Patho

Hi there, I can share my 2 cents on why I chose Oxford over LSE's EME. 1) Course length. With ultimate goals of wanting to be back in the US to finish my phd, a one year program is not a lot of time to establish a relationship with (hopeful) LoR writers. With the academic year beginning in the fall, there is no time to build a relationship before academic deadlines in December. Even with working for the year in between, there is still the pressure of finding a job, making sure it is research focused, and making sure that it can help in obtaining good letters. Therefore IMO the two year structure is far better. 2) Closeness with professors. I know a fair amount of professors here by first name (and they know me too) and I do not think that I would have been privy to the same sort of intimacy at LSE. The LSE lectures can be very large (as some courses cross over with the economics masters courses) and I believe that the professors there sacrifice teaching quality in order to spend more time on their research. The college set up at Oxford definitely helps with the intimacy/communal feel. 3) Location. Oxford is simply gorgeous and I am not that much of a big city person. 4) Culture. The LSE is a great university and the EME program is amazing. The program is also more technically advanced than Oxford's course; I will concede that in a heart beat. However, my feel of LSE is that it is more like a factory churning out graduates while pumping full the coffers with its high fees. It also felt like there was significant pressure to be the top one to two students; the pressure seemed to create a less hospitable environment (nearly cut-throat like). This was simply my experience of talking to students and checking out the campus, so please do not put too much stock into this critique of LSE. I will say on the other hand that Oxford's environment has been quite hospitable. 5) Depth vs Breadth. As I said before, the depth of the EME program beats Oxford any day, but you will cover a lot more topics in your two years here at Oxford. This really helps if you are uncertain of what corner of economics you would like to find yourself doing research in.

I am impressed with how you are so able to get all/any information wrong. Birks never did any time at LSE. This doesn't negate the quality of whatever piece you linked (I have not read it), but wow. I am still impressed.

Intro: tons Intermediate micro: Varian Intermediate macro: Romer Advanced micro: MWG (used throughout the year in the micro sequence at most/all programs) Advanced macro: difficult to say. There isn't one "end all be all" text like MWG. For the macro sequence here, we would have textbooks for each unit, but there really isn't a book that encompasses all of our topics.

First post -> Fundamentally wrong here. The best paid RA positions would be most likely at the NBER and those are max 50k (52k if we want to be specific). Second post -> Most likely also false, but potentially less wrong than your first post. As a person who applied and was interviewed for these positions, I think I may know a thing or two about these positions. In my interviews, we spent equal times talking about my programming, maths, and research background. On the first point, this person has not mentioned any programming background whatsoever. This is not to say that OP has none, but rather that a rough third of what the job search is looking for has not been addressed. On maths, most of the "main" math courses (analysis+) have yet to be taken by OP and so this is not necessarily a checkmark on their application. On research, I was not really able to tell whether or not OP is saying that their research experience is a big positive or not so I will not address this part. All of this could be addressed if you probed the OP, but you did not. It looks like this is yet another example of advice being given with the authority of an "expert", despite being (what appears to be) far from it. Finally, I actually know with certainty that the reason why I was able to get interviews in the first place was actually due to my study abroad experience. Like the OP, I did my UG at a regional, unknown private school. However, I was at an elite university for my junior year and this helped me get the interviews. So yes, this is another reason for why OP could potentially ​be uncompetitive. Third post -> As I have addressed before, this is also false. Taxes brings this amount down to 35k, assuming you work/live in MA. How can one bank 50k from 35k? And once again I have no idea where this 100k number is coming from. Please do not post with the assumed authority of an expert. It does a great disservice to the community.

Are you pulling these number out of your head? How do you arrive to this? The absolute BEST RA gigs would be the RA-ships at the NBER where one would make about 50k. Assuming residency in MA, post-tax income would be ~35k. So provided that you don't spend any money on food, housing, or other necessities, the upper-bound would be ~35k. Please explain your seemingly arbitrary numbers.

Not necessarily true. We have first year advisers who are in charge of welfare and are available as a resource for just about anything. They also help when you start to develop ideas for your second year thesis as they provide guidance or direct your to professors who may be good resources. My adviser has even helped me to find work within the department/university as an RA. Our advisers were chosen via our SoPs and indicated interests. However, as tm_member indicates, this is really not the norm and I do not know how prevalent this is in American programs. I am just giving my experience as a counterexample.

