EnvEcon

Unranked. Don't go.

Some random thoughts: - I would suggest to re-take the GRE, just because some depts use it as a threshold to make the first selection. It is NOT (one of) the most important aspects adcoms will look at. - It's good that you took a grad class in econometrics and that you already have some extensive research experience (mention it in your SOP or make sure your letter writers mention it!). That will help a lot. Don't worry too much about lack of math. - It's not true that ag econ Phd don't end up doing policy work. Look at placements and you will find lots of people ending in government agencies, international organizations and think tanks. - Among the list of ag schools, I would apply also to Cornell (Dyson) and a bunch of good econ programs focused on environmental (e.g. Wyoming). Note that Duke and Yale have a Phd program in their environmental schools: these are excellent programs as well. - The more you go down the rankings of ag econ schools (say, after the top 5), the more they will be focused on traditional ag econ fields with less emphasis on environmental/resource. Also, those programs have more emphasis on extension or local issues than research. I'm not saying you should not apply to these schools, but you should examine each school very carefully when deciding between different offers: look at faculty research interests, placement of last graduates (if they are not public, ask for them!) and so on.

Well, we already had the prospective students visit, about 12 people. This is usually a higher number then our average entering class size, so unless many accepted students decide to not to come here (very unlikely) the games are pretty much over, regardless the official rejections have been sent or not.

Difficult question to answer without knowing your background, your research interests, and whether you would be satisfied getting an industry/policy job. Placement-wise, Berkely ARE dominates other programs in your list IMHO, apart of that it really depends. I would apply to a variety of places compatible with your interests, both econ and ARE, and see what happens.

Ok, ok, ok. Before you guys start freaking out: it's still very early for offers. Some places might still be busy for faculty recruiting. Also, some places have a rolling admission process. In fact, I received my offer at my current place in mid March. If you don't hear anything by the end of March you might think about plan B. Until then, good luck everyone! :)

The top journals in ARE are AER/QJE/Econometrica (I would add JPE and ReStud, the traditional "top five"). Seriously, top general interest journal are the same for all the economics subdisciplines. We can discuss how easy is to publish with an ag paper in those journals (not general interest enough?), but it happened in the past. You can say the same for second tier general interest journals (e.g. ReStat). What might change is the perception of top field journals. I guess that AJAE has more weight in an agecon department than an econ department, where there might not be ag economists at all. Also, ranking and specialization of the department might matter: if it's specialized in environmental, JEEM will be highly regarded, JDE if it's specialized in development. But my impression is that top ag econ department are aligning with the rest of the profession in terms of internal ranking of journals.

I totally second this. As far as I remember, in my program all the people from Europe had a master in economics or engeneering. None had a master in ag econ. On the other hand, we had one person that got in with a ag econ master from UC Davis, but even that was not the canonical route that most people take. The other point is that the European ag econ department are much, much more specialized towards agriculture than the Phd programs you are targeting. Top US Ag econ departments are doing less and less "pure ag" and more and more resource/environmental/micro development, depending on the specific strength of the department. The risk is that you find yourself stuck with a very narrow specialization which is not even proved effective in getting into an ARE Phd.

Reputation of the article: I think that your intuition is correct - at the beginning the journal rank is what matters, but in the long run citation is what counts more. The two things are quite correlated though: publishing in one of the top five general interest journal or a top field journal gives you a lot more visibility than a third tier general interest or a second tier field journal. Also IMHO comparing two articles of different fields published in field journals makes little sense: theory papers for instance have on average lower citations than applied papers, and some fields/subfields are just bigger than others. Another caveat: articles in certain field journals are read by a wider audience (e.g. non-economists) and therefore have more citations, but that doesn't mean that the reputation among economists is higher. Reputation of the author: I don't think exists a unique quantitative measure that does that. Also, a researcher might be well known and respected in his field but relatively unknown in other fields. I feel reputation is a combination of past achievements (publications in good journals, citations...) and current involvement in the profession (attending workshops, field and general conferences, having a good amount of ongoing projects). For choosing letter writers, my suggestion is simple: go with the person which will write you a better letter.

