not a fan

Thanks, I hope so.

Honestly, I have no idea. My hope is that after the first year we can spend more time together and travel more frequently. However, this is not our first time being away each other. Actually, we're not in the same country right now. So 2.5 or 3 hours is actually an improvement.

Thanks, actually I did and She did the same at Wharton. So, I hope that could help. They say that for them those issues are very serious.

I declined Chicago for very personal reasons. Good luck to those on any wait list. I'm waiting to hear from Upenn. Please, don't kill me for saying this but declining Chicago removed the upper bound of my ego. I will always remember when I said no to such a great department. However, the true is that it was my dream school, I wish my fiancee was admitted into Kellogg or Booth :sorrow:. Well, She's going to Wharton and I have some hopes on Upenn.

I know people that have been already admitted off the wait list. I am losing hope.

IMHO if you are interested in Micro Theory, Maryland and Brown dominate your wait lists. Take my advise very carefully because by the moment I will be attending Maryland. I have declined Michigan, Minnesota and Chicago and I am on the wait-list at Upenn :luck2:. My fiancee will be going to Wharton, that's why I'm not going to Chicago, but I declined UMN and UM for other reasons. I am not going to say anything particular about Maryland, just check very carefully the program, I think it's underrated. About Brown, it's a great program and you'll receive a lot of attention, they are aiming for an entering class of 9 or 10 students and everybody gets funding. In theory they have Serrano, Dal Bo and Vohra. I have heard that they are very nice and excellent advisors. Maryland has good people doing theory as well, check them out. Both are great places and very balanced programs. About the other places, all are very good but I don't think they're that good in theory, but that's my opinion. Michigan is not very strong in theory, although Masatlioglu and Borgers are good. If you are into applied, particularly in Labor, Cornell and Michigan are good options. For Macro or IO Minnesota is good. For Metrics and applied UCSD is very good. Ypu have very good options, congratulations!

Hi everyone, I was placed high on the wait list and i have been in touch with the Department. At the beginning they where very enthusiastic and then they said that they're are receiving slower responses than previous years but then they said that they expect to receive a lot responses next week. I don't know, I find this very confusing. Maybe I am just very paranoid and trying to read what I want to read.

I really like the DC area but it is quite expensive as PhDPlease said. I don't know about Saint Louis but I wonder how is the environment in WUSTL since they have a reputation of brutal prelims and inaccessible Professors. I don't know if this is actually true. But if I where you, I will start by looking for this information. Also, look at their placements and try to think about which kind of jobs do you prefer and which fields.

Maryland's weather is better than San Diego's :eager:

Miserable? I think this may be offensive for some people. You got excellent admissions. I don't understand why you feel miserable but there is something that I have been told thousands of time: You're going to live 5 years working very hard and sometimes it's going to be very disappointing and discouraging, so if you are not highly motivated it is just not going to work. As a personal story, I had a couple of bad weeks during my Masters and I almost ruin myself. So, I would think about it twice if you don't feel motivated enough with those offers. Finally, don't be so confident on your field because it may change and don't go behind one person, they can move or just don't be willing to work with you. Go to a place where you feel the environment is better for you, where you find many people doing interesting research.

Hi there, I just want go give my thoughts on Maryland. I was admitted into Chicago, Maryland, Minnesota and Michigan, and on the wait list in Upenn (already declined UM and UMN). My preferred program is Chicago but I want to be close to Philadelphia for personal reasons, still, in my personal ranking Maryland is above Minnesota and Michigan. I think UMD is more balanced than UMN and UM, the first very competitive in macro and decent in IO but that's it. On the other hand UM is mostly applied IO and labor. Off course, both are very good programs. Also, my ranking could be bias because my advisor has connections with Maryland, so I know more about it than any other program. I want to clarify something about those seniors that left. It doesn't look good off course but you have to be careful. There have been a lot of bashing against UMD (not necessarily on this board) and it could be very misleading. You have to notice that those senior left to better places (Reinhart to Harvard KSG and Mendoza to Upenn) and Vegh left for personal reasons as someone said before. Thus, what happened in Maryland is that they built a very strong group, they recognized the right people and put them together. They did such a wonderful job that they got people that in the long run were underplaced. The positive part is that those who built the group and hire them are still there. So, Maryland still have the ability to form a strong group in International and in other fields.They are going for some rising stars and they have a very good hiring strategy. Bottom line: I think Maryland has a strong program but they are going to be even better in the next 1 or 2 years.

I'm sorry if this was a silly thread, I knew it may be. However, I don't think that one can find a clear answer in the past threads, maybe because there isn't a clear answer or the question is just laughable from the begging. Anyway, I still believe that the question is not trivial and appreciate your comments. Also, I would like to point out that there have been a lot of views, some informative responses and the humor is always helpful in this process ( off course it's a side effect, maybe I should' have started a thread about funny ways to decline an offer). So, IMHO, for some people it's a relevant topic. Also, I don't think that what happens in EJMR should be relevant for us, as long as the integrity of the members is safe . I mean, it's the same place where people laugh about top 5 Departments and successful economists without a base. Naturally, I understand and respect your point and your concern as moderator tm_member, I just have a different opinion. Finally, and just to close the topic, I already declined and sent an e-mail to those professor I talked with telling them that I appreciated the offer (I really do) but I found a better fit in other programs and that I hope that declining early could help them in the process. They were cool, a couple responded saying that they appreciated the early response since waiting is costly for them and for the students on the wait list. The other joke about it and said, more informally, that we can still have a couple of beers next time he visits my current city but that I have to pay the bill.

Done, already sent! Thanks Catrina.

Nothing in particular. However, I prefer Chicago to UMN and UM, and I'd be almost indifferent between UMD, UMN and UM but the funding at Maryland is considerably better than the others, plus, in Minnesota I'd have to do 20 hours/week of TA during the first year, which honestly scares me a lot!

Haha you're right, I have a bunch of rejection letters to choose from. I know about the wait list, I'm on the same spot at Upenn. I want to do it as soon as possible. However, and I forgot to mention, our professors told us to be careful declining and do it politely. They say that there's no problem just to avoid sounding pretentious and take it seriously because it may hurt students from the incoming years. Thank you very much!

Hi everybody, First I want to apologize. I'm a long time lurker, so I feel like a free rider for asking your help in my first thread. I want to decline a couple of offers but I don't know how to address it properly. The thing is that I've in touch with some of the faculty and I feel a little bad for this. I know that this sounds naive and that it's normal in this process but given that it's pretty soon and I know some of these professor personally, I don't want to give the wrong impression. I want to decline Minnesota and Michigan, nothing wrong with the programs off course, but I have an offer from Chicago, UCLA and Maryland and got wait-listed at Upenn (and lots of rejections obviously:miserable:). I prefer any of them mostly because I think those are more balanced programs and I'm not completely sure about my research interests so far (I'd appreciate some words on this as well). I know that most of you would recommend to consider more my options and to avoid declining so early. However, I'm an international and many people from my Master program is on the wait list at UM and probably at UMN. So it would be useful for them and at the same time a classmate is declining Upenn as well. I know it doesn't work directly but it may make some sense for people from the same country and the same program, so we have a deal to decline dominated offers. In conclusion, I'd appreciate any comment, suggestion or critic about how to decline an offer without "hurting some feelings". Thank you very much! :eager: