crazyforPhD

Wow! Since you went to Madison... Who were the main I/O people then? Ken Hendicks currently holds Departmental Chair and is pretty busy with administrative work. Deneckere apparently is MIA in terms of taking students. Quint is working at Ebay for now (but probably will be back soon). Also I have TA offer from Madison and fellowship from MD.

Thagzone, thanks for that! My interests are I/O and Micro theory. Both MD and WI are very strong in these fields. (better, for example, than Michigan where I was also admitted). If it would be any other field I would probably not even consider MD from the above choices.

Thanks for your answer. I guess I should mention the reason I asked at the first place. I am currently deciding between Wisconsin and Maryland. While US news rates Wisconsin about 10 spots higher, Tilburg places Maryland significantly higher. Looking at the placements for both places, the differences of going to Wisconsin (and deal with terrible long winters in Madison) versus being in nice DC area seems to be pretty marginal.

Can someone explain the disparities in rankings of Wisconsin program. American sources such as US News rate it pretty high: top 15 program. Sources other than American, such as QS and Tilburg place it pretty low: 51-100. Why is there such a disparity? Additional info about the program is also appreciated.

It rather means what is the subfield you are interested in. While Michigan is definitely rated above Maryland, they are incredibly good at labor and public (specifically tax) econ. If those are your fields of interest, Michigan wins hands down. If let's say your interests are microtheory or I/O, Maryland would be a much better place to go. Maryland also has a nice development team and ties to NGOs around DC area. As for UCLA: if you have a funded offer, it's not worth it to even consider an unfunded one.

From what I have seen taking PhD classes an UG and personally know few people who fail, the lack of prove-based math courses is one of the main reasons. There is a reason why adcoms prefer applicants with a strong math background (math major pretty much), as it is incredibly hard to teach yourself this way of thinking once your are in the program.

I'm also on the waitlist and invited. I'm going to visit as I think the chances of getting in are pretty high. My friend who is currently in PhD program there told me that quite a few people like that ended up being admitted.