setsanto

Read Mostly Harmless Econometrics by Angrist and Pischke. That's the textbook used for 2803. Not only will it help your econometrics preparation, it will also serve as a guide as to whether or not you are prepared to take 2803.

Yeah there were 2 regular stream master's students in that course. I honestly wouldn't concern myself too much with the cross listed phd courses vs. the ma-only courses. You get easier assignments than the phd students in those elective courses and I never felt that my preparation wasn't enough for Bobonis' class.

I took applied emp micro with Bobonis and absolutely loved it, he was my favourite part of that whole semester. I found both the administration and the people cold. There wasn't much emphasis on sharing and collaboration, and I felt a little cheated at times. There are certainly a huge variety of courses as you pointed out, which is a significant positive for uoft.

I started the MA Doctoral Stream at University of Toronto this fall, and dropped out. I'm now working in industry. My profile is probably pretty easy to find through my post history, so I'll let you guys do the legwork on that! I chose the PhD Econometrics stream, and found it extremely, extremely hard. I dropped that course, and then subsequently left the program altogether. I realized I'd just lost interest in pursuing further study in the subject! I realize my experience is probably a non-traditional one, but I'd be happy to respond to any questions etc. if you guys have some. I am quite biased against UofT, but I would encourage all of you to consider the environment of the school you are going to and not just its ranking. I found UofT quite cold and very competitive rather than collegial. I'm not the best at making friends and not particularly outgoing, so that's definitely part of it. That said, I think another school might have been a better pick for me!

The difference is that most European institutions have MPhil degrees, which do not exist in North America. The North American progression is UGrad -> MA -> PhD (or just UGrad -> PhD in USA), while I believe in Europe it is more like UGrad -> MPhil -> PhD or even UGrad -> MA -> MPhil -> PhD. For example, I believe Cambridge and Oxford only accept students into their PhD program with an MPhil, not and undergrad or MA degree.

No the language of instruction is in english. Montreal is also very anglophone, you will easily get by with just english, especially among the McGIll community.

I think there are only 4-5 international students in my MA cohort at UofT. 1 in doctoral stream.

I wouldn't knock yourself too much, Sciences Po is very well known in Canada at the very least, and I'm sure many people know it in the USA as well. An MSc seems to be a good option for you since you lack both Math and Economics courses (what did you major in?). I would encourage you to investigate the option of attending a french institution as a non-degree student and taking some classes that way. I know this is possible in North America, but I'm not sure if it is in France. This way you could take maybe 1-2 semesters of math and economics courses to round out your profile and then apply again. You have an extremely solid base, as long as you maintain your marks you will place well in your PhD applications.

FYI UWO isn't a master's really, it's a direct entry to PhD. That said, it is probably a good fit for you since they tend to accept students with atypical backgrounds more frequently than other schools. That said, it is extremely hard for me to evaluate your profile since I have no idea what your grades mean. I would strongly encourage you to get access to some measure of your class rank or percentile before applying, because otherwise adcoms will just be shooting in the dark too.

oh come on this has to be a troll.

I think that if you're not getting 165+ scores after 2-3 solid days of studying, you're probably just not going to get there at all. You should be able to solve every problem they throw at you already, it's just a matter of practicing it so that the techniques are fresh in your memory.

Grab any test prep book (I used Kaplan) and just do them over and over again. There's no trick, just spend 2 or 3 days doing problems and you should be fine.

ODEs could be an asset, complex analysis is probably overboard. There are definitely some applications, but I think your time would be best spent doing other things (e.g. research).

There would still be no indication of how well you did in those classes. Also bear in mind that when people here talk about calc, they mean multivariable calc. At most schools that means 3 semesters of calculus, often 4. I'm not sure if your business calc counts somehow towards the progression, though if it anything like my institution it probably does not. As a result, you're looking at three more semesters of school even ignoring all the other requirements.

It will hurt it a lot. I don't see you getting into a T50 program with only business calc and finite math on your transcript. There is no standardized test that can prove your math abilities as the GRE is too easy and the Math GRE is too hard. Most other people in your position go back for 1 or 2 years as a non-degree student and take some hard math classes. I'm not sure a master's program will help you much either since your deficiency is in math, not econ. Besides, I'm not sure you have enough math for most top-level MA programs either.

You have to be joking. You have two A's at a PhD level in a hard proof-based class that is directly applicable to graduate level econometrics, and you're worried about your B's in Intro to RA and RA I? You're going to be fine. You're in a better position than if you just had an A in RA I.

The MA program at Barcelona GSE has a stronger reputation than that at SSE. Indeed, I believe that this is the case even for economics PhD programs and research in general. For example, BGSE is ranked higher than SSE here (as UPF) and here (as BGSE). Further, I am sceptical of the level of preparation of a Master's program for the purposes of a PhD as soon as the words "International" or "Applied" are thrown in. I would say that BGSE wins hands down if your intent is to go to a PhD program.

Working probably won't help you, and it probably won't hurt you No, unless you're talking about research work at a policy institute, think tank or other organization. "Real world work experience" is only important if it will make you a better economics researcher. If you're not doing original economics research in your job, it is irrelevant.

First of all, the amount of people that have any published research *before* starting grad school may as well be 0. The chance of you being rejected for a school because someone else has published research is so miniscule that you might as well worry if the DGS found their partner cheating on them and rejected you for that reason. Second of all, Canadian MA coursework is not at the level of PhD coursework, especially not for any decently ranked schools. Proof: Schools that have both MA and PhD programs offer separate courses for both students (except uwo, but that's because it's essentially a direct entry program). There is a large and significant gap between the two levels. Third, a minor concession. One of my South Korean professors did say that he took the first year micro macro metrics sequence at his undergrad institution, but he was an absolute outlier and I've never heard of anyone else like that.

Yes the quality really is that different. On the other hand, consider that you're talking to the most nervous subset of phd economics applicants on the internet. The analysis course could possibly help, whereas the additional stats class probably won't. Personally I'd say take some economics classes in a field you're interested in learning more about, but that's just me.

It's really tough to say because your math grades are all quite good but your econ grades are not good at all. To be honest I'm a little surprised by your GPA calculation, but maybe your school just gives different gpa weights to grades than my school. You have very noisy grades so I'll reiterate the standard advice and advise you to apply broadly. What do your letter writers think you should target in terms of rankings?

Financial Econometrics will use methods of econometrics in the context of financial economics. Econometrics will be more general and likely more theoretical than Financial Econometrics.

There's no point leaving it out, but I doubt it will have any more than an extremely minor effect on your eventual admissions decision. It won't hurt, but it also won't help.

Yeah, final exams can be at 9am, 2pm or 7pm Monday-Saturday. Midterms are whenever the prof wants to have them. I've had midterms at 9pm on a Friday night and 8am on a Sunday morning. They're starting to be more reasonable with respect to exam scheduling, but it's still a mess.

Speaking personally, its mostly due to the impending sense of doom that my grad micro exam tomorrow provides. My mental image of Andreu Mas-Collel is him cackling manically while pounding away furiously at a typewriter at the top of a watchtower under a full moon in the middle of a lightning storm.