nontrad dreams

Yeah, I am just starting semester 2 and, while my first was the hardest thing I have ever done, it was not by some order of magnitude, it was just somewhat harder than my hardest undergrad semester. There are people in my cohort who seems less "all-in" on being in grad school and I think the psychic costs are a lot higher for them than for someone like me who feels this is a huge privilege to be able to pursue my dreams while being (moderately) paid for my trouble as well. I think also that if you sweat grades more than just sweating your ownership of the material / theory / economic intuition, it is probably a lot harder. Keeping your eye on the end goal and not treating grad school like your GPA will kill you helps, I think, a lot with the first year (or two), that said, I am still a bit terrified by the idea of comps/prelims, but all things must pass. As far as not being able to keep up relationships, etc... I have a wife and a 2-year old kid and a co-owned business that I still keep a bit of a hand on the tiller of. I also do some modest exercise and share household duties pretty equitably. Probably spend about 50-55 hours per week on class and studying. I'm sure some programs are harder than others, but I have been happily disabused of my fears of all the "grad school life is hell" stories I heard before starting. Also, yes, go to bed with your spouse/S.O. and just wake up early to get a leg up on the day.

I applied to and was accepted off of the waitlist to a circa 30th ranked program with a GRE quant of 161 (I only applied to two econ programs and got into both).. I wouldn't recommend it, but I would put my (admittedly last-minute) success up to having strong letter writers and showing up for visit day and making what I think was a good impression. I would have loved to have done better but took it twice and then just ran out of time with a heavy summer school load and an infant daughter. If you have time, retake. But if other parts of your application are strong, it can help a lot.

If your interest is more in theory (at least in terms of how you might pitch yourself to programs) then doing something on game theory seems like a good idea. If you think you may like applied work more, then IMO it might be worth working with your honors and Econ folks to try and do something more distinctly econ-related / empirical in nature. I think a big element of doing some honors thesis is the chance to make a solid impression on potential letter writers, so that may be a good thing to figure into your plan for this research. I know this made a very big difference for me in the same situation last year.

PROFILE: Type of Undergrad: BA - econ, minor in mathematics at PhD granting state school (R1) circa 60 ranking. Undergrad GPA: 3.43 overall (did poorly many years prior to going back), Institution: 3.77, Econ 3.89 Type of Grad: - Grad GPA: - GRE: v: 166, q: 161, a: 5.0 Math Courses: Calc sequence (A, B, B), Intro to advanced math (A), Applied linear algebra (A), Real Analysis (B) Econ Courses (grad-level): - Econ Courses (undergrad-level): Micro and macro principles courses, Micro and macro intermediate, Statistics for Econ, Econometrics, Behavioral Econ, Economics of Education, Economic Demography, two semesters of Independent Study. All As except Int. macro (B). Other Courses: grad level math/stats: Intro to Game Theory (A), Intro to Probability (A) Letters of Recommendation: 1) Prof at alma mater, relatively bigwig in applied micro, supervised my Honors thesis, RA for current research. 2) Another prof at my school, well published and active researcher in health econ, mentor. 3) Associate Professor at Brown. RAed remotely for study. 4) Professor at my school in Urban Planning / Public Affairs, Cornell policy grad, pretty well published in field (infrastructure policy), wrote an honors paper for. Research Experience: two studies (see LORs above). Built databases for both from collection of disparate data sources. One was archival data source from 19th century and required significant research using primary archival sources to make sense of. Other is educational subfield related and my Honors thesis is confluent with this work. Have done a good deal of thinking for this one too in additional to collating data. Teaching Experience: none Research Interests: Education, early childhood development, economic demography SOP: Outlined my unusual story (older, returned to school from unrelated career three years ago, have a family, etc) my research experience and my research interests. Both apps done so far clocked in at 800 and 1000 words, so parsimony is the order of the day so far. Concerns: Unusual background. Old enough to be a full professor if I'd started young. Has appeared to be an asset in UG work but hope that holds up. Crappy quant score. Applying to mostly policy-ish programs, so maybe I will be slightly more competitive there. Other: I am taking the high risk path of only applying to 5 schools due to severe family-related options geographically (i.e. moving is subject to spousal approval). Three policy or policy-ish programs and two Econ programs. One is my UG alma mater, this is my safety as I have been reassured that admission is not an issue. Feel good about my LORs and am hopeful that they will counteract my low-ish quant score a bit. Applying to: UIC - Econ, UT-Austin - Econ, UC Harris School of Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School of PP, Northwestern Univ. Human Development and Social Policy PhD RESULTS: Acceptances: UIC - Econ (university fellowship), UT (standard funded offer off the waitlist) Waitlists: Rejections: UC Harris, Harvard Kennedy, NWU HDSP Pending: Attending: UIC - Econ Comments: I guess I was meant to be in a pure Econ program. I thought I would be a weaker candidate there but those were my only admissions. Pretty pleased to have two choices given that they equal 40% of my applications. Ultimately I had to stay close to home for a lot of life reasons and getting a generous fellowship didn't hurt. My school is considerably lower in ranking than UT but I am looking at some very significant opportunities to coauthor by staying put that I think will mitigate the hit from the rankings diff. Also will probably be easier to get a real a strong job market push from the handful of very high quality profs here than it might be in a more crowded field of strong candidates at UT. Still a little bummed though. I am a former Texan pining to go home. What would you have done differently? Started a decade sooner? I guess I started as soon as I knew I wanted to do this this, so that is kind of pointless to regret. The timing of my daughter's birth coat me a B in Calc III (not that she wasn't worth it!). Couldn't have done much better in Analysis while working and raising a kid. My GRE quant score was a drag. Took it twice and the first time (posted) was better. Ultimately though, I am VERY pleased that I concentrated on making the most of some great RA opportunities as they got me what I think were some pretty great letters and I think those outweighed the GRE and the rest, especially judging by some others posting on here with low GRE quant and good results. I am really excited to keep studying. As an older adult, I feel that it is a tremendous privilege to be able to study something I love and get paid reasonably well to do so. Thanks to all for the community here.

