Prof

This is useful information, but everyone should still remember that admissions work differently in each department. In my (top 20 US) department, there is no pre-screen. All complete applicants are reviewed by one or more faculty members on the admissions committee. We review all applications before releasing any decisions. We release the majority of decisions all at once (modular processing time in the application portal) retaining a small pool of candidates as a waiting list. We offer funded admissions to more applicants than our target for enrollment, relying on historical yield information and the best information available about the current situation to wind up with an entering cohort close to our target size. One reason we take this approach may be that we target a larger class size than tbe mentions.

The advice you have given on this thread and the claim you make about the admissions process here are inaccurate and badly informed. You are doing a disservice to other applicants by posting misinformation and repeating false claims about the admissions process on this thread and others. Many users have been very patient with you but it is long past time for someone to call this out. You have not even applied to PhD programs yourself. You have not studied or worked at a top program or a program that regularly sends applicants to top PhDs. Your advice is often misleading and it is disingenuous for you to double down on the basis of hearsay. To the OP: a strong letter is one that can vouch for your qualifications and potential based on specific information that is not otherwise available in your record, and by comparing you to a competitive pool. I know this because unlike dogbones, I have been on the admissions committee at the sorts of programs you are targeting, and I have written many letters of recommendations for students who have been admitted to other comparable programs. It sounds like the senior lecturer at the top program can write a strong letter for you by talking about your honors thesis and comparing you to other honors students. The other professor doesn't know as much about your ability to do independent research, does not know about your recent training or plans for graduate school, and does not have as strong a reference group to compare you to.

No, there is no particular benefit to having a math professor write a letter for you. Your grades and math major speak for themselves and having a letter that simply narrates what is already in your transcript does not add any value. LORs are valuable when they convey information that is not readily available in other parts of the transcript, which in the best case means credibly vouching for your research potential. A letter from a math professor might be helpful if you had low grades in some math classes or had taken an unusual set of classes, and the math professor could put your transcript in context. Or, if the math professor him/herself works with economists, and can explain how your math background will allow you to do research in economics. But even a positive letter from a math professor saying "this person is one of the top students I have taught" does not sound as useful, at the margin and given your academic background, as a letter from an economist saying more or less the same thing but tailoring it to your aptitude for economics research.

There are many RA positions that do not include tuition remission or the opportunity to take courses at the host university (anyone applying for such positions should ask about this benefit if it is important!). There are other RA positions that do not allow people to take courses in their first semester on the job, which means that to have even one additional course on the transcript before applying, the OP would have to remain in the RA position for at least two years. If the real deficiency is math rather than research, taking and paying for two-three courses in a semester could have a lower total cost than spending two extra years before starting a PhD. And depending on the previous courses and universities, not all nearby universities will add much value. Again, this is all why the OP should ask his/her own professors, who can give advice based on complete information. NB: Full time RA positions with faculty at top universities, in arrangements that allow RAs to take one course/semester, are often as competitive or more so than admissions to top PhD programs. There are lots of valuable RA experiences out there, but the kind that nearly universally increase the probability of acceptance to a PhD program are incredibly hard to get. Other positions need to be matched carefully to individual circumstances.

I don't agree with this advice, at least not based on the information the OP has provided. Research experience, paid or not, is not the most important improvement to every profile. We don't have enough information to assess whether or not it is the missing piece for the OP, but based on the information provided, it might not be. The OP asked for advice about improving his/her math background, described limited math courses, and reported performing strongly in a master's thesis in a top program. The relatively weaker part of the portfolio might be coursework, not research. Not all research experience, even paid research experience, will have a significant effect on the admissions outcomes of all candidates. There are decreasing marginal returns, so it's less valuable for someone with a stronger initial research track record. Also, research experience that isn't credibly building valuable skills will not have much affect on admissions. To increase the chance of admissions, the OP would need to work with a researcher who is using up-to-date methods and, hopefully, who can write a credible letter of recommendation because he/she is recognized in the profession through his/her own publications or presentations. Finally, most successful PhD students do not build on their pre-grad school research work directly when they begin their dissertation research. They build on the skills or maybe return to a large, public data set they had used before, but they need to come up with their own topics that are not derivative of that previous work, and that are informed by the two years of coursework between. TL/DR: The OP should ask the professors from his/her master's program how to strengthen his/her profile. There are not one-size-fits-all prescriptions for admission; different candidates should pursue different strategies. Even with a "complete" profile in the "standard" format, users on this forum (especially those who are still students themselves or who have not even started graduate school) simply do not have the information or experience to offer narrowly-tailored advice to individual applicants.

If you were a top student in a top master's program, your next step should be to talk to your professors from that program. They know your academic record and capabilities better than anyone on this forum, and have an interest in seeing their top students succeed. They also know where previous students who had similar MSc grades were admitted. Email the people who you would likely ask for letters of recommendation when applying to jobs or PhD programs and ask them whether they think you should apply to PhD programs this cycle, and if not, what they think you need to do to strengthen your profile. Ask them explicitly about the range of schools you should target if you apply this cycle, and the range you could target by taking additional courses or getting research experience first.

