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jjrousseau

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Everything posted by jjrousseau

  1. Looks like this could be added: 2019 Profiles and Results: https://www.www.urch.com/forums/phd-economics/160952-profiles-results-2019-a.html
  2. As mentioned above, probably the quality of your letters will matter a great deal if you apply now. Even with your grades, it's a gamble for the adcom at a T20 or maybe T30 to admit you from an unranked public university, and a strong and clear testimony to your econ intuition and research capabilities will go a long way making it feel less like a gamble. Connections from your profs may also help. It's hard for me to say with much confidence, but if your letters are great then perhaps 20-30 range? It's conceivable you'd do better or worse. In addition to many others on this forum, I've posted a ton about this. I've done both of these RAships. Feel free to search around the forum for some of my posts as I've definitely outlined the process before as well as competitiveness. But, your sort of profile - appears promising, but high variance because adcoms don't know what to make of your university - is the type that likely gains the most from these sort of positions. You'd be in it for the rec letter(s) (in addition to the money and gaining useful research skills/intuition/ideas). These letters will help dispel uncertainty about your potential.
  3. No-name liberal arts does unfortunately hurt, both because it acts as a signal of the rigor of courses you've taken and because your profs are unlikely to be well recognized or have many connections among the admissions committees at PhD programs you might apply to. I do think you have work to do before applying, unless you're okay aiming pretty far down the rankings list (80-100, maybe? I'm not sure here). Unless you simply didn't mention it, one obvious area of concern is lack of research experience. Have you worked as a research assistant with one of your profs? Did you write a thesis? Did you write an applied research paper for any of your classes? This is just as important as adding obvious math classes like Calc III and Linear Algebra, if not more so. Econ MA is certainly an option, if you can afford it. I believe you can take your missing math courses there as well. But you'll want to scope out course materials ahead of time to the extent possible, as you may have a very hard time with the econ material without having the proper math background to start. In that sense, maybe a math/stats MS that allows you to take the obvious classes (Calc III, Linear, Real Analysis, something in Probability and Statistics at the level of advanced undergrad or early grad) would be worthwhile. In any of these, consider trying to work with a prof on research over summer/winter, and then including the prof you work for in your set of PhD rec letters. You could alternatively consider applying to full time research assistant jobs. I doubt your profile will be competitive at the more prestigious spots (NBER & profs hiring in top 10ish departments). It might be tough also to get recognized in the pool of applications at the Fed branches, but you can certainly try your luck there. You might try various think tanks (Mathematica, Urban, Brookings, etc etc). The more well known of these may still be somewhat tough to break into, but possible. There are many more out there besides the top names which could also be worthwhile. This sort of route has many benefits: (1) you make money, rather than paying it; (2) you strongly remedy the lack of research experience, and gain very useful rec letters from your boss(es) who directly observe your research work and testify to it; (3) often, these places will have tuition reimbursement programs, so you can take individual courses at universities offering that sort of setup and get reimbursed; (4) there's also more flexibility here if you decide a PhD isn't for you, in that these jobs will also be useful in getting you to a next step in industry, whereas it's less clear an econ MA would do as much for you there. You should discuss these sort of options with folks who know your situation a bit better as well. Try reaching out to your profs to talk. Ask about previous students from your school who have pursued PhD's. Also, if you do try to take one-off courses, I highly recommend Harvard Extension School's Math 23A, Linear Algebra and Real Analysis. This course is *hard*, so be sure you're prepared to do well in it (many course materials are online including section lecture videos on youtube). But it seems to be well received by PhD admissions committees, it's not terribly expensive, and it hits basically all of your missing math in one class (it covers linear algebra, multivariate differentiation, and real analysis).
  4. I see. Yeah I guess I'm mostly emphasizing the disclaimer. I don't think one has to be ill-suited to the job for connections to be insufficient; even a pretty good candidate shouldn't rely on connections to pull them through if there are obviously stronger candidates in the pool.
  5. I've been an RA at a T5 institution and was involved in our hiring process of new RA's. Connections will help get your application noticed. They may be particularly useful for someone whose application under-represents their ability (for example, the student who didn't realize until late on their interest in research and has a few weak grades on their transcript, who might normally get cut in a hasty scan of resumes). *However, connections are not sufficient for getting the job.* Most positions like this will have you do a coding task in later rounds, and will have interviews with the PI's. There will be a pretty direct signal of your ability here. If you do not have the requisite quality for doing the work, do not expect connections to keep you in the game. I wonder if Rohanps is extrapolating from PhD admissions, which do seem to be more influenced by connections (mainly, who's writing your letter). Note that there is not an easy way to demonstrate to a PhD adcom that you will be a good researcher, so there is perhaps more room for this sort of thing mattering. However, most of RA work depends on coding skills. This is easily and directly gauged via coding tasks. Don't expect PI's to fool themselves into hiring an obviously less talented RA because of a referral.
  6. Your undergrad professor letter writer being well known is an important boost (see the recent thread on Top 10 admissions). Yeah, if you're at one of the stronger (in terms of undergrad) top 30 programs and have letters you anticipate will be strong - including one from a well-known prof - this all bodes pretty well. So I'd adjust slightly to the stronger end of what I said above. As in, you would probably expect a 10-15 admit, decent chance of getting a top 10 if you apply to many of them. I hesitate to get anyone's hopes up, though. If your financial constraints allow it, I think it's always useful to approach things safely. Personally, I'd probably apply widely across the top 15, a few in 15-25, maybe even one or two in 25-30 as strong safeties. But my risk aversion may be relatively high. Anyway, you should absolutely supplement info you get here with asking your writers directly what they think. And know that at the end of the day, there will always be noise in the process and you can never be too sure. Good luck!!
  7. OP, I think for readers who are future applicants it would be helpful to more clearly distinguish whether the problem of attending particular undergrad institutions is (1) having relatively useless letters of recommendation / connections or (2) the actual undergrad institution per se. Letters can be remedied, as you touch on regarding MS/MA or RA positions. It is not at all infeasible for a 4.0GPA from an "unknown state school" to get an RA job in a top department (of course undergrad pedigree is still useful here, but far from deterministic) and then apply to PhD programs having letters from well-known top-5 or top-10 department economists. My prior is that this back door to the back door is effective, but readers would probably benefit from your distinction here. Directly: If someone comes from an "unranked state school" with great grades etc, and RA'd full time with a top 5 professor(s) who will write a solid letter of recommendation, what is your view on the extent to which a weak undergrad institution penalty still applies? (And, agreed with above that it's great you chose to share your insights.)
  8. Two important remaining unknowns are (1) the strength of undergrad reputation at your school, as this varies a bit around the econ top 30 range, and of course (2) the strength of your LORs. On average, your profile probably gets into a 10-15 or 15-20 program. Fed is pretty consistent placing in this range. Adjust this slightly up or down if your UG institution and/or letters are above/below average. I doubt your real analysis grade will have much impact, given the rest of your grades. Top 10 is certainly possible, again I'd probably say that having above average (1) and (2) will really help here. I would roughly recommend applying a lot in the 10-20 range, a couple/few in the 20-30 range that match your research interests mostly as safeties, and a couple/few in the top 10 also prioritizing match quality. I would apply to lots of top 10 (along with the same 10-20 and 20-30 apps) if your inside info about (1) and (2) is strong, or even if it's roughly average but you're somewhat risk seeking and willing to take the financial gamble.
  9. I've worked at both Fed and NBER, and was involved in our recruiting of new RAs. I'll second tutonic that 3.5 tends to be a rough cutoff, but we certainly looked at applications from folks with slightly lower (3.4, maybe 3.3) GPAs, especially if there seemed to be solid research experience and the transcript wasn't awful in especially relevant courses. Fed is less competitive than NBER generally, which I think matches with NBER being a stronger value if you want to continue on to grad school. Our group at NBER was hiring 2 people and received something like 120+ applications. We screened to about 30 to receive a coding task evaluation. From there, maybe 5 got interviews. (Bear in mind these numbers may seem a bit less strict if you consider that a few groups at NBER hired at the same time, and there was likely a lot of application overlap.) I have less of a sense of the numbers at Fed, but am quite confident it's an easier gig to land. Also as tutonic says, once you pass the first screen, you want to showcase your coding especially, as well as your general aptitude for research and critical thinking. If you get a coding task, do not take it lightly; it will likely be the deciding factor from that point on. If you get an interview, be sure interviewers know of any research assistance work you've done or your own research projects for classes etc. Show them you can work with data and you can think about research intelligently and explain yourself coherently. I will say, while there were tons of applicants to NBER from highly-regarded undergrad schools with GPA's of 3.6+ or 3.7+, the coding tasks were generally somewhat underwhelming. I point this out to emphasize again that you want to try to stand out at this point. If you are worried about your GPA (I'm inferring from the original question), rest assured that it will be largely forgotten if you can write immaculate code and present thoughtful results in later stages of the process, and those with impressive GPAs are not always submitting the quality you might expect.
