kbai

I don't think the question implies that every student in the graduating class took at least one of them. So think of this as a Venn diagram within an Euler diagram.

Hey everyone I want to apply to the top 20 schools next year, and my concern is, how bad will it look if I have A-'s in both Multivariable Calculus and Linear Algebra (instead of A / A+)? Would having A's in Real Analysis and a Ph.D Numerical Analysis course in the following semester make up for these less than perfect grades? Looking at past results, very few people get anything below A/A+ in these two classes and I get the feeling sometimes adcoms can be a bit nit-picky. (Also, I get paranoid). Thanks in advance!

Basing ONLY on TM past averages, someone with a 3.5 could be at a significant disadvantage if he/she applies to any of the top 30 schools because most other people in that range will have a ~4.0 major GPA and 3.8+ cGPA. But if you look at individual results, you will probably have about ~60-70% of people with 3.9-4.0's, but then you have a few people with 3.5 - 3.7's getting in without a problem. All in all, it's a crapshoot. However, if you want a profile evaluation, we're going to need a bit more information. From what I've gathered, cGPA is one of the less important things to worry about. Of course, make sure you maintain >3.0 (you're perfectly fine as it stands) or else you may just get auto-rejected. Also, as minor as it is, a low cGPA still adds a dimension of uncertainty to your profile and you definitely don't want that.

There seems to be mixed feelings about this subject on whether or not math research is "useful", "very useful", or "not useful". But I think the vast majority of us will agree that it's better than nothing. At the very least it reinforces the fact that you have mathematical competence and diligence. Not to mention a good LOR > lukewarm LOR any day (although try to get an economist, if possible).

I would imagine it'll be 165ish? But then again, the old 800 became a 166, so maybe about 162-163 seems more reasonable. Problem is, there's absolutely no data on this yet so your guess is as good as mine.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I take it that you're worried about student A taking your spot in the university you want to go to? The way I see it, wouldn't you simply just be waitlisted, then be let off the waitlist when the top 10 kids go off to Harvard/MIT/Lala Land? (I'm actually not too sure how this waitlist thing works) I can kind of see your logic, but at the same time convincing adcoms is easier said than done, because I'm pretty sure they see this upwards hundreds of times. Why? Well look at it this way. From student C's perspective, you, student B, will become student A and student C becomes student B, relatively speaking. So if you are arguing student A will make it to a better school so the university should simply not accept him/her, the same argument can be made against you from student C's perspective. And then from student D, and student E, and so on and so forth. So it just becomes a giant mess of people saying mutated versions of "I will do well in this program and want to go here above anywhere else" in hopes of getting in. But on the other hand, maybe if you don't do a good job of trying to convince them that will put you at comparative disadvantage?

But in terms of difficulty, how is Optimization Theory? I actually just might suck it up and take them both (not sure about the signaling power of having these courses in progress, but I should have a 3.97 math GPA from previous classes so maybe adcoms will take that into account). From what I heard, PDE is quite difficult, Real Analysis II will probably be very difficult, and Ph.D. Micro II, I'm not actually too worried about it, but it'll probably be time consuming as well. Also, what about 2nd semester statistics? It's probably bad to pick classes based on difficulty, but for all practical purposes I'm worried that getting an A- instead of an A in a signaling class will work against me, and just in case if I get skunked next season and have to do a 1 year master's degree and trying for Ph.D. again, I really don't want to walk into admissions with a bunch of A-'s or (God forbid) B+'s/B's in math courses.

If there was only 1 spot in my schedule for PDE and Optimization theory, which one do you think would be more useful for both admissions and the actual Ph.D. coursework? I suppose I could take both, but the prospect of doing that while taking Real Analysis and Ph.D. Micro II does not sound fun.

But judging from the forum posts and people I've talked to, I don't think SOP will make much of a difference in terms of admittance. I don't even know if they read it at all. But I will probably do as you suggest anyway, thanks!

M.A. Degree Program Requirements | QED That's the Queen's University in Canada. Queens College Economics Queen's College (CUNY) The Queen's College Queen's University in England. I've only seen references to the one in Canada though, so I'm going to assume that's where you want to be headed if you're trying to get an Master's.

Double post, sorry.

Geez, are you taking this all in the same year? (or maybe everyone does that and I'm just being naive) I am tired by just reading this forum, and I'm not even applying this year. Next year is going to be a doozy alright. Good luck everyone, hope to see some of you guys in a year at a Ph.D. program in 2013!

