Econ

i am in a top3 econ phd, got accepted by all top10s and did not have a single hour of research before i apply. i had nice maths under by belt but not proof classes. :D @ the person that posted the q: go ahead and apply at the top10s, you have an excellent profile. research is nice, but in my opinion weights less than other things in the admission process. certainly a good paper will lunch some top10s, but generally that's not the prerequisite :). if i were to place you somewhere i would say top10s, but if e.g. you are from itam or tech, you can try top5s as well :)

you should try top5s . top10s are definitely reachable :)

dear phymath: no, econ is not pure math logic. you can call it an applied math branch or if you end up doing econometrics, it is statistics applied to economic data! The math level is high, but by no means up to that of a mathematician. Of course you can always do more math-intensive things such as (micro) game theory, general equilibrium or (macro) solution algorithms for stochastic difference equations once you are an econ phd student. Obviously your math backround seems awesome, so you won't have any problem during your PhD at the technical level of the subject. I urge you to take some econ classes (avoid intermediate micro and macro - too easy in math content - and try to get your hands dirty from the beginning: take some advanced macro/micro courses to see what's the deal with econ) in order to expore your possibilities. Do not worry if you aren't sure of ''innovative social/econ thoughts'' yet: if you have the math logic part everything will be easier!

excluding the GRE your profile looks good enough for top20s; obviously, GRE Q is too low for top10s, even for top20s i would say. why don't you retake the exam to achieve a Q780+? your chances would significantly improved i guess :) last year that i applied i asked some univ about mean/median GREs of admitted students. i can recall that berkeley answered ''if you scored 760 or lower better retake the test'' - at their site they mention smt about 770 - so you d better not apply there :). chicago seems a long shot too! well, Q750 is quite low for the top10s, so i would advice you to retake it. from the 4 schools that you mention, yale and nw seem more accessible. best of luck :)

definitely apply now because: (i) you want to see where you stand (ii) you have excellent chances at all top10-20s and fair shots at top 5-10s including nw :) start taking some math classes (emphasize on RA and DE), continue your research activity and if all turns well start graduate school in fall 06 :)

getting down the list from 15 to 10 schools: your list contains: reaches: 3 difficult: 4 reasonable: 4 safeties: 4 get read one out of harvard, mit, berkeley, one out of nu, yale, penn, nyu, one out of columbia, ucsd, u w madison and lse (obviously not lse), and one out of bu, jhu, maryland and ubc. this will yield 11 schools :). drop one of the difficults if you feel pessimistic or one of the reasonable if you feel optimistic. you have a decent profile for the schools you are aiming. i am assuming that your lse msc econ will have little value added to your applications. given a distinction in lse you can shoot for a top10. for now, gres are outstanding, gpa is fine for top15s, in the low (still acceptable) side for the top10s, lors sound great, math grades are ambiguous. LSE Msc Econ signals a well prepared applicant :). best of luck p.s. if you have the resources i would advice you to apply at the 15 schools.

definitely retake the GRE; it will jeopardize any chance you have. your gpas look fine (i suspect that 73% in your system isn't merely a ~3 GPA), so it certainly pays to try it once more :)

your maths sound all right for entering the 1st year! during my application period last year i faced the same problem as you do now: the math courses i had taken sounded too general and could not convey successfully the content: math econ I, math econ II, math econ Graduate, stats I, stats II, econometrics I, econometrics II, econometrics I Graduate and econometrics II Graduate. what i did was to submit a page that described the topics I had been taught, and frankly speaking I think that helped a lot! also, i convinced the profs that LORed me to attest throught their letters my level of math/stat proficiency!!! that helped a lot too :) anything involving maths should be mentioned in your application, maybe not in your SOP (the sop isn't meant to describe your qualifications but your passion for research), but briefly in 1-2 lines somewhere else (e.g. if a univ asks for '''honors'' or ''other info'' put it there!).