  10. If you're already well-versed in Stata and MHE, it's not that learning Python/R is useless. I just personally would prioritize it below these other things, including doing well in your MSc program. If you're solid on all the rest and twiddling your thumbs, by all means pick up a new language.
  11. Maybe others will know better about the F specifically, but when you do apply, I'd probably recommend taking a relatively large list of schools. Given your strong research background but somewhat rocky grades, you may see more variability in acceptances. You may get top 10 admissions from schools that love your research background, and top 30 rejections from schools concerned about the F or withdrawals.
  12. And, if you do these things, highlight them in cover letters / interviews!! Talking about any of these in an interview for an empirically-minded RA job would really be impressive, and would certainly give you a greater edge than Python/R for all but the handful of positions that *absolutely require* previous Python/R experience. Python/R are certainly useful, I don't mean to discount them entirely. But it seems to me that, while some small portion of RA jobs may really care about knowledge in a specific language, the majority just want RA's who are strong in code generally and in empirical economic research know-how. (Even among those that want experience in a specific language, Stata is still the language of choice for a good chunk.) So while not knowing Python may disqualify you entirely from a small proportion of jobs, improving your general coding skills and empirics will make you that much more competitive for the many remaining openings. It also likely has more value-added for you down the road. This seems an easy tradeoff to make, from my view. An afterthought: I would also guess that any position so invested in Python/R that they won't give you time to pick it up based on experience in another language is also going to only be after applicants who already have extensive experience with Python/R. As in, your self-study of Python/R would have to be deep in order to be very useful, and still you may well be competing against someone else who has already worked full-time using the language. All around I just don't think it's the most efficient way to spend your time boosting your RA application.
  13. Check here as well for postings: Econ RA Listings (@econ_ra) | Twitter Generally, you will be limited as not all positions sponsor visas. Postings should mention if they can sponsor; if not you should check before applying. Others may have different opinions on this (I think @startz and/or @Kaysa often advocates for Python knowledge), but I would probably not pour too much time into worrying about Python/R. The more important thing in applications is to show your general coding skills: can you write clean, efficient code that someone else could understand without too much headache? I think being an expert in one language (like Stata) is the better strategy here compared to being adequate in many. Most recruiters will understand that coding skills are transferrable, and that you can pick up the nomenclature of a new language pretty easily. I would only spend time learning Python/R if it has no marginal impact on your grades in your master's program, and even then I might recommend spending that time reading papers or Mostly Harmless Econometrics instead. Or, learning to use Git (check out the awesome GUI "SourceTree"). Or, reading Shapiro/Gentzkow's "Code and Data for the Social Sciences".
  14. That's right - if it's the same professor I had, he likes to make proofs very central to the course. And exams (if I remember correctly) are largely based on memorizing a number of proofs. Like I said, it is not an easy course: it covers a lot of material at a pretty high level. You can judge best for yourself whether you would be able to perform well int hat environment. You can find a bunch of the course materials and lecture videos online. For example, the main assistant for the course (initials KP) has many review section videos posted on YouTube that are easy to find. I recommend checking these resources over for a better sense of what to expect. Regarding the online format, I would say resources are not a big concern. Harvard Extension does a solid job of recruiting a handful of TA's for the course who hold office hours and review sessions regularly via online video chats. They also make it easy to connect online with other students in the class. If you have internet problems, sure that would be a concern. But I would say otherwise the online factor likely does not detract much if at all from the course, and it is pretty easy to be in touch with TA's or other students.
  15. Also.. Consider taking a field course instead of the full first year sequence (especially in place of macro, if that's not your field of interest)? Taking even one of first year micro or metrics and doing well (an A) is a pretty good signal already. Beyond that, it might be worth spending your time developing your research interests. You'll cover all of first year again, anyway. You know best for you, but food for thought.
  16. I'd recommend looking up course materials for the first sequence at your university (notes, psets, maybe even exams are often available on professor's websites). The relevance of these topics may vary by institution, even within a similar ranking range. I'm at top 5-7 now (therealslimkt if I remember right you're UG at a similar institution). I would say Lebesgue integration and measure theory would perhaps give you more insight to some of the topics covered, but are far from necessary or important to have coming in. Inverse and implicit function theorems counted for one question on one midterm for us, though my impression is this certainly varies by program. In short, knowing these topics will generally help you gain a more insightful understanding of material, but I would doubt that missing them ahead of time will significantly impact your ability to do well. But check for course notes to get a better sense.