Usually, it is best to assume that requirements are actually binding, but I would not be too worried about a hard limit. My two essays in my application were ~2400 words (excerpt from summer research) and ~2200 words (from coursework). I would not fret too much over it, but then again I can really only say that it did not overly harm my application as I got in. On the contrary, that is anything but high (for the quant section). The quant section is equivalent to what high school students in the US have to be tested on to get into university (ACT/SAT) and a 164+ should be obtainable with very limited amounts of prep work. I would imagine that the median score for students who had to take it and were then accepted would be around 168 or so, tho this is just a conjecture. Nuffield is a great choice. On financial matters, I believe that everyone here received funding from either the ESRC or the college itself. On social/academic matters, you cannot beat the community here. However, there are lots of great colleges and you should certainly look around in order to make a fully informed decision. Every college has its pros and cons.

What the heck is this? You are trolling, right? Guys/girls, he must be trolling? I do not even know what to say to this person anymore.

Question: what year are you? It looks to be that you are a junior. If you are a junior, would you only be able to transfer for the fall of your senior year? That may be a tough amount of time to get good relationships with your new professors. You may also not be able to jump right into the graduate courses like you are taking right now. After MWG, UG courses will seem really boring. This is a tough call. It looks like you are rocking it at your college. What have the recent placements from your school looked like?

Private based companies that aren't think tanks and do active economic research where you would get to work with publishing researchers? I am not aware of any. I would check out the IMF, Worldbank, ECB, and the rest of the European based banks for more options that would be open to internationals. If you do not mind me asking, from what part of the world do you hail from?

I haven't heard of anything like this. Most positions that I have seen always require some sort of relocation. I think it would be pretty tough doing actual work under a professor (versus alongside, like co-authoring work) without any in person, face to face time. I have seen some summer REU programs that offer extended funding if you continue the research during the school year, but these would be side jobs and not full time post-graduation positions.

Remote RA jobs? Like RA'ing at University of Alaska-Juno? (Joking, but could you clarify) I do not know for sure, but I don't think that these positions really care for where the applicants are coming from - as long as they can show that there would not be any communication difficulties. Looking at the profiles of past RA's at Chicago's Initiative for Global Markets, there is close to a 50/50 split between internationals and Americans. The interviews would most likely be done over Skype* anyways as an in person interview would be extremely time consuming, especially during the academic year. Link: Research - The Initiative on Global Markets *Once again this was just my experience. I would go to all of the district bank websites and check out their junior economist research programs. Most of the banks do hire people fresh out of undergrad to more or less be RA's for their economists. Some of these programs can be really nice too as they may be in the rotation style system where you move between different research groups before settling. Besides central banks, there are also organizations like the CEA, BLS, and policy think tanks that hire college grads to work in a RA role.

Honestly, your profile is pretty great. Coming from Harvard, your professors and letter writers should definitely have some good advice on where they have placed previous students and where you rank versus them. Put your trust in your professors and you will do more than fine this application season.

You can find lots of job openings on the nber website. They post tons of positions that you can apply to. The professors are also (mostly) at top tier places and include JBC medal winners. The general process is you apply and go through a couple of stages**: 1) If they like your app and see rigorous quant courses, they will send you a mini project (a day in the life sort of thing) to test your data skills. 2) If they like your program, you get an actual interview. 3) If they like you, you get a job. Link for the lazy: Employment and Fellowship Opportunities There are also tons of research assistant positions at the regional feds. The only one that I have checked out that does not offer a RA position for a fresh college grad is the Minneapolis Fed. **This was my general experience and may not be the same for everyone**

This does appear low, but keep in mind that it is a stated minimum. They are just letting people know that they will throw out apps with scores below those thresholds (as they should). The actual mean for accepted students could still be well above 160. That being said, FSU, ranking outside the T50, would qualify as a "bad/not good" ranking. US News only has 75 programs whose rank is actually published so 64/75 is not that great. Their placement looks half fishy as well as they do not always list what sort of position their graduates have/had. For instance, Jensenius ('14) is not an AP or even a post-doc at Oxford. He is a RA... A program placing its graduates as RA's should raise a huge red flag. This is not to say that FSU is bad for everyone or that any phd outside of the T50 is worthless. This info should merely serve as informing reasonable expectations for what sort of value their program would actually give a phd candidate. It is easy to get delusions of grandeur with any phd program and this board aims to serve as a nice dose of reality for all of us.

Hi there, it looks like I am going to find myself in both Cambridge and New Haven for a week later this month. Does anyone have suggestions for cool places to check out while I am out? Likes: pizza, good beer, quaint book/coffee shops Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated!