Not a fact, and certainly not true at all schools. I have been on the admissions committee at my top 20. We do care about the GRE scores, but there is no mechanical first cut based on GREs. We look at them alongside the rest of the application. I don’t know what other departments do, but it is irresponsible to tell candidates that there is a universal threshold of 165.

Bluntly, no. Rice has invested heavily in its program in recent years and made some very good hires. Those moves have not yet paid off in terms of graduate student placement. I think the best recent placement was at Davis-ARE and the vast majority of recent Rice PhDs have had non-academic placements. They get good jobs, but not the sort associated with “a really prestigious program.” Placements may improve over time as more students are recruited and trained under the new system, or they may stagnate, especially if the newly hired faculty aren’t retained. But I think the US News rankings peg Rice correctly. Your perception that they are under ranked may be an artifact of getting a lot of your information from this website, where Rice has a more active and respected presence than in the profession writ large. I think very highly of many of the faculty who have recently moved to Rice, but it takes a long time to build a department.

IMO, an online MBA from UMass Amherst is not a good signal for admissions to a top 50 econ PhD program. As others have noted, it suggests lack of focus or understanding of the demands and objectives of a PhD in economics. Moreover, UMass Amherst's online MBA is not well respected by most economists. Depending on your educational background, it seems likely that it can only lower the average quality of your previous academic preparation. Some unsolicited advice from someone who's seen a lot of students apply to graduate school: take things one step at a time. You've said that you are about to begin a master's degree in economics. Focus on that. Get outstanding grades, fill in any missing math classes, and develop constructive relationships with the faculty in your program. Seek out opportunities to do research with economists who are actively publishing in well-regarded journals. Take the advice of the people who know you and your academic background in real life. Realize that for the majority of students, the well-trod path to an economics PhD is indeed the most likely one, and looking for unusual add-ons like the MBA you propose is likely to be less productive than excelling along the standard dimensions.

A pattern of Ws and Fs raises concerns about time management and persistence, which are important skills for graduate students. That is a general statement, not a comment on your particular transcript or strengths and weaknesses. When those grades are early in a student's education they can be attributed to immaturity which has presumably been outgrown. They are more problematic in junior or senior year. There is not much you can do about them now. Having work experience and recommendations that speak to your ability to see things through and persevere might help. Otherwise, I agree with jjrousseau: apply widely and anticipate high variance.

Some of the information you refer to comes from self-selected, self-reported, necessarily incomplete information posted on the internet (and I hope no US schools violated FERPA by releasing prospective student lists with information about grades, test scores, and letters of recommendation). Be careful in what you conclude from it. The quality of applicants, admitted students, and rejected students was not unusual in my T20 department this year. There has been a long-term trend towards stronger applicants with more math and research experience. But based on more than 800 applications we received this year was not a deviation from trend. Future applicants shouldn't conclude that this year was extra hard and therefore next year will be easier.

If you were a student in my department and demonstrated this sort of attitude towards classmates, faculty, or undergraduates, you'd be kicked out of the program. The profession doesn't need this attitude, whether or not you think it is funny.

These things change over time. I was able to find an old ETS guide that provides percentiles for 2011-2014: http://dbbs.wustl.edu/PortalDocs/GRE%20Concordance%20information%202014.pdf. In that time frame, a 160 was the 78th percentile and a 170 was the 98th percentile, which doesn't change the way I interpret the results.

In this case, the magnitude of the effects is important. I don't have GRE percentiles for the time frame of the data in the paper, but averaged over 2014-2017, a 160 on the quantitative section is the 74th percentile, and a 170 is the 96th percentile (https://www.ets.org/s/gre/pdf/gre_guide_table1a.pdf). Therefore, moving from a 160 to a 170 is associated with a 9.5 percentile (or 0.34 SD) increase in the micro grade (using estimates from Table 2, column 1). Note that I share the authors' interpretation that specifications controlling for admissions rank are less informative for this exercise because it is likely a function of GRE scores. This is as large as the premium associated with attending a top-15 university, for example. To the person who down-voted the previous post, why? What about the post was offensive or inaccurate?

The claims on page 1 that GRE scores do not predict performance is at odds with the empirical evidence. Athey et al. find that GRE scores strongly predict first year grades, and that first year grades predict job placements. (It is not surprising that controlling for the intermediate outcome, the correlation between GRE scores and predicted grades is small.) NB: economics departments care about first year grades because passing comps is a necessary condition for receiving a PhD, so even if GRE scores only predicted first year grades, it would be rational for admissions committees to consider them.

Amherst does not have a PhD program in economics (or other fields; it's a liberal arts college). Drexel has a tiny economics PhD program, housed within its business school, and would be a very different experience than a place like UIUC or ASU. SMU does not have a field in behavioral economics and I can't think of anyone on the faculty there who does research or publishes in the field. TAMU and University of Pittsburgh would both make sense, given the OP's interests.

