zsljulius

Many Thanks!

sorry, I have voted before I looked at the threads...

I recently listened to an episode on Econ talk. They were talking about the value of economists' advises in policy making. Obviously, economists are not physicists largely because the phenomenon economists dealing with is overwhelmingly " high causal density". As we can see from the many issues that economists cannot agree upon, the study of economy involves many personal opinions. As a matter of fact, economists may never able to quantify something. We might be able to know the direction the economy can move if something happens, but it is just too difficult for anyone to quantify the magnitude of the movement in confidence. Therefore, I am in sympathy of the role economists play. For those who are interested, you can take a look at this episode from econtalk. Manzi on Knowledge, Policy, and Uncontrolled | EconTalk | Library of Economics and Liberty

Thanks for your reply, Aspievirgin. I think I will retake on August, since ETS now allows for the test taker to select which score to send. I will try to improve my Q and AWA. The low Quant score is also a surprise to me too, but I should be able to boost it at least to 168 next time.

I just received my score online. I had Q:165; V:163 and AWA 3.5. I am an international student, so the verbal score is good enough for me. My Quant is ok but definitely not great. However, when it comes to AWA, I feel like I am far from the average for most Top schools. During my preparation for GRE, AWA had been the toughest part for me. I am just bad at timed essay writing. Moreover, I am not sure if I can do much better on AWA even if retaking the test. If you guys think I should retake, do you guys have any suggestion on improving AWA? Thanks for your help

Why do you think the second option will diminish your chance of getting into Top30? I acutally think research is much more important than courseworks, not to mention you have the chance to take gradaute math classes during research.

wow, awesome video. I am currently taking Macroeconomics and found it much more abstract than micro. Every time I think about aggregate stuff, I got stuck...

A PhD In math or CS will help you better with quant than a PhD in Finance.

You had 30sth Econ classes??? That's really impressive. Are there in deed that many econ courses available?

Thanks poet, very informative post! The best advice for me is this " Don't lose sight of why you're doing this. I am a firm believer in shaping your own destiny, that hard work pays off exponentially and that the only limits imposed on you are those you create for yourself. But don't forget that every optimization problem has constraints. This applies to everything you will do in life. Don't worry about what you can't control (the whim of the adcom, for example), do your best and apply everywhere you think you'd be happy. That includes the long shot reach schools."

Your grade doesn't seem stellar when compared to others who aims for Top 20. But if you have something special (super star recommendation, publish paper...), you will definitely crack Top20. Just don't worry about the past grade, work harder on your other courses and do strong research!

Dear all, As I said in the title, any recommendations for public policy in economics context? Blogs with career advices or written by people who work in government/international financial insititution/NGOs will be greatly appreciated too. Thanks

Personally, I think law background can be extremely helpful in finance. Have you thought about doing finance instead of econ? I find some of the most interesting ideas come from one's familiarity with regulation laws. Law documents are notoriously difficult to read, so I think the law experience will help you rather than work against you.

I would vote for Columbia if you have the necessary financial support to attend. You can get in better PhD program after Master

Cornell places lots of their students in private sector. Take a look at their opeartion research department, almost 80% of the graduates go for private sectors