econoecon

You should try your best to get at least one positive letter from the MA program if possible. Do you have other recommenders secured? Most schools require 3 recommenders, so you could have at least 1 each from the MA & undergrad. Regarding the recommender from the employer, if they aren't a PhD economist (or at the least a PhD in a related quantitative field), I would not get a recommendation. If your employment involved assisting a PhD with research-type work, a recommendation could be very appropriate. However, if the job was something that is not related to research or a PhD in econ, I would not get an employer recommendation.

There are a few schools that have a normal deadline for those applying for funding and a late deadline for those who don't need funding. I think that as long as you meet the first deadline, there isn't an advantage to having your stuff in many months before the first deadline versus a few days before the first deadline. I wouldn't recommend waiting until the last day if possible, because last year some applications were ridiculously slow near the deadline, but as long as it's in by the deadline you generally won't get bonus points for getting it in early.

Many universities will provide a tuition waiver for full-time employees (including a full-time RA) and many government/policy institutions will pay for their RA's to take courses. When I worked as an RA, it was common to take a courses paid for by the employer. I'd say that taking 1 course a semester is pretty standard if you're working full-time, as it would be difficult to balance a higher # of courses while working although occasionally people took 2 courses while working full-time. Whether or not you have to take the courses in the evening or can have a flexible schedule that would allow you to take a course during the day would really depend on the specific employer. Generally a lot of organizations that hire RA's (universities, government, etc) have info about this on their website, and it often also comes up in the interviews. On the converse there is usually a minimum # of hours you'd have to work to get tuition benefits, so if you were planning to just RA a few hours a week, you would probably have to pay for the courses yourself.

Some programs explicitly ask for it, and I assume the ones that don't mention it wouldn't object. I included it as the last page of the PDF when I sent my transcripts.

Oh I re-read your post and see that you haven't taken RA yet, but if you are planning on taking 2 semesters of RA, I'd probably take Stat/Prob rather than Topology. However, I think that both are good options, so I guess it depends on your interests as well.

I would take Statistics/Probability. It seems like you've already taken some theoretical math but haven't taken any stat/prob. If you're considering government work, many government econ jobs involve statistics.

I had a friend who left part-way and did not have to pay anything back (but did not get the stipend for the portion of the year when he didn't attend of course). I think that possibly having to pay something back would only be a problem if you receive advance payments (ie you receive an entire semester's worth of stipend on the 1st day of the semester and then leave one week into the semester). Of course this is just one example, so I guess it depends on your program, but I think that having to pay funds back would be unusual.

I'm kind of conflicted about how to advise you, because on the one hand a PhD is long and difficult, so I certainly don't advise that anyone undertake it if they don't feel dedicated. On the other hand, you've been there for such a short time now that I want to make sure you are 100% certain that quitting is the right thing. In terms of jobs, you generally can apply for jobs while still in the program to get a sense for what sort of job is out there, and then if you're making progress in your job search, you could quit at that point. Regarding the references, only you know whether your references are understanding and what sort of relationship you have with them. I assume you had at least 3 references for grad school. Most jobs (especially entry-level) won't require 3 references, so maybe you could just pick 1 or 2 of the references who you think are most understanding. If it's really necessary, do you have any other references (other professors, summer internship, etc) that you could use? Also just as a note, when I graduated I applied for a ton of jobs (as I wanted to work for a few years before grad school), and RA jobs were the only ones that actually talked to my references. None of the government or private-sector (consulting, banking, finance, etc) talked to any references. That being said, before making a final decision I'd talk to some upper-years and if you have any professors from your undergrad who you're close w/ or any mentors. The beginning of the 1st year is tough, and talking to someone can probably confirm that you do indeed want to quit and aren't just freaking out. I do think the masters can have value in some cases but not in all cases. If you're undergrad was somewhere prestigious you can probably get a good job based on your undergrad. I think that for some people who went to a less-prestigious undergrad, getting a masters from somewhere prestigious gives a name-brand to your resume and access to the recruiting network. Also for certain jobs like econ consulting and some types of gvmt jobs, a masters can be valuable. Of course on the converse sometimes people with econ masters end up doing the same thing as BA's, so it's hard to say whether it would be valuable for you. Also I'd recommend that you take some time to think about what you'd do if you don't do the PhD. Would you get a BA-level gov job and do that forever? Work a few years and do an MBA? Do a different sort of masters? Good luck with your decision!

