Aquel mae

In the case of a married international student, by being admitted to a PhD program, is the wife entitled to come along for the 4-6 years of the program? And if so, can she work? And if so, can they both gain a legal status after the program is finished?...

I was in the same dillemma as you were with a German school, and after doing lots of research I realized that it is quite unlikely to get to learn a language you are not familiar with. After a full term of very rigorous coursework you wont find the time nor the energy to learn a new language. Spanish is not a language you just pick up along the way, except of course if you speak Portuguese, or perhaps Italian. Hope this helps.

Thank you very much. According to the 2013-2015 handbook: "Second year students in good standing [grades of 80 or more] are expected to hold practice sessions in first year core courses as part of their fellowships." How much time do you have to dedicate to TA and RA on a weekly basis? This is somewhat unclear.

I think there are several masters where attrition is high, but there is the option to step down to a less rigorous program (for example, from EME to Economics at LSE, from Economics to Applied Economics at UCL, from Economic Theory to Economics at ITAM). But I'm not sure if that is the case for Vienna. I surely would like to know more about that. And even though the attrition rates are high, I still find very appealing to live in Vienna and learn German. Also, I would say that program-wise, Vienna's program is probably understimated in this forum, it is by far one of the most complete programs and should be highly regarded by people searching for phd-preparation. Oh, and by the way Mr. Sethward, if you were admitted with funding, they firmly believe you can make it. The question then is, how high is your risk aversion?

Well thank you so much for your insights. I have been trying to contact some current students -though, unsuccesfully- so if you have information or contacts I would really appreciate it. See, I got an acceptance from IHS. I am seriously considering their offer given the rigorousness of the program, the possibility of learning German and funding. Though, I have been admitted to other programs, and none of these schools have such high attrition rates. I think there are at least two reasons to find high attrition rates very unattractive. First, you may spend one year and leave, literally, with empty hands. Taking the case of other small programs, such as CEMFI's or ITAM’s, usually the top-8 students of the cohort are placed at a top-20 but the other 15 students are placed at a top-40 or are placed very well in the job market. Second, a high attrition rate is also an incentive for less camaraderie between students, and I want to be in a place where you know everyone will be cooperative and enjoy the ride in that sense =). Now, just to be clear, no, this is not a post to despise IHS. I applied to this school because of the aforementioned aspects and I think it is a truly great opportunity, perhaps underestimated in this forum. But I need to know why the attrition rates at this specific program are so high in order to make my decision. Attrition may be due to several factors, and one of them may certainly be that the admission committee has not been able to identify good candidates. Still, that really does not make much sense to me, since this was BY FAR the most demanding admission process I went through: I had to get THREE LORs, and I had to go through an interview (which by the way, was very funny because it has been like three years since the last time I opened my Econ textbooks, and I forgot a couple of very basic stuff that I had to compensate with some other detailed answers). I would say that another reason is that students may not know what they were getting into, but again, the characteristics of the admission process do not justify a 60% attrition rate. So right now, the only answer I'm left with is that the school is actively looking to do this on purpose. Their target is to place 4-5 students in very good universities, they admit a relatively large number to eliminate the noise in the AdProcess, and they wait a year to see who will really make it. But then why do they only focus on 4-5 students and not on all? Well, there are few professors as permanent faculty, so having 12 students may divert a lot of time from their busy agendas. Hence, they will only want to keep an eye on the big fish (to build up on reputation, as you said). Admittances may then increase as faculty increases. On the other hand, as you said, they may be trying to build up a reputation, and if the pool of admitted students is different to that of other top schools, then that talks very well about the program itself. Though, what I really dont understand is that if your 5th student still can make it into a top-15, then, in the margin, your 6th, 7th, 8th... 12th students are very likely to be placed at a top-30, at a specialized top-50 program or in the job market. That would still be a stellar record (as ITAM, CEMFI, Torcuatto di Tella or PUC-RIO show), and overall, for "marketing purposes" (getting adcoms and students to demand this program), it is better to place 12 guys in top institutions than placing just 5, especially considering that the admission results of the top-5 guys are statistically independent from the admission results of the rest (given your relative position within the cohort)! Additionally, I was considering that these attrition rates may be due to funding issues, but even if funding were limited and some students have their funding cancelled, they should still be able to continue if they are not invited to leave (though, again, cutting funding may explain a part of attrition rates, but not the 60% attrition rates). That said, a 60-70% attrition rate on a master program still puzzles me, so any further insights are welcome.

I was accepted to IHS Vienna but I am somewhat worried to see that more than one half of the students that start the program in a given year do not complete the degree in t+2. Does anyone know why is this the case? Although I'm seriously considering their offer, I think this is by far the greatest attrition rate I have seen in the set of master programs I am applying to.

Right, most likely (relative) talent of students to attention by professors is similar for lower ranked programs compared to higher ranked programs. But then assuming that the average endowment of talent of students differs across programs, then one could arbitrarily choose a program where one's endowment of talent (whatever that means) is likely to put you in the top of your class, but it could also be the case that you could choose from a higher ranked program where you are more likely to end up in the bottom of the class (and all the options between these two, just assume continuity =) ). In each case, there would be pros and cons associated to the decision and, most importantly, a trade-off. If that is the case, what should one choose in terms of career prospects?

First off, this forum has been really great for my applications. So, anyway, my case. I have been doing some RA work at a research institute in my country for over a year now. There are researchers who obtained their phd's from top-10-15 universities, while others got their degrees from universities somewhere between top-100 and top-250 (say, fairly good universities, but not top programs). Most of those who have obtained their PhDs from these fairly good univerisities tell me that they got A LOT of attention from their professors since they were able to be the stars of the programs and, in general, the environment was very rewarding, with very big funding for them and their research, and a very close relationship with faculty over the years of the doctoral program (meeting with them almost whenever they wanted). On the other hand, those who have obtained their phd's from top programs tell me to get into the best program I can, although they acknowledge that Faculty is far more distant if you are not considered a star, and funding options for yourself and your research can be bit more of an issue. So, I'm in between these two opinions, and maybe you can shed more light on this subject. What would be the appropriate trade-off between program-quality and probability to outstand in the long run? My plan? going to do a masters in economics first, then apply to a PhD program. Currently thinking about phd programs somewhere between top-10 and top-30.