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Do a PhD in Finance instead.

I'm just wondering how good preparation does a BS in engineering (electrical/mechanical/computer/industrial/aerospace/materials/etc.) provide to pursue a PhD in econ? I've seen a ton of physics people pursue an econ phd and a few from engineering as well. So just wanted to get a general perspective.

A friend of mine who did MS from Montana State (a top 5 ag econ MS program) has a very similar profile as yours. He scored 164 in GRE quant and 170 in verbal. He also has the drive to work in the ag econ research field particularly in the Midwest. His GPA was slightly lower than yours though, at 3.70 (with a B+ in real analysis as an extra course with the math department). This profile got him into Minnesota, UC Davis, North Carolina State and Iowa State, all four departments he applied to. He had a really amazing master's thesis and top recommendations from the faculty recognized in their field. I'm sure you can pull off the recs part if you did great, and are from a strong land-grant applied econ MS program yourself. So I'd say 163 can still take you to good ag econ PhD programs if your overall profile is great. Not sure about Penn State and Syracuse econ programs though. I heard somewhere in this same board that the top 10 ag econ programs (which all four of the above are) are equivalent in terms of competency in admissions and overall rigor to the top 40 general econ programs. One of my other friends got into U Washington with a 165, and another one got into American U (DC) and U Mass Amherst with 163. So it looks fine!

I'm really not the right person to answer this as I don't have real analysis experience myself and I'm starting my PhD this Fall too, but for question 1, speaking from my experience from MS program, you will barely have any time to devote for things outside of your stated courses, research, and TA/RA duties. I was working for 7 days a week for MS, so I can imagine how it would be like for PhD. So if it is under your coursework, then that's a good idea to devote a couple of hours (or even more) on it, but not otherwise.

Hello all, I just read the other, older thread about how to find a dissertation topic, but just thought of starting a new one with my specific question. I have often read that the best way to go about a research project is by thinking about a research question first, and then finding the relevant datasets to empirically answer the question. However, I guess this is pretty difficult in development economics/international agricultural development that I am aiming to specialize in. Furthermore, I reckon that being assigned to work on a particular project as an RA, it would be much easier to think about a research question within the contours of the project's survey data set. Do you think this reverse approach is the more feasible and efficient one during PhD although it will be limiting in terms of the area of the research question itself - in general for Econ PhD, and specifically for development economics? If you think of a particular research question for which you want to conduct a small experiment, which might possibly cost a lot, are external funds easily available? Is writing external grants even encouraged during a doctoral program? Look forward to hearing your responses. I am starting PhD in Ag/Applied Econ this Fall. Thanks!

Hello all, I came to the U.S. for master's in 2017, and I got a five-year, multiple entry F1 visa that is valid till June 2022. I returned to my home country after the master's in July 2019. I was wondering if I could still use the same F1 visa for my PhD for Fall 2020, after getting a new SEVIS number and I-20 and paying for the new SEVIS number, or whether I should apply for a new visa altogether. I sent an email to both my previous university and my upcoming PhD university, and replies from both the sources were that I can use the same F1 visa, if it has not expired yet, given I pay for the new SEVIS ID fee. However, to officially confirm one last time, I emailed the US Embassy in my home country. They asked for my passport and scanned copies of old and new I-20s, and responded, "As you have already completed the course and applying for another program, you should apply for new visa." I again asked my previous and new university officials, and they again stood by their former response, and gave the number of the director, if there is any problem during immigration. Do you think the person from the embassy has mistaken the situation a bit? Since the embassy is closed (or at least not accepting visa appointments) right now, it would be an immense relief for me if I could use my previous F1 visa, so that I could just fly as soon as international flights resume. I look forward to hearing your thoughts... Thanks so much!

Yeah, I got that. I didn't know that before.

Same here. I already have a valid US F1 visa but I'm stuck in my home country and am waiting for the international flights to resume. Not certain they will resume in the next month or two. My department also gave us the option to defer to either Spring or next Fall. They said they will be designing some classes for the Spring if a sizable number the first-year cohort cannot make it this Fall. And, yeah, I don't want to waste any more time as well. I will be 28 later this year, and I don't want my PhD to be pushed a year further. Also, I am finishing my job contract next month, so job opportunities look grim to occupy me for the Fall. I very much prefer in-person classes to online classes, and am not sure if I will want to take classes online. May be take one course if not three. But I am also thinking it would be good to start reading related research papers and even start with Mas-Colell and Greene books if I will need to wait for the next five months. Tough luck!

I spent some time creating this table, thanks to more free time lately. Let me know if certain things need to be changed. I know there are certain inaccuracies (counting everyone for Cornell but not counting everyone at Penn State and Iowa State for example). Some (loose) observations: - Higher ranked ag econ programs tend to hire more from general econ departments. This practice goes down as we move more to the right of the table. - Higher ranked ag econ programs tend to hire from lower ranked ag econ programs, more than lower ranked ag econ programs tend to (see Cornell or Michigan State versus Texas A&M and Kansas State). Anyway, I was wondering why Georgia, although higher in ranking than 12 others in table, has worse stats in terms of graduates involved in top 25 ag econ depts as tenured/tenure-track faculty? I heard they were ranked significantly lower before the 2010s and have tremendously improved in quality in the last 5-10 years. Is that a reason? Just curious!