Good luck on your new path! Congratulations on the job and the soulmate. :) A PhD is not for everyone (and in fact I'd say it's not for most people), so it's better that you found out now than after relocating to join a program.

This is just speculation, but I'd assume if 1 school gets a lot more applicants because it is in a nice location or has a "fancy" brand name, at least a few of those additional applicants would be qualified and it might be harder to get into that school than a school that is not as prestigious overall or in a less desirable location but has an equally-good econ dept.

A few points- Highly-ranked departments (with the exception of especially small departments) usually are strong in most of the common fields. Lower-ranked departments may have a few specialties and be weaker in other areas. Faculty are very mobile. You may wish to apply to a place known for having a strength in a certain field (with multiple faculty in that field), but don't apply to a place based only on one professor. Your interests may or may not change. If you're coming right from undergrad and haven't had much exposure to research, your interests are more likely to change than if you've been working as an RA for several years or written an elaborate masters thesis and had more time to develop research interests (although of course there's no guarantee as to whether or not your interests will change). Is your friend who recommended that you contact professors a PhD candidate in Econ? In Econ normally you don't contact professors before receiving an offer of admission. One possible strategy is to apply to a variety of the top schools as reaches, and then apply to some schools that aren't as highly-ranked overall but are especially good in your area of interest as safeties.

It could potentially be a problem if you're on the waitlist (either waitlist for funding or for admissions). Often if you're on a waitlist they often won't know whether you're in or out until a few days before April 15 (or even on April 15), since it depends how many students admitted in the first round accept the offer of admission. Certainly there is no problem with being away around Christmas and this isn't to say that you should be glued to your phone every minute until April 15, but I think I'd personally want to have access to phone/email the week or so leading up to April 15 if I were waitlisted or on the waitlist for funding. If a school calls on April 14 to say you're in or to ask whether you're still interested, it would be kind of problematic if you don't receive the message until 2 weeks later.

Traveling is fine. A lot of the university staff will be out of the office around the holidays anyway and not looking at your applications at that time. Also unless you're planning to travel somewhere very very remote, I assume you could occasionally check your email or whatever you think needs to be checked while traveling?

I know that UCLA over-admitted 2 years ago (the current group of students entering 2nd-year) and is also having budget problems. I think that this year they were much more careful in not overadmitting, so I wouldn't be surprised if they had a higher failout rate for the year they over-admitted, but most years don't have as high of a fail-out rate (althugh of course that is just speculation). From what I've heard, Penn and Wisconsin have had high fail-out rates in some years. I think that at Columbia the failout rate from prelims isn't that bad, but some students have concerns about access to advisors once they've passed prelims and are working on the dissertation. (Rochester and Cornell I don't know about.) As someone who attended a lot of visit days last year, the topic of failout rate always comes up. Either the Dept Coordinator or a professor will provide statistics, or if not, during the question session someone will ask (or you could ask yourself). I do think that if you're not the best test-taker or you have a weaker math background entering the program, it is very reasonable to consider programs without especially high-failout rates. However, if you can't find definitive information on whether or not a failout rate for a specific program is abnormally high, you can always go ahead and apply and then get official statistics from the department if you're admitted and it will be a factor in your decision.

Of the people I knew in my undergrad who went on to top programs, only one was a truly "brilliant" person in the sense of grasping advanced mathematical concepts almost immediately without much effort. The rest were quite intelligent and did well in their classes but worked very hard. I think that having to work isn't necessarily a problem that you won't succeed in a PhD program. I even know people in top math PhD programs who worked really hard in analysis. However, if you work really hard and still cannot grasp the concepts, that might be problem. In terms of needing to know analysis material, there are always examples of people who were not exposed to the material and managed to do well. However, not having been exposed to the material (whether through a formal analysis course or some other course that included the material) will make the PhD coursework much harder at most programs since you have to learn the math along with the econ. If you're a quick learner, you might be able to catch up, but if you're not an especially quick learner relative to your classmates, it could be a problem.