jmjd, going to a low ranked school presuming to become the star of the department is a very, very risky strategy. And even if you will end up to be a star, probably you will still be underplaced at the job market (sadly, rankings matter a lot in economics). In other words, there is a fair chance that things won't go as in the best case scenario, and you need to ask yourself if you are going to be happy with the median placement of a UM Phd. The paper fakeo is quoting is about assistant professors in research schools 6 years after their Phd, and treats schools below top 30 as a unique group. Most unranked program for one reason or another rarely place in a research university. And there is a pretty big group of Phd programs below top 30 which produce very good researchers so mixing a top 50 with, say, a top 200 makes little sense. The difference between a top 40-50 program and an unranked program is considerable in terms of resources available, quality of advising, peer effects and so on. This is not to discourage you to pursue your dreams, but to give a more objective view of the return of a costly 5 years (at least) investment in your education. And an invite to consider whether or not you would be satisfied with the typical placement of your target program, or you would be better off with a different career strategy.

This is a great advice. Bear in mind that the professor's expectations on what you are able to offer as RA are lower than you think. It's called research assistant for a reason. Depending by his style, you might get frequent or very sparse feedback, but in both cases you will learn a lot. You are very likely not the first RA he had, so he surely know you first need to figure out what you are supposed to do and how. Also note that even if the topic is not close to what you are interested in, the tools of empirical analysis you will use have generally a much broader application than the single research question you will work on! The really important thing IMHO is showing a sincere desire to learn (yes, even asking "I do not understand this") and to put a good amount of effort. Again on the research interests "not matching": it seems you are interested in field experiments. Well, a TON of field experiments on social choices are run in developing countries! If you are interested I suggest to look at some literature about field experiments on, for instance, purchase of crop insurance. A lot of these experiments have an underlying behavioral economics question (e.g. "Why farmers in developing countries seem to under-invest in crop insurance?"). One of the things I remember from the literature is that farmers under-invest in certain assets because they do not want to signal to other members of the community that they have spare funds available (there is strong social pressure to share savings with other community members). This is probably something your professor is quite familiar with.

Short answer: go for the 1, if you have time go for two as well. Long answer: Let me comment on the disadvantages for option 1: Not a problem, especially if he still publishes / is well known / has sent other students in good phd programs. Not a problem. As long as the school is known and sent some students to US programs it's fine. Not a problem. Admission committees know well that research interests change. What matters is that he can provide a good letter explaining that you have a good economics background and you are seriously motivated. If the professor in option 2 is less known, publishes in lower ranked journals and he's not as helpful, you might not want him to be your main letter writer.

The answer is yes, if you mean lab experiments only. But most of the development faculty (included a new assistant professor hired this year) have some field experiment project. I'm aware at least of two students who are currently running experiments in the lab.

I'm not that into the process, but we don't have a fixed size for the entering class i.e. if some of the people visiting will reject our offer, it doesn't necessarily mean that their place will be offered to someone else. Also, almost all the departments tend to admit more people than their target class size, figuring out that some of them will make another choice. If you are waitlisted, there are some chances to be admitted conditional on the fact that more people than expected won't take the offer. I really sympathize with your situation but again, it's better to have a surprise later than holding on a slim chance.

We have scheduled campus visits already, so if you don't have an offer at this point, better you don't have many hopes. It sucks, but I hope you have some other good offers elsewhere. For the guys who are visiting, looking forward to see you soon!

It seems that you have a pretty good idea about the schools strong on environmental econ. I would definitely add San Diego and Santa Barbara. I second chateauheart: you are planning to apply to 10 schools, but why not to apply to (almost) all the schools you mentioned? They are around 15 applications. The cost of applying to 5-6 more school is not much in the big scheme of things, but doing so you would be more "insured" against the randomness of the application process, which is not negligible. If you will get into similarly ranked schools you will be able to consider other things than placement and academic strength such as location, quality of life, value of assistantship and so on. Obviously if you have serious budget constraints, forget what I wrote.