Hi,
I am applying (hopefully to a university in the US or Canada) in 2014. Could you please help me evaluate what kind of programs should I apply for?(T10,T10-20,T20-40?) Do you have any advice for my applying? Thank you very much.
Undergraduate: Economics and Maths(Double major) in Tsinghua University, China.
GPA: 3.87/4
GRE: V163(90%)+Q170(99%)+AW4.5(73%)
TOEFL: 112, Speaking:23
Maths courses: ODE, PDE, numerical analysis, mathematical programming, probability theory(based on measure theory), real analysis, linear algebra, calculus, business stats.
Econ courses: intermediate micro/macro, econometrics(graduate student level), behavioral economics and some others.
Research experience: currently cooperating with two professors on two programs: one CB program with my professor in Tsinghua, one theoretical modelling program with a professor in WUSTL.
Awards: Mathematical Contest for Modeling (MCM), outstanding prize (top 11 among 6000+ participants), presented the paper on SIAM Annual Meeting 13.
LoRs: Two from the professors I am working with, one or two from course instructors (from Econ dept.). I think they know me very well, but they are not that well-known.
Research interests: I prefer theoretical modeling, but empirical modeling is also acceptable. I think studies related to pricing strategies are interesting, but I haven't decided more detailed research interests yet.
Some of my target schools are: Duke, Columbia, Stanford, UCSD, WUSTL, CMU.
One of my concern is my research experience in CB may not be helpful for applying quant programs. Another problem is that I didn't get high grades in some of the math courses (One of them is extremely low), and I am also not well-trained in computer programming (although I do some programming using Stata and Matlab).
Thank you in advance for your inputs.