I am assuming that you want to get into at least a top 50 school, yes? Actually, our profiles are scarily similar, except you have a higher econ GPA and a bit more research experience. Nothing really stands out, but there are very few faults (except maybe cGPA is a bit on the lower end, just like mine). From what I can see from TM results, you probably will have a hard time cracking the top 5-10 (as if anyone else wouldn't), but I would be very VERY surprised if you don't get into at least top 40, and you have a solid shot at top 30. But then again, I'm only going by cGPA and GRE scores from past results and didn't really look into the other parts of the applications. And as far as I can tell, the general consensus is that cGPA and GRE are not exactly the best indicators admission success. Assuming you past the auto reject pile, which you probably will at the top 30 level judging by past result, the rest of your profile looks good enough to be fairly competitive. But I would probably make the worst adcom ever, so take my prediction with a grain of salt. I'll try to alleviate some of your worries though, from what I have gathered over the past 2 months of researching. Math-wise, your fine. Also it is more about the quality of the LOR than the writer (optimally you'd have 3 Nobel laureates all with glowing letters, but we've all done economics long enough to know optimal =/= real life). As for your writers' interest, unless if they, for whatever reason, dislike you based on the fact that you're not into the same field, I don't see how that would be a factor (in fact, I fairly certain adcoms won't even know, and definitely won't care). I personally 2nd the idea that having a math rec is good, but others have their opinions. As for grad classes, if they really are that big of a factor then logically no one from LAC's will ever get into good programs, and that certainly isn't true (in fact I've had professors told me having grad classes only help marginally, and if you end up getting anything below an A it actually hurts you). BTW, which cycle are you applying? If we are on different cycles, then I wish you the best of luck! (if we're the same cycle...hmm...95% best of luck!)

Hey everyone, I'm trying to put together a CV for Ph.D. admissions, but I am a bit overwhelmed in terms on how to start this thing. It's not "required" for half the schools I'm applying to, but there are a few that want it. So far, I've listed my basic information, education, then coursework, research interests, and some miscellaneous stuff such as citizenship info and other skills. Problem is, it's only like a page long. I just don't have too much stuff to put on it but that's probably the best I could do for now. However, I have a small and somewhat uninteresting paper from a course (8 pages, not counting title page and references) I took for an economics class, should I list that as a research paper on my CV? It's not published (probably nor at publishing quality, for the matter), but it does deal with a bit of basic economic theory and I argued a few points. If I do put it on there, should I put an abstract for it? (with such a small paper, I thought it was silly to write an abstract at first, so now I'm wondering should I write one) While I'm at it, just how did you do your CV's? Also, do you think adcoms actually bother to even read these? Thanks in advance for your responses!

Hmm...top 10%. I actually missed that part somehow... Well then it will depend on the placement history at your school. If your school regularly sends to top 20 places (which btw is where you want to go if your goal is academia), then maybe the adcoms should have some idea on the difficulty of the courses.

They could potentially, it's never a sure thing. You have to items that may give you a chance: GRE Q, and your GPA in master's is somewhat decent. But like I said, and I hate to have to say this, you are facing a steep uphill battle. Another master's MAY help, but judging by the other posts on the forum, it isn't going to get you into a top 20 given your U-Grad GPA (unless if you get an absolutely amazing LOR, then maybe.) Although then you'll have both an Econ and Math MA, so with that kind of profile I have no idea as I haven't seen that before (but I'm also kind of new here, so who knows). Btw, if you don't mind me asking, were you planning to go into academia afterwards?

Ok, I am going brutally honest with you. I'm going to say this: the amount of math you have will be a definite plus for your profile, so is your programming knowledge. You have both a bachelor's and a masters thesis, which is also good. However, your GPA is going to be a problem. As far as I can tell from test magic results, the schools you listed they have an average GPA of about 3.8 or so. Your Math and Econ grades are very strong though, as far as I can see they are 3.8+, but your overall is a bit low. Your GRE is fine, 165Quant isn't bad. The biggest difficulty for you is to survive auto-rejection and have them take a look at your actual transcript. With a 3.15, I'm afraid Duke and Brown will throw your application out before even reading it. Wisconsin and Caltech may take a look, but you have to realize most applicants who apply to those places will have similar credentials to you in both math and econ, but have GPA's of approaching 4.0. In short, it's going to be an uphill battle. Maybe you can cast a wider net? You could try Georgetown or Virginia, they have slightly lower admissions standards and have decent placements (it'll still be a bit hard for you though, given you cGPA)

Really? Like top 20 schools only, or just in general?

It's debatable. I was mainly thinking about Probability theory when I wrote that and not so much ODE. Also, in my opinion if you did well in Real Analysis (A- or above), having ODE will probably not add a whole lot to your profile.

I'm not too familiar with European schools, but I will give my honest opinion. Your GPA will be somewhat of a problem for the top schools, and so is your GRE score (maybe you can retake it?). The experience with the bank in Greece isn't going to help too much with Ph.D. admissions. However, you do seem to have a decent Econ GPA and Math GPA, maybe some schools will admit you based on that. As for your letters and university, they may pose to be a small problem, but there is very little you can do about the former (get new writers? easier said than done though and it's quality of letter > quality of writer) and absolutely nothing you can do about the latter. Age is generally a non factor. There are Ph.D students who are starting in their mid-30s and they do just fine. Maybe you can check the placement history of your school and go from there?

