitative wasn't bad as a whole, but I'm a math major and did a lot of prep from the Nova Math Bible and the 800score.com CAT's. I just fudged my time management on a quant. comparision problem which led me to the pressure cooker situation in my OP. Ending up with the 800 was the last thing on my mind when I clicked to see my scores after the test. I probably could've done better on AWA, specifically the issue essay (I kinda ignored studying for the AWA), but I think I rocked the argument analysis essay.

So ecstatic, especially since I had 8 questions to go with 5 mins left on the Quantitative section. Really thought I was gonna have to retake it and jump through the security hoops again at my local testing center. Mostly focused on studying for the math (Nova Math Bible, GRE PowerPrep, 800score.com CAT's). For Verbal, studied solely out of Barron's 800 high frequency word book. I don't think I did that well on the argument essay, but I think I knocked the argument analysis essay out of the park. Good luck to everyone planning to take it/taking it in the near future. Feel free to ask me any questions!

On a related topic, how do you guys pronounce LyX? "Lick" or "Licks"?

That's a bingo lol.

It might have been Dirac.

ASU minds think alike lol!

Although there is a vast disconnect between undergrad and grad-level economics in terms of mathematical rigor, taking economic courses beyond the intermediate theory stuff can expose you to big ideas in the discipline while also enabling you to start analyzing social and institutional phenomena through an economic lens. Methinks there are far too many prospective Econ PhD's who obsess over mathematical technique at the expense pf neglecting the "social" part of economics as a social science. Hence, I would generally disagree. My advice would be to either double major in math and econ, or major in econ and take as much math as possible.

Whoops, totally missed that part lol *facepalm*. In that case, take the intermediate macro course and/or an econometrics course!

You definitely would want to take at least the intermediate micro and macro courses and do well in those (esp. micro). It looks like your profile is pretty solid for Top 10 otherwise. I wouldn't worry about your lack of publication - relatively few grad school applicants have publications under their belt at the time of their application. As long as your LOR's can attest to your ability to do solid research, your profile should be more than sufficient in that aspect.

I'll agree and also add in economic history. One unfortunate consequence of the mathematical transformation of economics is the marginalization of economic history and HET. I've seen many economists nowadays equate their work to those of mathematicians and physicists; thing is though is that I'd wager the typical mathematician and physicist probably knows and cares a lot more about the history of their discipline than the economist does. And they're the actual *hard* scientists!