IMHO, top10s sound like a reach, but top50 are too low for your profile. assuming a Q800 you stand decent chances at top15-25 univs with aid. what concerns me the most is that both your degrees are in non-hardcore fields (dev, ba) and this might undermine your chances. by the way how are your maths? a Q800 will resolve these issues and make you an attractive applicant for the top20-30s, i think. some advices: (i) no, no, no!!! do not convert your grades into the 4.0 gpa system. 7.77 is top 2-3%, but a ~3.1/4.0 might sound as top50-75% :(. (ii) convince your prof from your home univ to mention the class rank. Obviously you should mention it too somewhere in your application, but an official LOR stating your rank matters the most! (iii) focus on GRE ASAP. if you score in the 780-800 range on the GRE you should apply to at least 2 top10s, 4-5 top20s (e.g. brown which is a top dev school, u mich, u w m, etc) and 4-5 safeties, i.e. top30s and top40s. good luck

hey gray: i ve been through the admission process last year when I applied at nearly all of the top20 econ phds. unfortunately i applied only at lse in europe, but being a european citizen i have some decent experience of how things might work out here: first, you GRE is wondeful! certainly it is only one component of your profile, but, hey man, what an amazing score ... :). second, let's put things under perspective: do you want to pursue a phd in europe because you d be better off (meaning that you would like to study in europe anyway) or because you do think that you cannot make it in the top10s and therefore you d prefer a european phd instead? it would be very interesting if you could provide some further stats, mainly your undegraduate and graduate GPA, for us to further assess your chances. The thing is that if you want to be in the academia a Harvard / MIT / Chicago Econ PhD makes a huge difference in the job market and the reputation of an economist. I am not proclaiming to have the outmost experience with these matters, but my overall sense is that LSE is the only PhD in Europe that can be compared with the top10s-15s US PhD programs. As others have already mentioned, UCL, Tilburg, UPF, Warwick, Cambridge, Oxford, Carlos III, Free, EUI-Florence, SSE/St. U, Tinbergen are the best econ departments in Europe, but nonetheless they cannot, in my humble opinion, be compared with any US Econ PhD in or near the top15. Regarding funding, again numbers favor Econ PhDs in the US. Even a top20 US Econ PhD offers a stipend that can support your living costs, but few, if any at all, european univ will offer you a competitive financial package. LSE offered me the ESRC fellowship, the most prestigious european fellowship (only for EU citizens, commensurate in status to NSF's grants) and still I was kind of short of money to fully support myself!!! So, the bottom line is that funding is much more limited in Europe, esp. for a non-EU citizen. Regarding the structure of the admission process in Europe, yes you are right, it differs greatly from univ to univ. The main difference is that some programs follow the american style - GREs, online application, 4 year program (MS/PhD or MR/PhD) (e.g. LSE, SSE, Warwick, UCL), while others assume that the applicant has already a MSc in Econ related field and starts right away the research (e.g. Cambridge). The latter programs, thus, require a research proposal in hand for you to be eligible to apply. If you hadn't already completed a MSc in the states, the best idea would be to apply for a 1-2 year MSc in Europe (the best is LSE EME, then LSE Econ). This alternative would both satisfy your intellectual curiosity to study here, and further enhance your chances of gaining admission at a top econ phd. To recapitulate: if you have good grades I would advice you (but I am not you, ofcourse) to apply at top econ departments in the states, followed by some top econ phds in europe (mainly LSE's program). The prospects are better and the money is ample in the states. The fact that your MSc comes from a small univ does not matter so much as long as you had strong results - i, coming from a top200 econ department, made it through all top 5s and top 10s - in your studies and have people (through LORs) attest to this :) friendly, econ

no, i dont think it will, but for you to be safe, try to explain this fact in your application! If all your grades are A/A- and you have a single B no one will care, for it is something that can happen to everyone! certainly, the rigor of your msc is very high (econometrics is the worst fear of every econ/finance phd student) and us adcoms will appreciate that! start preparing for the GRE/GMAT as soon as possible and score as high as possible. your chances look great! best!

well, obviously you have a strong profile :). If I had to mention something that troubles me is the relative low GPA in the MSc - please give more details, e.g. class rank etc. I don't mean to sound harsh but an A+ in BA that comes down to a B+/A- in the MSc looks unattractive :(. No, I don't think that you should work prior to applying to the PhD program. In fact I think that the best thing to do right now is to ace the GRE (or GMAT) and get some great LORs! Generally, I think that you are a top10 applicant. Ace the GRE and you ll get in!

in my opinion a score in the 90+% in V is impressive especially if you are an international. other people will say that is doesn't matter, but i think that my 92% in V played some role in my success! the more the better (by monotonicity)!

sorry to disapoint you but I think Q550 = ~35%. you need around 620 for the 50%. Nevertheless an 110 point gain must be considered as a (statistically speaking) significant improvement, so they might feel satisfied :)

anything lower than 4 in AWA could cause problems, with 4.5-5.0 being the mean score in top20-50 schools. For V, scores lower than 400 if you are an international, and 500 if you are a native speaker can harm your application. For Q, 800 is neither necessary nor sufficient. 770+ is considered a satisfactory score for an econ phd program.