elizabethramir

Congrats, georgecarlin! Looks like it's Berkeley ARE for me!

Anyone heard? Assuming it's a no at this point....

I understand that accepting and then withdrawing is frowned upon, but how exactly is the waitlist process supposed to work then? Surely they don't expect you to put off notifying other schools until after April 15 and jeopardize those offers of admission.

Nope.

Did they say approximately what time we could expect to find out?

Thanks! Yeah, either way I will be happy with the outcome. Good luck to you as well. I hope you get some good news from Michigan, but if not, Maryland is a greats school!

I am super torn! I'll try to summarize the pros and cons of each: 1. Berkeley ARE: I am interested in development and environmental topics, so the sheer number of economists working on these topics between ARE, Econ and Haas puts it on top of Michigan. The development field is joint with Berkeley Econ, and having access to Ted Miguel, even if he is ridiculously busy, is an amazing opportunity. There's also a center called CEGA that brings people from the UC system (and I think maybe Stanford) to work on development topics. I have a fellowship at Berkeley, which would not require teaching or RA work in the first two years. Lastly, the Bay Area is beautiful, and seems like a great place to live. 2. Michigan: Michigan seems to have slightly better placements. I also spoke to a professor who was very familiar with both programs and he mentioned that he thought the level of rigor in the more theoretical aspects of econometrics is higher at Michigan. I also think that there's something to be said about a pure econ program, where I'll be exposed to labor economists, macroeconomists, etc. At the Michigan flyout, it seemed like a number of students working on applied micro topics had found interesting overlaps with macro. Lastly, if my interests ended up changing, I would be better off at Michigan, since they are strong in so many fields. However, the weather in Michigan is a huge downside for me. Honestly, I got a great vibe from both departments at the flyout. The professors seemed supportive and approachable, and the students seemed happy. Both environments seemed very collaborative.

I am down to Berkeley ARE and Michigan, but I also had offers from UCSB, Maryland, UCLA and Duke that I have already declined, in case that helps you. What are your other choices?

The only thing they told me is that it would most likely be Monday. Hopefully, it will be earlier in the day, but I don't know if it will. I am pretty torn right now. I guess I'll have to decide over the weekend, so that if Michigan accepts me, I can make a decision immediately.

I contacted the department, and they said that they will most likely remove students from the waitlist on April 15th.

I don't think this is bad advice per se, but I have a slightly different perspective. I looked through your profile, and it is similar to mine, probably slightly better, particularly if you took grad micro this past fall and did well. I am also interested in the environmental field, and like you took a year to work after graduation. I applied to 10 PhD programs with Stanford being the only one in the top 5ish range. Stanford has been my only rejection so far, and a waitlist from Michigan (invited to the flyout for what that's worth). And to clarify, these programs are ranked roughly 10-25 econ programs, except for UCSB and Berkeley ARE, which is hard to rank but roughly equivalent to a top 20 econ. While I am happy with my results, I wish I had applied to a couple more "reaches" (MIT, Harvard, Yale, Princeton for development). While I am aware that my chances were very low, which is why I didn't apply, the process is noisy enough that it's worth a shot unless application fees are a substantial constraint. Of course you should not lose sight of the fact that you will probably end up some where in the 10-25 range, so you should focus on those schools.

Just Stanford. I figured I didn't have much of a shot, so I just tried for one, and I was rejected.

I have a somewhat similar dilemma. I have funded offers from Michigan, UCLA and Berkeley ARE. I recently found out about my acceptance to Oxford. I am wondering if it would be a good idea to get the M.Phil and try again for a top 5 admit, given that my profile currently lacks any grad-level courses in econ and could use some extra research experience.

I went back and forth on whether I should post this or not, but here it goes. I am not sure what blockRed's goal is, but his recent posts have been rather caustic and petty. The first time I noticed this was his post about Berkeley ARE students "dulling the pace of instruction" in Berkeley's micro theory classes. I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he was legitimately trying to give someone advice, and it just happened to come off as a bit tactless. I even asked him to expand on his opinion of Berkeley ARE placements, given that I am strongly considering that program. Since then, however, he has gone out of his way to call out Walras and Woobs in posts dripping with sarcasm. I also found his posts in Catrina's "Shut-out" thread to be rather unkind, even if there was a grain of truth to them. We all need to be given realistic advice and blatant misinformation should be corrected, but it seems like blockRed is more interested in taking people down a peg than providing helpful information. Maybe you are infinitely smarter than everyone else on this thread, but even so, a lit of bit of kindness and humilty wouldn't hurt.

Walras, thanks for chiming in. I am slightly derailing the thread, do this might be better over PM, but anyway... I tend to agree with you that my impression of Berkeley ARE is that it's comparable to a top 20 program, including in terms I placements, which is why I was intrigued by blockRed's comment. However, I saw his comment right after looking through the EJMR fly out wiki and it appeared that Berkeley ARE had less flyouts than Duke, UCLA or Michigan, especially to higher-ranked schools. I am not sure how complete the Wiki is, and part of it might be the fact that Berkeley ARE places into public policy schools, etc. Any thoughts on that?