The table can be read column-wise and row-wise. For each of the top 25 U.S. agricultural economics departments, each column counts the number of enlisted faculty by doctoral alma mater corresponding to the department listed in a given row. Each row, inversely, counts where the doctoral alumni of each department are affiliated to as tenured/tenure-track faculty within the top 25 U.S. agricultural economics departments. [ATTACH=CONFIG]7264[/ATTACH] (Open in a new tab for a larger view) Notes: 1. The ranking is based on REPEC's agricultural economics department rankings, as of April 2020. 2. The figures are based on the faculty listing in the respective department's website, as of May 26, 2020. 3. The figures only count the number of tenured/tenure-track professors in each department, excluding non-tenure-track faculty (visiting professors, research professors, clinical professors, professors of practice, adjunct professors, lecturers, and instructors). In addition, emeritus professors are also counted. 4. "General Econ" counts faculty who have a (general/non agricultural) economics Ph.D. degree. Environmental (and natural resource) economics degrees, traditionally not lumped together with agricultural economics departments (Yale, Duke, U Mass) are provided their own rows. "Canadian Ag Econ" counts faculty who have a Ph.D. degree from a Canadian agricultural economics department. "Other U.S. Ag Econ" counts faculty whose Ph.D. alma mater is other than the 25 listed. "Non-Econ" counts faculty who have a Ph.D. degree in a discipline other than economics (most commonly, law, public policy, statistics, engineering, and environmental science, among others). 5. All tenured/tenure-track faculty are counted for Cornell's Department of Applied Economics and Management. Only agricultural economics faculty are counted for Iowa State's Department of Economics. Similarly, only agricultural economics faculty are counted for Penn State's Department of Agricultural Economics, Sociology, and Education. 6. Washington State University graduates are counted under "Other U.S. Ag Econ". 7. A crucial limitation of the statistics is that they do not account for the temporal variation of the alumni graduation years. Some departments were at their peak in certain years in the past, and their figures are over-represented by their graduates from those specific years, despite their graduates not landing tenure-track faculty positions in recent years, and vice-versa.

Ah, alright! Cause they can enter without visa was my guess. May be for tourist visas then.

By next Fall, I assume you are talking about Fall 2020. If so, I am one of the international students who got into a PhD program starting coming Fall. The university I am attending has already announced that they are holding in-person classes is the Fall. However, a lot of the incoming students in my cohort are international (especially from China, India, South Korea and Japan). For now, the graduate coordinator assured us that if we are unable to reach the US by the 30th day since the beginning of the program (which will be September 19), then we should defer to the Spring semester. They are still wary of doing that because the courses run in sequence starting from the Fall, but if a lot of us cannot attend in the Fall due to immigration, then they will manage some courses in Spring so that we can start then, instead of waiting for a full year. Earlier, they said that if we have to defer a whole year, then we will be given the highest priority of funding for next Fall (2021). I assume this will not be an issue for students from South Korea and Japan in my cohort though, because their countries have continued flights to the U.S. even now, and they don't necessarily require a visa (I guess?). So they can just fly, as opposed to some of us who needs to wait till the US embassy/consulate opens here. Partly due to this commitment by the department in writing, that we can defer and that we would be given highest priority of funding in the future, I chose this program, which was my second favorite among those that selected me. Hope that helps.

I don't know about 2-3 years of experience after your B.A., but a year of research assistantship with top economists from the Indian Statistical Institute should a great experience - if you are into game theories and abstract concepts.

Type of Undergrad: BBA with concentration on information systems from a university no one has ever heard of (from a third-world country) Undergrad GPA: 3.16 Type of Grad: Top 3 MS program in ag econ in the US (mind you, top 3 MS program, not department) Grad GPA: 3.0 (I scored a C+ in advanced econometrics, and then had to retake; scored B+ the second time) GRE: 166 Q, 159 V, 5.5 AWA Math Courses: Undergraduate level statistics, probability theory, etc. Econ Courses: Graduate level micro, macro, and econometrics Other Courses: A ton of programming and software engineering during undergrad Letters of Recommendation: 2 PhDs from UC davis; 1 MPA from Harvard Kennedy Research Experience: 4 years of economics research experience; my MS thesis was accepted at in a special issue of some above-average economics journal (impact factor: 2.9) Teaching Experience: Some during MS Research Interests: International agricultural development, impact evaluation, development economics, risk and uncertainty SOP: Not sure; reviewed by like a 1000 people; took 6 months or more Other: N/A RESULTS: Acceptances: Virginia Tech, UGA, Kansas State, UFL, U Conn (all ARE) Waitlists: Rejections: Illinois, Purdue, Michigan State Pending: Attending: Comments: It's okay. Didn't get into big prestigeous programs, but again, I came from gutters, and I guess I am going to a more than decent school. I'm happy!

Hi all, I am torn between two departments. First is good with professors who are working in the same line of research I want to work on, but they are mostly old (60 to 65+). Not sure if they would be around for too long. I don't find the research profiles of the younger professors very interesting.... yet! Second is slightly lower-ranked department but I really LOVE the work of two people working there, and who are renowned in the field. They aren't young and aren't old either... say, around 40-year-old associate professors. However, they have the reputation of not giving a ton of time to their students and expecting way too much from them. Considering these two factors only, do you think the latter program would be worth it?