Linethan

I guess rank-7 university in China is good enough....(China is a very big country....) If you can transfer to a top school in US (at least top 5 I think), then go for it. If not, I don't think you have to do that. Rank of school is important, but I think it is inappropriate to compare the world ranks of two schools in different countries. You may think Harvard is better than any university in China, but do you really think a student from a top school in China cannot compare with a student from Harvard? Try to get your GPA as high as possible and be the top student in your school. That's indeed helpful.

You need some evidence in your application documents to show that you are good in math. If you don't have math courses in your transcript, I can only come up with two ways for you. The first is expecting your recommender to praise your math skill in the recommendation letter. The second is having a writing sample which can demonstrate your math skill.

You already have taken many math courses. I will suggest you to spend more time on doing research. You can have a good paper as a writing sample and let your advisor write a strong recommendation letter. You can also illustrate your math skill in your writing sample.

Many people enter phd programs without having master degree in advance, not to mention thesis. Many programs accept writing sample as an optional material. If you don't have thesis, you may use, for example, any term paper in your class as writing sample. That's fine. A writing sample is not necessary a thesis. But if you are good enough, I believe that you can get admission without having a writing sample. That's why writing sample is just optional. Another advantage of having a thesis is that you may get a strong recommendation letter from your thesis advisor. But...if your thesis is not good enough, you may step into a dilemma........

I don't know why you worry yourself about your finance background. Maybe I should remind you first, finance is definitely an important field in economics. You can find many econ departments having professors doing research in finance. You may think "but most finance professors stay in finance departments!". It's correct, but note that many finance professors also have econ phd degree. So your background is not weird. I want to do financial economics. Of course my finance background is helpful. Maybe you do not plan to concentrate on finance like me. But you will still find that there is asset pricing in macro course, and manager's contract in micro course. I don't really understand what kind of advice you need. Although we have similar background, you don't have to do financial economics like me. I am not interested in macro and monetary policy so I don't know how to give you suggestions. But I think the most important thing for you now is to get admission. You can, and you have to, make your background be your advantage in you application. Believe me, it's not difficult.

I also have a finance under degree as well as finance master degree. And I had been working in a finance institution for many years. But now I am doing econ phd. I am pretty sure that having a finance background is not a problem. But, of course, when you write your SOP, you need to say why you want to pursue econ phd? How your finance background can help you in studying econ phd? or you may want to emphasize that you are interested in financial economics. If you are interested in macro, you can also consider doing macro related to finance (or you can say doing finance from macro perspective). In my department, we have finance-related courses like Asset Pricing, Financial Econometrics, and some professors really do outstanding research in macro+finance. So I think applying econ phd with finance background is totally fine.

When I applied, one of my advisor asked me to use Interfolio, an online service. Professor just needs to upload their recommendation online, and then they will help you submit the letter to schools. You can choose which schools to submit by yourself. You can submit the letter to 20, 50, or hundreds of schools, and your professor doesn't need to do anything. Moreover, the letter uploaded is confidential--you can not see the content. My advisor told me that Interfolio is widely used. I am not sure if it is true, but I do find that, for example, on the website of UC Berkeley, they mention that applicants can use Interfolio.

Thanks for your advice!! Your opinion is convincing and quite useful. Although I haven't decided to focus on corporate finance or asset pricing in my phd studying, I am a kind of inclined to corporate finance now. I know what I should do now. Many thanks.

Corporate finance is definitely a part of financial economics. MIT Sloan says, there are two informal tracks in financial economics: corporate finance and asset pricing.

Hmm...I agree with you. General speaking, time series is useful for financial economics. However, as I know (maybe I am wrong), for asset pricing, time series is more useful; but for corporate finance, cross-sectional regression is more useful. Of course, asset pricing and corporate finance are all foundations of financial economics. But since I am inclined to doing corporate finance now, I consider postpone the studies of time series. And, everyone agrees that, even for just doing theory, time series (or econometrics, general speaking) is still very important? I thought answer is no...but...maybe I am wrong.

Hi all, I am doing economics phd now, and my interests mainly focus on financial economics. I plan to do theoretic research, maybe corporate finance or asset market. Not very clear what issue I want to do, but now I need to choose my second year courses. Since I prefer to doing theory, I do not plan to take many courses in econometrics. But today the program advisor strongly suggested me to take Time Series. Even though I said I prefer to doing theory, he told me that I still need to learn Time Series for reviewing literature. Since we already have two compulsory courses in econometrics (but not focus on time series), originally I did not plan to take time series. But now I hesitate. Is time series really important?

