rekovu

1) Emailing researchers at your school is fine. 2) Don't email people at other schools unless they have made a posting for an RA. 3) Write in the email that you can provide transcripts, CV, recommendations if desired.

Apply to any top 20 school you'd be willing to go to. You'll get in somewhere, probably in the top 10. You don't need a master's program - I would only do the Tripos if it was on a Gates-Cambridge.

You will probably get shut out from that list of schools, except maybe UT. Still, it's worth applying to any school you'd be willing to go to, and then with stronger math grades over the next year try again. I don't know how strong your RA work/thesis is, so that's an obvious wild card.

Three to five weeks in winter, a week in spring, five days for Thanksgiving, 3-4 months in summer. You'll have more vacation than you can handle - whether you use it all is another question.

You should send three, but don't randomize. Send the letters to the schools at which they'll have most effect. E.g. if one of the letter-writers got a PhD at a particular school, or does work in a field that people at the school appreciate, etc., then make sure to send those letters to those schools. Don't have the Minnesota macro guy write a letter to Caltech.

Apply to the entire top 20, except for ones that are really bad fits or at which you would be unhappy. You'll get into one.

You're overrating how far a letter from Caplan will take you - he's a brilliant guy and has written some fascinating books, but he's not been involved in standard academic research for a long time. You're aImost certainly shut out of the top 30. If you really want to go to a top 30 school, you should spend a couple years RAing and taking courses to boost your grades.

Apply to the entire top 20 - you'll get in somewhere. Keep loading up on the toughest courses available.

You should go (roughly speaking) to the highest ranked school, based on placement rankings, that accepts you, and make receptiveness towards ABM/ quality and quantity of ABM researchers a less important margin on which you make decisions. This means that if you get into Princeton and Michigan, you should go to Princeton, despite Michigan having the top complex systems group in the country, and therefore likely higher quality advising in ABM. That being said, there are certain schools I know which I are better than comparably ranked schools for someone with an interest in ABM. These are Duke, Michigan, CMU, Iowa (Leigh Tesfatsion), Caltech, and GMU. The other important resource to keep in mind is the Santa Fe Institute. Connecting with them (by contacting researchers, staying there for a summer, etc.) is a good way to explore ABM, despite being at a PhD program which is not receptive towards ABM. Deciding to do ABM as an economics PhD takes some amount of balls - in visits at some of the aforementioned schools, I did not meet anyone in an economics PhD working in ABM, or with anything more than a vague interest. Faculty will usually not be receptive towards it - even faculty in the good ABM schools; I mentioned most of those as good places to do ABM because of what's going on outside the economics PhD program. At lower-ranked schools it might be more common to see econ PhD's doing ABM, possibly because their job market prospects are worse and so they have less to lose by exploring a new, risky field. My intuition is that the hard, important questions in ABM are going to be on the statistical validation/methodology side of ABM. I also have an interest in ABM, but it will be something I approach peripherally after spending some time working on questions I also find interesting in econometric theory (my most likely field) as opposed to something on which I write a dissertation.

It is kind of odd to have two courses, one of which uses Rosenlicht and the other baby Rudin, which are meant to be taken in sequence. They cover the exact same material, except Rudin is deeper, broader, and possibly less pedagogical. It might make sense if the Rudin course is an honors track, and Rosenlicht is a regular math major course. Either way, some schools will name their Rudin course "Advanced Calculus", and others will call it "Real Analysis". Since the admissions committee member is likely not going to be familiar with your course catalog, your advanced calculus course, though using an easier text than most such courses, will send about the same signal as any other undergrad analysis course at a comparably ranked university as yours. I would not waste space in the SOP explaining your advanced calculus course - it's well known that it's just an alternate name for real analysis.

Definitely add Duke , you should add Maryland as well. You will get into top 20, and you might get into top 10. You should think about applying to some finance programs too - you would be a very good fit for those.

Your list is good, but apply to more schools - as many of the 20 or so schools in the top 15 as possible. You're not going to get in everywhere, but you if you apply to the entire top 15, I would expect you to get at least a few admits. At the very least add Minnesota and Maryland, you would be a good fit at those schools.

If you have a financial econometrics background, you might meet Duke´s standards but not Penn State´s, and if you are a physics PhD contemplating a transition to econ, you might meet Minnesota´s standards but not Cornell´s. Different strokes for different folks - if you have any expectation of noise in your profile, apply to as many reaches as you can afford.

Here's some off the top of my head. I add a (+) to mark a school which is better at this field than at its overall ranking, and a (++) to mark a school which is much better at a given field than it's overall ranking. Most of the below are T10 though, so they can't really get many (++)'s. I'm also limited in my knowledge based off knowledge of fields in which I'm interested, and the places I was looking at during my admissions cycle, so anyone else who wants to should fill this in. Microeconomic Theory: Northwestern (+), Princeton(+), Stanford (+), Caltech (++), UCSD(+) Development: Yale(+), Brown(++), Berkeley (+) Macroeconomic Theory: Minnesota(++) Time-series econometrics: UCSD(+), Yale(+) (best in world), Duke(+) -> Financial econometrics: Duke(++) (best in world) Microeconometric theory: Northwestern (+) Public finance: Michigan (+) Labor: Michigan(+), Chicago(+) Law and Econ: Chicago(+) Economic History: Berkeley(+), Northwestern(+) Experimental: NYU(+), Caltech (+) IO: Northwestern (+) There's not too much of Stanford, and none of Harvard and MIT here, because it's difficult for them to be better than their overall rankings. Northwestern's overrepresented because I know a lot about them and they're the most concentrated T10 schools (if you wanted weaknesses, NU is a (--) in labor). Again, this is my subjective, incomplete opinion, but hopefully it's useful.

I agree on the pedigree. What I failed to write in my previous post is that depending on how prestigious a place you're coming from, you don't need grad math, grad econ, or any research. A person with a straightforward econ degree from MIT and little else can probably get into Chicago. If you're not from a top undergrad or if your connections are poor, then you really want all of grad math, econ, and research to convince them to overlook the relative noisiness of your profile. That's why I maintain that you should go to the Fed for two years. It will be empirical work, which is unlike your interests, but those are still useful skills that you learn. The Boston and Chicago feds also have good micro groups - not sure about the others.