twy

1. We've made 2-3 new hires in empirical IO, that's definitely true. 2. In any department, this kind of thing obviously varies from advisor to advisor, but in general I think the professors here take advising very seriously. 3. If you have overlapping interests I don't see why you couldn't have a working relationship with someone from another department and even on your committee, or just take classes from that department. Officially I think your advisor would still need to be from your department but that's about it

That's actually an interesting point that I never thought about, although I think you missed out a University of Dayton placement for OSU in 2014. The thing about comparing based on US academic placements is that you also need to take into account that OSU tends to have a high proportion of foreign students who choose to go back. And you probably want to somehow "convert" the non-US placements into their US equivalent to get some meaningful comparison (e.g. National University of Singapore is nothing to sniff at). Now, I haven't done that adjustment so I don't know how the two schools' placements compare after you do that. Also, If you are interested in a particular field/professor one thing to do is look at the placements of the professors in that field.

Congrats on all your offers! I think we met at the OSU flyout. My sense is that reputationally these schools are all in the same tier, though maybe Purdue is slightly lower than MSU and OSU. In that case, it seems that program-wise OSU would be the strongest pick for both you and your partner. My sense is that there is more to do in Columbus than East Lansing or around Purdue. 5 years is a long time, so it's nice to have the option of outside activities. Happy to talk more about OSU specifics if you have lingering questions.

I think it's close to a no-brainer. If you wanted to work in experiments, for instance, there's a possibility that OSU would warrant a closer look. Otherwise, Justin Wolfers's hair is pretty hard to turn down. About being a star: it's hard to gauge these things, there's a lot of variance even within a cohort. I wouldn't worry too much about it. What you really want is to find an advisor you can cultivate a good relationship with and who will be willing to go to bat for you on the job market.

First-year attrition rate is something like 2-3 people. Up till I came in class sizes were about 18-20 people, but they've gotten a bit smaller recently. No idea why that is or whether that will be the case this year. After first year, it's not common at all to leave. For people who do it's probably for personal reasons.

So in general I think the environment is quite good. Within the graduate student population, people get along and are willing to help, no one's going to try to sabotage you or anything like that. I think the same applies to the faculty, though of course there's variance in their personalities and working styles, as there would be in any department. The nice thing about OSU is that since it's a fairly large department there are options, so if you realize you don't mesh well with one faculty member chances are you'll be able to find another who's a better fit. It's possible the department could be more proactive in terms of getting grad students going on research, but then again I don't have any idea what it's like in other departments, and I've always gotten good guidance and feedback when I've sought it out so you should be fine if you show some initiative. Grad students usually TA or grade first, and may get to teach their own class later on. Occasionally there are RA positions, but I wouldn't go in counting on getting one. It's kind of random when opportunities pop up.

I'm happy to answer questions if you can be more specific and maybe prioritise a couple of questions.

I'm at Ohio State. Honestly I don't know that any of these schools is clearly a dominant choice. I think this is the point where you want to think closely about research interests and your personal preferences for location etc. Feel free to pm me.

I can't stress how important this is. Investing time in figuring out how to study is at least as important as how much time you put into studying. In undergrad I struggled with Game Theory and the Grad Micro 1 class (I got a B). Not very good signs and I was legitimately worried entering grad school about how I would cope. Basically I trawled the internet for study advice (Cal Newport's Study Hacks was particularly useful) and experimented until I found what worked for me. In the end I did really well in my Micro classes. Having seen some of the material before helped, but there's no way I would have made it through something like mechanism design if I hadn't taken the warning signs from undergrad seriously. In short, if at any point you have reason to believe that your study methods are suspect, look into it straightaway!

1) I'm at Ohio State. Out of 15-20 students each cohort (I don't keep track of the exact numbers each year but I think the range is about right) about 1-3 don't make it through quals. It's rare that people leave after that without it being their choice. My impression is that in general the OSU department isn't in the business of weeding out students. E.g. for quals, the DGS arranges extra remedial classes for all those sitting for the second round. 2) Don't. Or at least, don't feel like you have to read Rudin or something before math camp. Enjoy your break, use the time to prepare for your move to a new city. I will say that I found it helpful to flip through MWG, but again, the goal is to get a flavor of the material, not master it. 3) This might be difficult your first year. In your second year, take the field classes seriously - do the readings, engage the professor, most of all, make a conscious effort to think of ideas. For example, I allocate time in my schedule to think of/work on ideas. Putting it in my schedule makes it (somewhat) inviolable. I also have a weekly meeting group with other grad students where we take turns to present and discuss our latest ideas. It's going to be hard initially - everything you think of will have been thought of, assuming you're even able to come up with a coherent idea in the first place. But far better to get through that part now than later. 4) I'm in the midst of figuring this out now but probably talking to older students, getting a sense of the professors' track records, projects they have, personality (you want to get along with them)

Congrats Mathemagician. I'm going to be a second-year student so I've been thinking a lot about field courses lately. 1) I get the sense that once you've passed your qualifiers, it's important to switch from having a mindset of mastering the material to do well in exams to learning the material in a way that maximizes your research output. What concrete steps can you take to make that change? 2) How important is it to pick classes based on field of interest, especially if you think certain professors might not be good teachers? It's not uncommon for people to dabble in fields outside their main field, so it seems to me that it's more important to try and pick up skills rather than topical knowledge. If that's true then what would be the best way to do that?

Not so much quantitative ability in the sense of working with numbers and such. It's more about your ability to work with abstract concepts and proofs and my own experience with those classes is that you get a lot more of that in grad micro than macro, but I'm not sure whether this is the same across schools. Side note: it doesn't sound like you go to Rice but if you do I can give more specific advice if you PM me

Once you're done with the math classes (especially real analysis), and assuming that goes reasonably well, consider taking the Grad Micro sequence at your school. That's typically a good signal for schools that you can handle the coursework and could be lead to an LOR. In addition, when you eventually go to a PhD program having seen the material before can really help in terms of getting through the classes and deepening your understanding of the material. Do you have a game theory sequence at your school? All things equal, that could be a good class to take if you're interested in experimental. Others may be better qualified to comment on pursuing an MA. My sense is that it might be too early to decide if you need to do that, and even if you did you should be doing approximately the same things anyway.

I was in the situation of only being accepted by OSU last year too and I accepted their offer i.e. I'm in first year now. I think Catrina's advice is sound. Also, there's always a chance your interests will change and maybe you'll decide to do something that OSU has more experienced faculty in. Unless Duke comes through, I wouldn't worry too much about your placement. For example, OSU has placed a couple of people in NYU before. Obviously those weren't average OSU students, but my point is that if you find a way to distinguish yourself as an above average/top student then you should still have a decent chance of getting the kind of job you want. If not, then it's not clear that waiting a year to go to a slightly higher-ranked school would have drastically changed your prospects.

No to both. I should add a couple of things for OP's sake though. 1) I have a credit limit of $500 on that card, but I just wanted to start building a credit history so I was fine with that and doing big purchases through my debit card. 2) That was just a suggestion so that OP has some idea of where to start looking. Dealing with these things as a newly-arrived student can be quite daunting (and often tricky) which is why I recommended talking to your school's international office first. If the people working there are worth their salt they should be able to handle your questions quite easily.