I read AEAweb. There are many different rankings in that link. And they really looks very different.... I wonder if there is a ranking only evaluating PhD programs. USnews, for example, I just find ranking for graduate school. But many econ departments have master program. Is the ranking in USnews fair for evaluating PhD programs?

I also feel that "real analysis" means very different things at different school. I took Real Analysis when I did my master degree in my own country. That course started from measure theory and the textbook was Royden. Now I find that when people say real analysis, they mean something much easier than I thought.

If you are talking to a phd applicant, I agree with you. But what Mankiw said is for being a "good" "economist", not for applying a phd program. I still think he is definitely right. BTW, I remember that I asked a professor in my department a question: "if I aim at doing theoretic research, can I pay less attention to statistics and econometrics?" He said no. "Even if you don't want to do empirical research, you still need to read empirical literature! So you have to learn how to read them" So, I will say, even if you don't want to do theoretic research, it doesn't mean that you don't need to read theoretic literature. If you don't have enough math ability, how can you read them?

Financial math is useful not only in finance. For example, the journal of economic dynamics and control, has many papers using stochastic process and calculus, covering micro and macro problems. You can easily find a macro growth model having Brownian motion.

I studied financial math for my master degree and now I am studying econ phd (in econ department, not business school). I just want to say, "finance is also a field of economics". In my department, some professors' research involve lots of financial math tools, like stochastic process, stochastic differential equations, etc.

Real Analysis. In general, Real Analysis should be learned before Probability Theory. Probability Theory is based on Measure Theory, which is covered in Real Analysis. You can study Probability Theory by yourself after you learn Real Analysis.

Yes, I agree. So I said you should emphasize your research interests. Furthermore, you should also write down how much you know about your interests; what is your prospective regarding your interests; how do you plan to prepare yourself in order to working in this field.... However, I still think you don't need to mention any professor in your SOP. Maybe you just try to say that professor X or Y matches your research interests. But I think it is not necessary. They do know who matches your research interests. You don't need to remind them.

I think SOP is quite important. At least, it is the only thing you can control while your test grades and academic records are settled. However, I think writing a good SOP does not require you to writing different versions to different schools. Especially, you don't need to emphasize which professors you are interested in. (But, of course, you should emphasize your research interests) For an economics PhD program, a first-year PhD student will not have an advisor, and will not need to choose any subfield. That's why you don't need to mention any professor in your SOP. In general you will not be accepted because "some" professor wants you to be his student. Maybe in other field, an applicant will be admitted because some professor wants him to join his lab. So an applicant needs to looking for a professor during application process. But, in econ field, you totally do not need to do that.

I do not see you having a strong reason to pursue econ PhD. You are interested in economics, but it does not mean that you need to study PhD. You can choose a master program. Or you can read many books by yourself. I agree that interest and passion are very important for studying PhD, but definitely not enough. You need a stronger reason. From a career point, if you want to stay in the business world, studying PhD is usually a bad investment. I believe that just few positions require you having PhD degree. In most cases, people succeed in the business world without PhD degree. In fact, studying PhD costs you much time but helps you a little. Unless you are really sure that you need PhD degree for a particular purpose, I will suggest you not to pursue PhD.

Is it common that, apply for other schools during the first or second year PhD studying (economics phd)? Maybe you are not satisfied by current position. Maybe you top in the classes easily now so you want to seek for a more competitive program or want to work with your idol professor who is teaching in another school. Is it impolite to ask the professors in the current school to write recommendation letters? If I top in the classes now, do I have higher chance to be accepted by another better school? Most important, if I get into another school, can I waive some classes so that I can start as a second year student?

Not all schools will require you transferring your GPA in to 4.0 scale. As far as I know, many schools require original GPA. You don't need to worry about that your GPA does not look so good in 4.0 scale. In addition, schools will require your ranking. What is your ranking in your class? If you are the top student in your class, you don't need to worry about your GPA looks not so high. In my opinion, schools understand that it is improper to compare GPA directly, as applicants are from different schools; different areas; different countries. That's why they require not only your GPA but also your ranking.

I will recommend Royden's book. The newest version is published in 2010.

In my opinion, applying to finance programs also needs solid econ background. Of course, math is also important.