Nalu

Notre Dame has some good applied micro faculty I follow. ASU has an enormous and broad economics faculty. You can't go very wrong here.

There is at least one student I know of doing health in the Wharton applied economics program. Here is some of his work: https://bepp.wharton.upenn.edu/profile/1740/research

Maryland!

Just an email. The sooner the better.

Any commitment made before April 15 is legally non-binding. Schools try to rush in order to exploit applicant risk aversion and get better students ( ). It causes some inefficiencies in the market bourn by students and non-rush schools. Tell A you are coming! Politely inform B that you are not. You should not feel bad. As I understand it, B was breaking the rules by requiring and earlier deadline. They are not supposed to do that.

I was unsure what I would suggest until I thought what I might say if my brother came to me in this situation. In my opinion, I do not think it's worth it. Your preferences for academia make it a difficult, even-more-ambiguous question since, yes, in the short-run you'll be in academia longer while in school, but it's unclear that you will get an academic job in the long-run. I agree with others on this thread that there are very bright faculty and students at schools outside of the "top 50". Part of this is due to the caliber of individuals interested in pursuing academic economics and part due to an imperfect, noisy application process. Whatever the causes, the consequences are quite clear. The chances of getting an academic job are not great. Would you be unhappy in a non-academic job with a Ph.D.? Would you be unhappy in a non-academic job without a Ph.D.?

It's pretty hard if your adviser is not an expert in the area you are producing work. The tools and standards vary considerably from field to field. Of course, it is logistically possible to be advised by someone who isn't close to your question. The problem won't come necessarily on the job market where your paper's general appeal is relatively important; the problem may come in publication where the gate keeping reviewers are experts in your subfield. Moreover, part of the letters from your advisers explain to hiring committees what your contribution is to the literature since the hiring committee may not have a person who can evaluate the contribution. It's easier for the adviser to do this if they know the landscape of the literature around your paper. But I think you can get good input from game theorists who aren't doing exactly what you're working. Also the airline IO person should be very capable counseling you on health IO. She won't know as much about what's been done or what data is available, but she can help you model and work through the problem. The answer varies a little field-by-field with difficulty within field across the theory-applied line. I think theory can advise applied pretty well by advising interesting tests of important theoretical questions. In empirical public or labor it seems you can get good advising even if the topics of adviser and student are divorced. Are these general examples or is this the situation you are in (interests in health IO, theoretical labor, and transportation)?

If you cannot get research experience during your undergraduate work and want to apply to graduate programs straight from undergrad you would need to get summer research jobs elsewhere (World Bank, JPAL, Federal Reserve, and other universities). In my experience its hard to get these jobs. Learning Stata by taking one of their online courses could prepare you to get a job and contribute meaningfully. Yes, letters from people you have only researched for are expected and are more valuable than letters from people who have only had you in class. A good letter of recommendation is a catalogue of lots of good work you've contributed to the professor's research. I've also heard that letters from people that the admissions committee does not know do very little good. Two examples: 1. Here, the admissions committee said that they have 100 applicants whose letters indicate "You'd be crazy not to admit my student, [insert name]." How do you separate all of these identical signals? By prioritizing them by the credibility and prestige of the letter writer. 2. Hank Farber at Princeton says he only reads letters from people he knows. Finally, I've heard that letters from non-economists (including mathematicians) don't hold water with economics admissions committees. My friend who's quite a bit brighter than me used his Math professors as letters who he had researched for. He under placed significantly. The most common avenues for getting a top placement without undergraduate research experience is spending two years doing research at NBER, the Federal Reserve, JPAL, IPA, or economist at a good school. Most of what I'm saying is hearsay or anecdotal, so ask around and hear lots of opinions.

In general the characteristics they look for in an RA are identical to those they look for in an intern but they expect that their interns have less experience.

I worked for IPA (JPAL's sister organization at Yale) for a summer so I only know a bit. But for the RA positions, Stata was very important. Languages are a big plus if the languages you can read correspond to the language of a project country with an RA opening. I'm not sure what links you would like. Best of luck getting the job.

Attrition is a problem at some of the best schools. Stock and co-authors wrote a sequence of articles on how students could complete their Ph.D.s and do so in a timely manner: Completing an Economics PhD in Five Years (Stock et al) Attrition in Economics Programs (Stock et al) Time-to-Degree for Economics PhD (Stock and Siegfried)

We used Sundaram's A First Course in Optimization Theory for math camp. I thought it was very readable and going through the first hundred pages or so would be a good, gentle-but-well-directed ramp to being prepared for first year. The book is on amazon here. If you are not steady with proofs I also found that way of thinking can be overwhelming and disorienting to the uninitiated. Perhaps picking up a proofs or real analysis book or taking point-set topology this summer would be useful.

What would you like to know? I'm a second year in the program. Feel free to message me.

Two things: One, ask for time to hear from your other schools. This rush strategy is useful for lower-tiered schools (think Al Roth). Two, if they insist you should know any decision you make before April 15 is not binding. You can "commit" and then update your decision when you know more about your option set.

I see you were admitted to UPenn who also has a good macro group. Dirk Krueger is excellent. US News Ranking in macro economics. I'm not a macro person but it's been my impression that Columbia is the relatively strong in macro relative to the other two you're considering. I looked around a bit and at least citations suggest that this is the case: Field Rankings at IDEAS: Macroeconomics Those are great options! Congratulations--you can't go very wrong!