  17. ^ Agreed. Especially with your strong math/econ grades, I doubt one relatively weak CS grade will matter basically at all.
  18. I've taken the Harvard Extension Math 23A (Linear Algebra and Real Analysis). My understanding is that admissions committees like this course. The professor seemed pretty convinced of this, and it worked well enough for me. It also was clear when I took the course that a number of folks looking to boost their math background before PhD apps enroll in that class consistently. I'd also say I learned a good deal. If you're looking specifically at Math 23A through Harvard Extension, be aware that it is a challenging course, and you cover a lot of material (for example, the first ~1/3 of the course covered all of the linear algebra I had done in a semester at a top 5 liberal arts college; then we did multivariate calc and real analysis). If you can handle it and do well, it is very worthwhile. And beyond signaling, a ton of the material in Math 23A has proven relevant/useful to my first year in PhD.
  19. When you say "What's most useful", I'm going to assume you mean "What's most useful in order to get into a grad program" Frankly, your research at this stage is unlikely to be very sophisticated. This is not a personal put down, but a testament to the fact that doing good and useful research is not easy, and doubly so when you haven't started grad work yet. I point this out to say that your objective right now in RAing should be pretty much orthogonal to thoughts of publication, presenting, etc. (though if you can do these things, great). Same goes for your thesis. Your goal right now as an RA, and even largely in your thesis, is *to get the best recommendation letters possible*. Grad admissions committees give substantial weight to rec letters, as these are their peers (your professors) vouching for your promise as a future academic based on the work they've seen you do. So, in this light, what should be your focus? In your RA work, it's helpful if you can work with someone who publishes regularly and in top journals; this gives more weight to their word when they write your letter. Demonstrate through your work that you are thoughtful, careful, insightful, and generally cut-out for this grad school and research stuff. If you have suggestions that you think are valuable and might add to the project you're working on, mention them. Show your professor you can think critically about research. Same applies for your thesis. Grad admissions committees are unlikely to read your thesis (many don't even ask for a writing sample, and even those that do may look it over in 5-10 minutes). You don't need to write a good thesis for adcoms to read it; you need to write a good thesis so your letter writers can read it and talk about how great your project was in their letter. You will have to decide for yourself whether you can write an insightful theory paper or not, and where your strengths lie here. Doing a large share of data work does not necessarily mean this position isn't worthwhile. As mentioned by tutonic, lots of applied work is data work, and this is especially so as an RA. You should ask yourself whether you're able to still demonstrate your abilities as a researcher in this position. Are you copying numbers from a pdf into Excel sheets? This is probably not useful for you. Or, are you working with code, dealing with data that may have some problems in it, inspecting the data and giving thought to possible concerns you may have in it (missing values, other weird things showing up)? These things can be useful in showing your prof that you have promise in research. Some writing is also very helpful. It doesn't have to be writing parts of a paper. Even if your prof asks you to write brief summaries of some results you've put together for her/him or something like this, again this can be very valuable in signaling your ability. So, in case I didn't harp on it enough... letters.
  20. I think the grades will make it highly unlikely to be admitted in the top 30, and is still quite likely an issue for 30-60 or so though I'm a little less familiar with these. Someone else should chime in who is more familiar there. Your friend should get opinions from BU professors and weigh these heavily, probably more so than what you hear here.
  21. Berkeley econ student here, with some knowledge of HKS as well. I'd second all of tbe's comments. Branding is irrelevant. I don't think funding opportunities would differ substantially, but perhaps you can ask more about this on visit days. Both of these programs are excellent, particularly so for your interests. Like tbe, I don't know about environmental at HKS, but I know both departments are very strong in dev and I know Berkeley ARE is strong in environmental. I would wager that overall the curriculum is slightly more rigorous at Berkeley ARE, though this may not be a large difference - in both programs you take some first year courses with econ and some within your department and potentially mixed with some other humanities students. On the whole, I agree these are not easy to distinguish (because both are similarly great programs!). Similar to tbe's comment, I'd recommend paying attention to the more holistic questions on visit days. What do you think of the other admitted students you talk to? You will be spending a lot of time with them, and you may learn a lot of the material more from your peers than from professors. You may even co-author with some of them. You'll likely be hanging out with them unrelated to classes. Do you have a preference for living in Cambridge/Boston or Berkeley/SF? If you've never been to either location, it could be worth having an extra day to go around town a bit. Again, you'll be living here for 5-6 years, you want to be somewhere that makes you happy (and productive). Good luck - these both seem like ideal programs for you, so you can't go wrong.