The GRE is more or less a dumbass filter. It is to make sure that you weren't able to float under the radar and somehow get good quant grades through college. I would not worry about the GRE at all as that you do not have a bad quant score. So congrats; you have most likely survived the first cut.

My advice would not be on programs and their reception of Ghanaian students, but rather on the range of programs. Let's say that there are eight programs that could be a good fit in each of those subjects. That would be thirty two programs that your friend would be interested in and thirty two applications, cover letters, LOR's, etc. to have to commit to. What does your friend really want to do/what position does your friend want to be in after a masters? If it is simply wanting to have the most doors open after the program, I would not think that actuarial science and public policy would open too many different doors post-graduation. Comparatively, econ probably has the best and most diverse job possibilities post graduation. You can also incorporate each of the other three fields within an econ masters program. Interested in AS? Take some financial asset/risk management courses. Interested in stats? Take those metrics field courses. Interested in policy? Take public economics.

Funding is tough to get, but it is certainly possible. I was able to receive full funding from my Oxford college (extremely unexpected), but there are many university wide and national scholarships that you should look at. The biggest ones are Rhodes, Marshall, Fulbright, and Gates-Cambridge. If you are applying this year, I would move quick as you need to have your applications in mid-October, I think. One question to ask is whether or not you want to stay in the UK for a phd. A masters can open doors to well funded programs in the US and I do not think that 1-2 years is too much of a sacrifice. Is the end goal a phd or is it a phd from the UK? Also, I should add that it is difficult, though certainly not impossible, to jump back over the pond for academic positions in the states.

Is anyone else going to be accepting their offer to Oxford this next year?

If you are talking of an RA position for Gentzkow and Shapiro, I would not hesitate to take it. (This may be a shot in the dark, but it does fit the description)

PROFILE: Type of Undergrad: BS Econ and BS Math from regionally known uni, 1 yr exchange at Oxford Undergrad GPA: 3.98 Type of Grad: 1 term of Macro at Oxford Grad GPA: 4.0 GRE:169/169/4.5 Math Courses: Calc I/II/III, Differential Equations, Linear Algebra (A-), Real Analysis I/II, Probability, Abstract Algebra, Discrete Wavelet Theory, Chaos Theory, Applied Capstone Econ Courses (grad-level): Monetary and Fiscal Economics Econ Courses (undergrad-level): all the normal ones including an independent study in advanced econometrics Other Courses: programming? Letters of Recommendation: 1 Oxford Math (known), 1 Oxford Econ (maybe known), 1 home Math (not known) Research Experience: 1 summer of econ research (competitive grant), 2 summer of math research (on econ topic w/ home math prof.). One paper from the two summers of math research pending (non-elite journal) Teaching Experience: TA in micro, Calc 3, including lecturing opportunity in micro. Tutoring in both departments since sophomore year. TA in Chaos Theory, lecture every week Research Interests: international monetary policy, nonlinear and chaotic dynamics, currency zones SOP: standard Concerns: unknown home uni, two letters from math people, not too much grad work, paper hasn't been published yet... Other: Time person of the year in 2006, won an award for best maths research paper at my uni Applying to: Masters: LSE, Oxford, CEMFI, BGSE Phd: Columbia, NYU, Northwester, UPenn, Yale RESULTS: Acceptances: CEMFI ($), LSE, BGSE ($), Oxford - Nuffield($) Waitlists: Rejections: Columbia, NYU, NW, UPenn, Yale Pending: Attending: Nuffield College, Oxford!! Comments:The American rejections were expected. The studentship at Nuffield and full funding at CEMFI were both very surprising! The thing that made all the difference in my profile was my year abroad at Oxford and the opportunity to take a grad course there. I am very excited to return! Things I would have done differently: 1) Not have gone to my home university. It is an unknown school with unknown professors. The year at Oxford saved my profile, but I think I could have received an admit from a top American school if I had gone to a Phd granting institution in the US. 2) Realized that I wanted to do econ + math earlier. I came in to undergrad thinking that I wanted to go into I-banking and so I didn't take any math my freshman year. 3) Done a REU at top university in the states instead of working at my university both summers.

Institution: Oxford (Updated Result) Program: MPhil Economics Decision: Accepted by Nuffield Funding: Nuffield Studentship (Full Funding) Notification date: 4/9 Notified through: E-Mail Posted on GC: Not this update Comments: Alright, alright, alright

Just got full funding from my college (Nuffield). I will most definitely be joining them this next year!

Anyone receive any more news about funding or colleges? I was just notified that I was offered a place at Nuffield.