Catrina

There have been students accepted at Rice recently with similar backgrounds. By that I mean students with very strong math backgrounds and a strong interest in economics but limited prior economics coursework.

Hi Everyone, I just wanted to let you know that we are extending the registration period for the eight-week version. It will now be starting on 10/25. -Catrina

Hi Everyone, Rice University will once again offer our popular online math camp this fall. For the first time this year, we will be offering two versions: An eight-week version starting on the 10/22. A self-paced version that you can complete on your own schedule between now and April. For more information or to register, please visit Rice Online. You may also want to check out the previous posts about math camp by our director of graduate studies, Hulya Eraslan: here, here, and here. -Catrina

I do believe that you have a decent chance at a top-30, but that it is far from guaranteed that you will get in. With your current profile, I would recommend applying widely to a large amount of schools ranked between 20 and 50. For applicants from lower-ranked institutions, it is very important to apply to a lot of schools. Apply to at least 15, preferably 20 places. In terms of improving your profile, I would recommend trying to do the following: 1. If you can afford to take the time to do so, see if you can get an RA position, either in the summer or preferably for a year or two. 2. If you live anywhere near a university that has a PhD program in economics, see if you can take PhD micro there.

Your background should be sufficient, although I agree that it would be good to practice with proofs first.

I highly doubt that there has ever been in a case in which an applicant got accepted with a 170 GRE Quant but would not have been accepted with a 169. That is simply not how the process works. While an admissions committee could of course use a perfect score as a cutoff, given that there is essentially no difference in ability between a candidate with a perfect and a near-perfect quant score, it would not make sense for them to do so. Do you have any evidence to back up your assertions? As mentioned above, taking the GRE isn't costless. In addition to the actual cost of taking the test, there is the opportunity cost of all of the time that you are taking to study for and retake the test multiple times. An applicant can use the time that he or she would be studying for a fourth retake of the GRE to instead study more for his or her classes or to do a better job as an RA and get a better letter of recommendation, both of which are things that actually do matter for admissions.

From what I have observed, I agree that it is now the case that most people do come in with graduate-level courses. For American applicants, this doesn't necessarily mean that a master's degree is required (those are still not that common), but that it is becoming quite common for students to have some graduate-level coursework such as PhD micro. While I understand that you are upset about it, to me it makes sense. Given that foreign students typically come in with rigorous master's degrees, American students who have only done undergraduate coursework or American-style applied master's programs are comparatively unprepared. I'm not sure why one would think that a US university should favor less prepared American applicants over more prepared foreign ones. One problem that I do see, however, is that there are too few rigorous American masters programs that are appropriate for PhD prep. While some new ones have started recently, such as those at UT Austin and Wisconsin, I don't believe that there are enough such options.

Do you live close enough to attend the visit days? If so, first attend the visit days, then decide.

In most cases, I would recommend that a student a take PhD micro and possibly PhD analysis (or the measure-theoretic probability), plus two undergraduate courses. In particular, I don't think it is ever a good idea to take four PhD level courses simultaneously in either economics or math, as you likely will underestimate the workload and end up doing badly in at least one of them. However, in your case in particular, I recommend that you take micro, algebra, analysis, and a really easy gen ed course. My reasoning is that you have mentioned here that your favorite subject is algebra and that you like pure math to the extent that you were considering a masters in it. While PhD algebra will have a minuscule effect in your admissions prospects, not everything that you choose to learn has to be chosen for the purpose of admissions or its use in economics. In short, given that the math courses you are taking are already more than sufficient for admissions courses, you may as well take a course that you love while you have the chance to do so. However, don't take four PhD courses at once. That is a really bad idea.

I don't believe that there is a set cutoff (or at least not one above 3.5), because admissions depends on many other factors such as the difficulty of courses taken and which courses the low grades were in.

You may be able to get some acceptances in the 30-60 range. However, I can't figure out why you wouldn't try retaking the GRE. It seems silly to let something like that determine your admissions chances when you clearly have the ability to do better. Do you really not think that waiting a year (if necessary) is worth it?

For most people who are unsure of applying to the econ or finance department at Rice, I would recommend applying to the econ department. This is because we have the major concentration option in Finance that allows one to work with finance faculty and basically fulfill the requirements for both PhDs, while leaving more field options open if you decide to focus on something other than finance. However, in your case, your profile really does look like it would be more competitive at a finance department than at an economics department, so I think you would probably be better off applying there. However, I don't know much about how admissions works at the finance department so take this with a grain of salt.

You are correct that Rice does offer that combination, and would really be an excellent place for someone with your interests. To my knowledge, the computational class does cover the program of discrete time models to some extent (I never took the class, as the curriculum was slightly different when I started), and the field courses in IO and labor also do. In addition, I took an excellent course in computational game theory in which we programmed dynamic games. I would still recommend retaking the GRE, as I'm not sure how adcoms weight the GRE vs. the TOEFL for international students. I'm an American, so I'm not particularly familiar with TOEFL scoring. Keep in mind that a 3.0 AW is only a 17th percentile score, so it really is quite low. While generally the Q score is what matters, something that low may stand out.

I would say that you should send both via ETS. Some schools only consider the highest score on each part, and I'm thinking that an admissions committee member looking at this may notice how much you improved on the verbal and AW from attempt 1 to attempt 2, and given that 165 and 166 are close, just assume that you slipped up on one more question this time.

I rarely claim that anyone here is aiming too low (most people tend to overestimate their admissions chances), but I believe that you are. It seems like your MA program was very rigorous and that it places well overall. It also seems that you did decently well in the majority of your classes and just have a couple of bad ones bringing down your GPA. I believe that you should briefly mention your illness in the SOP, and make sure to mention that the problem is now resolved (assuming that it is). If the top students in your program are placing into the top 10, I believe that you have a decent shot at the top 30 and should add in several applications in that range. You should also be applying to far more than eight schools (for a profile like yours with significant noise, I would recommend at least 15), so you should leave in schools in the range of those that you have in addition to adding more schools, with several of those in the top 30. In addition, given your research interests, I would like to specifically recommend Rice (and not just because I go there :) ). I think it would be a good fit for you and that you have a decent shot of getting admitted. I'm not sure exactly how it should be ranked now as it is essentially a brand new program (close to half of the faculty have come in the last three years), but it is definitely quite strong now and would be a good fit for your interests. I would also recommend retaking the GRE if possible. While the Q score is the main thing that matters, the AW is low enough to be potentially concerning.