At the UT visit day, one of the professors involved with admissions told me that in his/her experience, many top students have come out of the waitlist pool and he/she confessed to thinking that the admissions process sometimes seemed almost totally random in terms of who is admitted vs. wait listed. So I wouldn't think a wait list offer is not a serious signal that you are a candidate the program would be happy to have.

Catrina, Congratulations on your decision. I'm sure it was a tough one. I think that you will find the quality of life pretty high in Houston and Rice is a beautiful place to spend 5 years. i just declined UT for almost entirely non-academic reasons. It was a hard decision to make but in the big scheme of things, the happiness of my wife and her own life considerations are at least as important as my rather quixotic late-in-life reboot. I am really bullish on the UIC program and the major changes that have been made there over the last two years, so I will keep my fingers crossed that things pan out that way for you at Rice. Thanks to everyone here for the advice and company during the last several months. Hope everyone can find some inner peace by the end of the day tomorrow.

Institution: UT-Austin Program: PhD Economics Decision: Admitted (off the waitlist) Funding: n/a Notification date: 04/14 Notified through: email Posted on GC: no Comments: Just declined due to logistical/life circumstances. Sad but realities of life cannot be ignored.

I would strongly object to the idea that anyone should feel like a failure for considering the needs of their family in conjunction with their academic goals. We have already established that you are a decent bit older than the average first year grad student. Having a life and family is a blessing and a responsibility at the same time and for those of us who waited "too long" to figure out what we really want to do, them's the breaks. I was SEVERELY constrained by my family situation (hence only applying to 5 schools when even two of those would likely be a no go even if admitted). Contra standard (though rapidly changing) gender roles, my wife out earns me currently so it was just a nod to reality to weight her critical ability to earn a certain income rather heavily. We spent some time considering one option for a move that was actually probably a best case moving scenario on numerous dimensions and it still involved so much potential stress if everything didn't work out just right that it was abandoned by me ultimately so as not to put undue pressure on my spouse. The potential effects of going into what may be the hardest thing you will ever attempt with a large potential family-related stress load based on issues related to moving across the county in a few months should definitely be in the priors about likely outcomes along with school rankings, faculty strengths, etc. etc. Washing out of your dream program when your spouse comes up empty on a job search or any number of other such scenarios is really a much worse outcome than attending your third most preferred institution IMO. Hmmm....rant-y but I really don't think you should feel bad about these things.

Anyone know of any admits off UT-Austin waitlist?

Institution: Harvard KSG Program: PhD Public Policy Decision: Rejected Funding: Notification Date: 3/7/2014 Notified Through: website Posted on GC: No Comments: Not surprised. Institution: Chicago Harris Program: PhD Public Policy Decision: Rejected Funding: Notification Date: 2/28/2014 Notified Through: Email to check website Posted on GC: No Comments: Drag. Was pretty interested in this program. Institution: UIC Program: PhD Economics Decision: Accepted Funding: University fellowship award ($25k yrs 1 and 4, $18k RA/TA yrs 2, 3 and 5). Notification Date: 2/28/2014 Notified Through: Email from DGS Posted on GC: Yes Comments: Pretty thrilled! Institution: UT - Austin Program: PhD Economics Decision: Wait list Funding: Notification Date: 3/5/2014 Notified Through: Email Posted on GC: Yes Comments: Pretty surprised!

I inquired about what it meant to be wait listed at UT and was invited to come to the visit day. I happened to have plans to be pretty nearby then so I went and was treated like every other person at visit day. I recommend doing it as I don't think many others from wait lists make it so you may have a slight to large advantage at the margin if you make a good impression (and I would say that waitlist decisions are all marginal by definition).

I know everyone's situation is relative but I would be inclined to complain lightly with the choices you are facing. Pretty good bunch of "nth-best" options in front of you.

I was told that Harris funds up to about 40% of the incoming masters people with something so don't despair yet. I think anyone with a serious application to the PhD program is a pretty competitive masters applicant.

How do you do that? I can only figure out to go to the we page where it shows all the items of your application submitted and received. I must be at the wrong place. EDIT: Oops. Found it. I had been going to the wrong place. Rejection explicit!

Has anyone gotten snail mail from Harvard Kennedy yet? I would prefer an actual rejection even though I'm pretty comfy that my implicit rejection is legit.

I'm going to go. I'm waitlisted but it happens I will already be in Texas then. Have you gotten any sort of itin or anything? Wrote the dept. yesterday evening but no reply today.

Oh weird. Maybe I didn't scroll down enough. That makes sense anyway.

It is interesting that there seem to only be wait lists for UT right now. No admissions. What's going on there? Just no posters on GC?

Thanks! It was a Dear (my name) email from the admissions coordinator.

I just got waitlisted at UT via email. Posted on GC.

From the title I thought that was meant in the "nice" way ("It's okay that you have mental health issues!").

I got an email to check. Maybe they blew me off early?

Harris School at U of C just let fly with a rejection for me. Email to check status.

I emailed a contact I had made in the GSAS admissions office during the application process about this and was told that they can't give the info out, you have to wait for the mail. Let me know if you come up with anything different.

Once you have the PhD, no one knows or much cares how many schools accepted you way back in the day. Onward!