  22. If it is true that you would surely accept if admitted, I would second and emphasize the above point that your email should include something along the lines of, "School Z still remains my top choice, and if admitted would certainly accept." When it comes to wait list acceptances, my understanding is that schools place value on knowing an applicant will accept. Also seconding that you shouldn't hesitate to be in touch with them. Of course don't email them every morning, but do make sure they're aware of your position, and keep them informed of any material updates. I would recommend going a step further and asking a letter writer to see if they wouldn't mind dropping a note to someone at this school to inquire about your position on the waitlist. I think this is relatively common practice, so you shouldn't feel like you're asking something out of the ordinary here. This goes especially if any of your writers may personally know some folks at the school (or if folks at the school may have some impression of any of your writers). Basically, this will just serve as an additional nudge to the school that, hey, this applicant wants to come here - and your writer can also drop a reminder about why the school should want to take you off the wait list. Be aware that it is not uncommon for wait lists to resolve *on* April 15th (I personally know someone who got off the wait list at a T12 school late on April 15th). I probably wouldn't expect much to change before, say, April 10th even. As far as I know, it's possible for wait lists to resolve in the few days *after* April 15th; I think there is some exception to the April 15th agreement when it comes to wait lists, especially given that many offers are officially declined around that time. All this is to say don't lose hope if you have a few silent weeks, and do keep in touch with the school to signal your interest and to inform about any useful updates you may have, etc. Good luck!
  23. Going to chime in here just to say good luck to everyone over the next few weeks! Most importantly, make sure to take care of yourself in what can be a very anxious period. This is advice I did not heed myself when I applied. If you find constant checking of urch or gradcafe or your email to be more anxiety-inducing than exciting, find a way to actively distract yourself. Go to the gym, hang out with friends, spend time reading away from your phone/laptop, even focus more on your work. I think actively getting your mind into another space can help. I personally had an awful experience with the anxiety around this time, and I suspect this is not uncommon - and probably more common than it may seem when you're going through it. So know that a lot of folks will be anxious, that's normal. And it's possible to curb that with some effort. Again, best of luck!
  24. I personally would go (and have gone) the RA route. The short is that an MA is going to be much more expensive (net out the tuition you'd pay against the salary you'd earn as an RA), while the outcomes are likely to be similar; if anything, an RA job may be more beneficial for you given you don't have research experience so far. Sort of a side note, but some RA jobs will allow you to take courses while working - either through tuition reimbursement for a nearby school or online course, or at the school you might be affiliated with in your position. If you're concerned about your Calc grades, you might consider taking a course in Calc or Analysis while working as an RA and aiming for a better grade. One tricky thing with RA jobs is that a huge selling point in applications is previous RA work - it's sort of a catch 22. Prior RA work shows that you can do the work at the job you're applying for. If there's any way you can get some sort of research work going over the winter or spring, that would help RA applications quite a bit. If you really can't get in with the professors at your school, perhaps you can take a course that will have a required research paper assignment. Or, if all else fails, spend a little time drafting a brief research memo on something you're interested in - e.g. download some CPS data, play around with it, run a few regressions and write about what you find. Having some small empirical work you can point to will help in RA applications. If you can't RA with anyone, I'd make a point to list any research projects (in courses or even a short independent project) on your CV when applying to RA jobs. In their quick first round screening of applications, reviewers will want to see that you have some/any level of experience. All this said, you should make your decision based on your own profile and goals. I saw your other post that mentioned you're interested in programs such as NC State and Clemson. I'm not as familiar with these programs, and it's possible that the MA might make more sense in light of this. For example, it might be that these programs are willing to forgive lack of research experience but do want to be certain you can handle the course material. You might spend some time looking over the CV's of current students at the programs you hope to attend, and getting a sense for the typical profile of a student in these programs. This can help clarify whether you stand to benefit more by focusing on addressing grades or research experience.
  25. Brief follow up. You might even consider telling recruiters about your situation earlier in the recruiting process than the offer decision. I might not include it in your initial cover letter etc, on the fear that recruiters might toss your application out without fully considering the timeline. You might consider bringing up your timeline at the first point of contact following your initial submission, whether this is an interview or a data task. This can help save everyone time and frustration in case the timeline does rule you out.
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