Well, now that it's brought up again, I'll have a go at it since it will be interesting to see what people think. I'd say this would be my weights distribution with the assumption GRE Quant score is 800 or 170 (because that seems to be a binary outcome value, you either have it and pass auto rejection, or don't and get your app thrown out.) and potential applicant is aiming for top 30 schools. 1. LOR (I think we can all agree) 2. Real Analysis (I think most of us can agree) 3. Econometrics (Yes, very important, huge red flag without it...or having anything below an A- on it for the matter.) 4. Research Experience (in various forms) 5 - 8. Econ/Math GPA 9. Cumulative GPA (Above 3.6 should get you looked at, above 3.7 even better.) 10. Undergrad Ranking (not ranking per se, but because it correlates with 1) 11. Probability Theory (I've seen one or two people get into good schools without these, but it also seems to be very common in top school admits and besides, it's more math. Can't go wrong with that.) 12 - 14. Grad classes 15. LOR writers (not to be confused with the actual LOR, but not having famous professors or only assistant/associate professors write your letters can be problematic at the top 30. Of course, quality of LOR > fame/rank of LOR writer any day.) 16. Class Rank (would have put this in the top 5, but some schools don't seem to have a ranking system so I don't think logically this could be too crucial, but still a factor) 17. Undergrad field classes (if physics or engineering majors can get in, it's pretty much safe to assume math > econ) 18. SOP (With the assumption you write a standard SOP and not something overtly ridiculous and stupid) 19. Teaching experience (unless if you want to get a teacher's assistant job, but that's after admission) 20. Research Interests (schools will probably reject on grounds for not matching their professors' fields, but I think upwards 80% of people will change their interests at least somewhat over the course of the Ph.D.) Edits ODE - Put somewhere above 19 and below 12. Usefulness moot if assuming 2 is fulfilled. Thesis - There actually doesn't seem to be too big of a correlation between thesis or no thesis Research Experience - Bad publication back to haunt you. cGPA - The higher the better, but 3.8 is a bit extreme in top 30. Maybe top 10, but even so, it seems to depend on a whole lot of other factors and cGPA is one of the last things to worry about as long as it is over the "Auto reject" cutoff, which is probably not anything greater than 3.5 judging by past TM admits / wait-lists. Grad Classes - Somewhat useful signal (assuming you get a good LOR from it, otherwise not quite as much) but make sure you do well or else this will work against you. Econ/Math GPA: 3.7, definitely. 3.9, see comment on cGPA for general idea. Finally: LETTERS OF RECOMMENDATION. Treat these like holy scripture.

But what about courses in progress? Thing is, at the time of my application, I'll still have Real Analysis 2, Partial Diff. Eq, Probability and Stats 2, and Ph.D. Micro II in progress. Will those serves as a good signal, or will they look bad because there is not grade for them yet? Or maybe, will they just have a neutral effect? Also, there seems to be little uniformity in course names, because some schools seem to have introduction to proofs listed as "Intro to Real Analysis", some list it as "Real Analysis 1", among many others. I wonder if adcoms would know what "Foundations of Math" is, because that's what my school calls it, and it probably doesn't sound as fancy as "Intro to Real Analysis". (I go to a top 20 rank U.S. school, but our econ department is embarrassing when it comes to rankings, if that helps). I wonder because more than half the competition will be international kids, who have master degrees and maybe twice the math classes than the average U.S. educated student, and those people probably will have grades for the previous classes listed. And probably even kids in the U.S. will probably come from schools that have courses listed with "better" sounding names than my school (with the real analysis sequence, but also especially in the Econometrics sequence as Econometrics 1/2/3 while my school has names such as Intro to Econ statistics/Empirical methods/Econometrics). Or maybe I'm simply being paranoid...but as we all know, grad school applications do that to people.

Thanks for the reply, but I looked at the application forms, and no where on there does it ask me to list my major GPA, only my cGPA. Do the adcoms actually go through transcripts and look at individual grades, and then calculate GPA again? It just doesn't seem very likely that will happen, given the number of applications they get each cycle.

Here I am again, with another question that has been bothering me. So I've had a somewhat unconventional college career, as I was a Econ/Music major before I dumped the music theory books and switched to math. But the problem was, I was REALLY bad at Music theory, and got a string of B's and B+'s in those classes. So as it stands, my GPA (assuming I get all A's and no more than 2 A-'s for the next 2 semesters) is only a 3.76 - 77 and judging by grad school websites and this forum, that isn't going to cut it for any decent program. The thing is, my major GPA for econ is a 3.87 (just 1 B+ in an introductory class) and I have a 3.97 for Math (including an A in real analysis). Will that at least offset my low cumulative GPA in the top 20 schools? I'm worried anything below a 3.8 goes into the auto-reject pile.

I'm actually applying in 2012, so next year. And I wouldn't necessarily think professors will say that to everyone, because it really depends on the context. If you walked in and asked "What would it take for me to get an academic job after Ph.D.?" then yes, the professor will suggest that you apply to the top schools with less regard on how he percieves your chances. If you asked, say, "What school should I apply to?", then I think he/she'd be more careful about suggesting someone apply to all the top schools.