beelzeb

Columbia and Berkeley are certainly top 10 but LSE is a borderline top 10. The first 2 schools strictly dominate LSE! Considering your funding situation, I think Columbia should be your best option. It is a nobrainer.

Institution: University of Zurich Program: Economics, PhD Decision: Accepted Funding: 40k CHF Notification Date: 2/18/15 Notified Through: Email Posted on GC: Yes Comments: Will be declining unless I get the UBS scholarship Institution: London School of Economics (LSE) Program: Economics, MRes/PhD Decision: Accepted Funding: Waitlisted for funding Notification Date: 2/27/15 Notified Through: Email Posted on GC: Yes Comments: Hugely excited. Probably attend if there is enough funding at the end

Additional information from UCL's Enquiry Team here for you. Q1. I heard from some other sources (your current and former students) that UCL lowered the MRes admission standard for Msc students from 70% to 60% in overall marks. Is A DIstinction-level 60% of overall marks? A1. No, we have not lowered our admission standard for entry to our MRes programme. 70% is Distinction-level performance. Q2. How many research students in your program are fully funded (tuition waive plus maintenance scholarship) from the department? Based on your website, I estimate about 10 full scholarships postions in your department. A2. It will vary somewhat from year to year depending on sources of funding available and number of students in the cohort. Funding is awarded competitively. Q3. If I pass the MSc course with a Distinction, can I have an opportunity to get a full scholarship such as ESRC funding or Ricardo scholarship for my MRes year? A3. You may apply for any source of funds for which you qualify. Funding is awarded on a competitive basis to the strongest candidates. It is important that all MSc offer-holders select the MSc programme that is the best fit for them in terms of their broad interests, objectives, needs and preferences. The aspiration to pursue a PhD after the MSc year will, of course, influence your objectives, but should not constitute them entirely. If for the time being you can focus on selecting the most appropriate MSc programme for you, your post-MSc paths and decisions will be relatively clear cut because you--and PhD-granting institutions--will have a much more precise idea of your strengths, research interests, etc., by the time you complete the MSc year.

This is my information from UCL. Thank you for your application for admission. 1) You would need to actively apply for admission to our MRes programme. The application period for September 2014 entry will be from late-October 2013 to mid-January 2014. If you were to be enrolled on our MSC Economics programme at that time, you would qualify for an offer conditional on achieving a Distinction-level performance in your MSc exams and in the dissertation. About 20-25% of MSc Economics students have achieved that level of performance in recent years, and 5-10 each year (5%-10%) have chosen to proceed to UCL's MRes Economics programme. 2) Funding for research students in Economics is explained here: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/economics/postgraduate/funding 3) To progress to the MPhil programme, students must pass the MRes degree with marks of at least 60% in the core element of the MRes programme, 60% in the options element and 60% on the dissertation: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/economics/postgraduate/handbooks This is the current minimum level of performance that we require and is subject to change. Marks of 50% are passing marks for the purpose of the MRes award without progression to the MPhil. Also, students must pass the MPhil Upgrade Seminar to progress to the PhD: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/economics/postgraduate/curriculum 4) TA-ships are available to research students from the MPhil year onwards (not the MRes year) and are awarded competitively, based on the applicant's skill set. TA-ships provide a salary but not a tuition fee waiver.

Thank you very much zhang639!! There are really precious information. Actually, London is too expensive to live on my own savings. The funding opportunities at UCL are way bigger than my expectation. We have to contact other PhD or MRes students to acquire information about progression from Msc to MRes and MRes to PhD. I will send emails to them and after getting the information will write it on this thread.

I finally decided to attend UCL MSc program. I got rejected by every US school which I applied. I am strongly interested in labour economics and microeconometrics so it is a nice choice to pursue PhD at UCL. Anyone who will attend this program? I think that information sharing before beginning of the class is good idea. And any advice is welcome from former participants or current students. I wonder that how many MSc students can stay UCL for PhD (MRes) and funding opportunities for them. Also, how my PhD thesis supervisor will be allocated? Many thanks in advance.

I was HIGH on the wait list.

I got a mail from Kelly in this evening (7:18 PM). She noticed me that their initial acceptance rate is higher than their expectation so they will not able to make an offer to me. Toooooo disappointing. No hope anymore.

Me, too. I hope we can meet on the UPenn's campus.

Thanks, app77! Good luck to you, too. Did you reply them that you can attend there without first-year funding?

5:34 pm 12 april (Friday). When did you?

I got a mail from Penn. They asked me whether I am still interested in their program or not. Anyone who got the same mail?

UCLA is a very reputable department for teaching and supervising. It has a lot of faculty members who just have gotten tenure. All of them are really promising. Also, Californian programs are usually benign for their students. So, you don't need to worry about their training environment. Someone said that California's genial weather effects on their faculty's nice temper.

I think you know well about faculty of UCLA. Unfortunately, it is hard to find faculty members who are related your interests in Minnesota especially for asset pricing. They are very strong in most of macro related fields like macro theory, computation, macro-labor, trade and macro-public finance. For macro-finance, there is V. V. Chari. Rios Rull and Guvenen are macro-labor guys. I know Guvenen wrote a paper about asset pricing but it is not his main field. For financial economics, they have Jan Werner. And they have a few strong faculty members in empirical IO.

I think IMF, WB, and Fed are in a same category. They are policy institutions and many econ PhDs do research on policy-oriented issues. But, they also can spend time on their own research. I heard they can use half of their working time on their own research, especially in the research department. Those institutions don't have any tenure requirement so you don't worry about job stability. If you like wearing a business suit, working 9 to 7 in a team, and being a policy maker, it can be a good choice. Their salary levels are slightly higher than academic jobs. In academia, on the other hand, you have to devote your whole life to research and teaching. You may have very difficult time during junior years in order to getting tenure. However, after getting tenure, you can enjoy relatively better quality of life than other jobs in public or private sector. Many PhD students prefer academic positions because they want to do only their own research in which they are really interested. The choice depends on your taste. You can find more information in EJMR, althought there are a lot of harsh and sarcastic people, and misinforming.

I have a bunch of articles and papers in professional journals. Based on my experience, the answer is definitely no.

Congratulation to your admissions! You can easily find their placement records in their website. Both of them have great placement history. As you mentioned, Minnesota strictly dominates UCLA in macro related fields but not other fields like micro theory, metrics, and applied micro. And I found some recent job market candidates from UCLA have been supervised by finance professors jointly with economics professors. If you are interested in finance, metrics or micro related fields, UCLA can be a better choice. For macro theory, Minnesota without questions. Also, you'd rather consider two region's weather. California has way better climate and environment than Minnesota.

Any news from them???

Based on your response, I reckon that you already have the answer in your mind. Follow your heart!

The JHU's PhD program is quite small. So, you can have more chance to interact with faculty members at JHU. In terms of top placement, there is a huge difference between Penn and JHU. However, median placements are similar. Especially, if you want to get a job in public sector like IMF and FED, JHU would be a good choice considering the cost difference.

Thank you for your response! I have one more question. How many people have been placed on your wait list? And What portion of them will finally be admitted to your program? As you mentioned, your program's target class size is about 20. But I think you have to make way more offers than 20. I wonder that the waitlisted have how level of possibility to be accepted finally.

How do you make a wait list? Is there a solid ranking among the waitlisted? And if some professor of my school (recommendation letter writer) send an email to committee members, it will work?

Do you think there is some probability that it indicates the waitlisit status?

I have not received any response from PSU. What does it mean?

Was it an auto-generated email?