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Hi all, I'm currently at LSE's MSc Economics (1 year programme). By default, MSc Econ students take the regular microeconomics class, but there is an option to take advanced microeconomics together with the students from the MSc Econometrics & Mathematical Economics (EME). For the purposes of admission into a T20 US PhD programme, is it better to excel in the normal microecon class, or be the median student in the more advanced class? If it makes a difference, I plan to apply during the MSc Econ programme so that I can enroll into the PhD right after the MSc year, so the most I would have is grades from January exams and/or a letter from whoever is teaching the micro/ advanced micro courses. For more context, I have previously posted my profile here. Since then, the significant changes are that I have finished my remaining undergraduate courses with A or A+ (including thesis and last module of econometrics sequence), and, as above, I have enrolled into LSE's MSc Econ programme. I think one of my main weaknesses are no formal math grades (though I have done well in the "math for economists" courses), hence the coursework question above. Thanks!

Hi, I would like to seek advice on managing a fourth letter writer for econ PhD applications. I think I'm in a situation where three of my letter writers dominate the fourth letter writer. The profile of my letter writers (profs who have agreed to write me an LOR) are roughly: A: My thesis supervisor. Relatively younger, but has a pretty good publication record. B: A pretty senior prof. I did well on his/her field course. He/She was also one of my thesis graders. C: Moderately senior prof. I took his/her real analysis class. But it is not evident at all from my transcript that the class resembled anything close to a real analysis class. Aside from this, the only other math module on my transcript is a "math for economists" type of module. D: Fairly junior prof. I did well on his/her field course. He/She was also one of my thesis graders. Slightly below the other 3 in terms of tier of school attended. My impression is that if all four letters are roughly equal, then the conventional approach is to mix the letters up. But in my situation, I think that A B and C form a dominant set of letter writers. If so, how should I manage D, and what should I tell D? e.g. do I tell D that A B and C have already agreed to write me letters? - but if so, is that not essentially conveying that his/her letter is subpar or unnecessary, which is just not very nice overall? Additionally, I think one other relevant consideration is that the two more senior profs B and C aren't the most responsive to emails, and D could still serve as a backup writer if necessary. So I'm hesitant to convey that I don't need his/her letter. Appreciate any advice on this, thanks!

Thanks! Will definitely take you up on that.

(1.5 years later) This is really just to close the loop on my experience; Hope this helps anyone who chanced upon this thread in search of useful info for gauging their own admission chances. I scored As for all econ courses in my final year, including econometrics 3 and mathematical economics (it was pretty much real analysis, the text was baby rudin, but taught by the econ dept), and was eventually accepted to MSc Econs for LSE, UCL and Barcelona GSE. However I declined those places for a mixture of personal and financial reasons, and am currently in the labour market. I was unable to patch my "no math" weakness: all my math was learnt via the econs dept. So, my current plan is to save up for a few years and pursue that MSc econs again, as a bridge to a PhD.

Hey, thanks for the feedback! Since you said that my training is probably sufficient to handle first year work, do you think there's any value in taking freshmen-level linear algebra or calculus course (offered by math department) in terms of signaling to adcoms? There would be some overlap with the 'math for economists' class (Quantitative Methods for Economics Analysis) that I completed. The other viable alternative to boost my quantitative credentials would be to take an intermediate level mathematical econs course. There's no detailed syllabus for the coming semester's course yet, but this was last year's course outline: 1. Linear Algebra 2. Convexity & Separation Theorems 3. Concave & Convex Functions 4. Unconstrained Optimization, Inverse & Implicit Function Theorems 5. Equality Constraints: Lagrangian Multiplier Method 6. Inequality Constraints: Karush-Kuhn-Tucker Conditions 7. Dynamic Programming 8. Correspondence, Continuity and Fixed Point Theorems To me, this looks like the better option. (I'll be taking GRE this coming semester)

Hi all, I would like to do post-graduate economics and I would like to get a realistic sense of which schools I might be able to go to. I have decent results in my economics courses but because I only realized last semester that academia/research might be the path for me, I haven’t taken any courses from the math department so far. I’m an undergraduate in economics at the National University of Singapore (NUS), it’s one of the top ranking universities in Asia although I’m not so sure about its brand worldwide. I’ll be entering senior year this fall. I’m mostly looking at European masters programmes currently because I believe the odds of entering any T20 PhD programme in the US are way too slim to actually justify trying. Undergrad: Bachelor of Social Sciences (Honours), National University of Singapore Major: Economics Current GPA: 4.65 out of 5 (for reference, 4.5 is an A- average; I believe this is equivalent to a first in the UK system?) Economics Courses: Intro to Econs: A- Intro Micro: A+ Intro Macro: A Foundation for econometrics (‘stats for economists’ class): A Quantitative Methods (‘math for economists’ class): A+ (a bit of linear algebra and a bit of calculus, but I think there’s less content in here compared to the respective courses by the math department) Intermediate Micro: A Intermediate Macro: A- Econometrics 1: A Econometrics 2 (time series, cointegration, fixed effects, random effects, IV, logit/probit): A Game Theory (NE, SPNE, BNE, Perfect BNE): B+ Financial Economics 1: B+ Advanced Micro (topics in asymmetric info, game theory, basic matching theory): A Development Economics 2: A Intended remaining econ classes (tentative): Thesis, Econometrics 3, one compulsory class on Singapore’s policy and either advanced labour or advanced macro If it’s relevant, I also did education economics and international economics during my exchange semester. Research Experience: 1 winter internship at a government ministry, 1 summer internship at a water policy institute. Teaching Experience: Currently none, applying to be a TA in the coming semester for intro to econs class Letters of Recommendation: To be honest, not very sure where these would come from. Probably from my thesis supervisor, and maybe I’ll ask the profs in one of the advanced classes. My current research interests lie in labour, closely followed by development. However, I honestly think these preferences are not very strong at this point and I'm open to trying out different sub-fields. The glaringly weakest part of my profile is no math I think, which is why I believe I should probably apply to a European master’s instead of directly into a PhD programme. At best, I could probably tackle 1 or 2 extra classes from the math department (linear algebra maybe?) in my senior year, but I’m not sure whether there’s any value in doing that. Instead of doing that, would it be better to do a mathematical economics class? It would probably be like a more intermediate ‘math for economists’ class, but not graduate level. I also can’t decide whether taking advanced macro would be better than taking advanced labour. The content of advanced macro is probably more relevant for signaling since it's more quantitative and theoretical (RCK, Endo growth, RBC, NKM), but the prof taking advanced labour has far stronger credentials (PhD from T10, stronger publications) and I reckon a good recommendation letter from him would count for a lot. I haven’t yet done a lot of homework on which European schools to apply to, but currently I am eyeing MSc Econ at LSE or UCL; I would like to do a masters that would allow me to keep my options open in terms of progressing into a PhD but also gives me a good outside option. I’m also wondering about the Oxford DPhil option (or the MPhil, for that matter); how similar is it to the US PhD programmes in terms of admissions and how well-regarded is the DPhil/MPhil? Like I said, it took me a very long time to realize that maybe this is the path for me and so I hope to get a realistic sense of what I can do from here to best improve my odds and which schools I could aim for. There's a lot that I don't know/am unsure about so I would really appreciate hearing more informed opinions… Thanks a lot!