Thanks for this and other thoughtful feedback. I would say that not supplying information is its own signal and users/advice-seekers can interpret that as they choose. I tried to choose questions that were specific enough to guide interpretation of advice but broad enough not to be identifying. It could be more secure if PhD grads do not answer they questions about where they studied. I thought initially that would be useful, because some people who have non-academic positions or are not at PhD granting schools might give advice based on their graduate school experience. People could answer questions with ranges to further obscure their identities. On the point about lying, it's a risk, but as some folks hinted, lots of posters aren't truly anonymous here even though they haven't explicitly posted names. The knowledge that someone would probably know if you were lying might be enough deterrence. And once we open the door to the idea that people might be lying then we have to acknowledge that people might also lie on other threads. There are plenty of threads where people appeal to their credentials by saying something like "in my top 10 department" or something. It seems easier to lie in a one-off like that than to maintain a fake profile across multiple threads.

This forum has a long tradition of asking applicants to post their profiles in a standardized format, for ease of evaluation. I propose that those evaluating candidates do the same, to make it easy for readers to understand their perspective and qualifications. This proposal is grounded in a generic reason (asymmetric information is bad and experience informs judgement) and a specific one (I've read some advice with which I sharply disagree, and I happen to know that some of it comes from junior faculty members at institutions without PhD programs). I read a thread today in which a poster suggested disregarding some common advice about retaking math classes and wondered how someone should know how to evaluate the difference of opinions without more context about who offered them. I note that some regular posters have chosen to make themselves easy to identify, and knowing their credentials helps me interpret and trust their advice. Current status (tenure track faculty, non tenure track faculty, post-PhD non academic, upper year PhD candidate, pre-candidacy PhD student, prospective PhD student): If faculty, type of institution (PhD granting/R1, masters granting, BA/BS granting, LAC): If faculty, are you tenured? (yes/no): If faculty, have you served on a PhD admissions committee? (yes/no): If faculty, have you served on an MA admissions committee? (yes/no): If faculty, approximately how many students have you written LORs for as part of their PhD applications: If faculty, what is the approximate rank of school to which students you recommended have been admitted? What is the approximate rank of the school where you received your PhD/where you are currently enrolled? For students, what type of undergraduate institution did/do you attend? I've tried to come up with a format that preserves anonymity but provides relevant information about the reference points and experience of the people giving advice. Since people take advice and profile evaluations here seriously, it would be valuable to have more information to use to judge it, especially if it is different from the advice you get from people "in real life." I am not trying to shame anyone or suggest that people at higher ranked places know more, just to provide context to the advice people give. Someone with 20 years of experience admitting applicants to a top 10 department and writing LORs for undergrads from that same department will have a different perspective than a relatively new AP at a school without a graduate program. Both will have experience or information outside their personal employment, but it's hard to argue that it wouldn't be useful to know which of these people was providing the feedback you were reading. I welcome suggestions for changes to this format. If your first instinct is to oppose it entirely or dismiss the idea that knowing something of the experience or qualifications of the person offering advice, I encourage you to ask yourself why you believe that the information is unnecessary or bad. Once a format is established, I will be happy to post my own profile, though I will maintain my anonymity.

Honestly, if you showed up in my office, on the first day or week of classes, with no appointment and were not enrolled in one of my classes or one of my advisees? I'd tell you to email and make an appointment. The beginning of the semester is very busy. Dropping in unannounced on a professional doesn't happen in any other industry (you'd never just drop in on your lawyer or even your hairdresser, and expect that person to have time for you) and it is a courtesy extended to current students or advisees, or to past students with whom I have an ongoing mentoring relationship, but not available to the general public. Once you made an appointment, I'd tell you that TA assignments are generally managed by the DGS. They are limited in most MA programs and are awarded to the students we are recruiting strongly, so the things that make your application strong will also increase your chance of being offered a TA position in your first semester. After the first semester, future decisions will take into account your performance in class and your interaction with other students and faculty. I'd also tell you that I don't have the capacity to advise research of external students. I owe it to my current students to spend my time on them, and if you enter the program, I will also prioritize your training over mentoring of people not enrolled in our programs. If you have specific skills my current students do not, and that I need for one of my projects, then I'd consider offering you a part time RA position working on one of my projects, but if not, there would not be a way for me to give you research experience at the present. My answer would be a little bit different if you were one of my previous students and if we had a substantive mentoring relationship when you were a student. I'm sorry if this isn't what you want to hear, and perhaps your experience will be different, but it's an honest answer based on the reality of my job and my interactions with many students and perspective students.

Wow. I have not been active in this forum in a while, but I cannot let this comment pass without notice. A professor’s religion has absolutely no bearing on the situation and to suggest otherwise is to perpetuate harmful stereotypes and anti Semitism. I am disappointed in this forum and in the incredibly poor taste and judgement of someone whose posts have sometimes been helpful.

I have been involved in admissions for more than 5 years. Applications have become more competitive over time but at nothing near the rate Rohanps implies. Things have not changes so much that someone who got into Stanford 5 years ago would now be shut out of the top 20. Kaysa isn't wrong that your own advisors may want to be encouraging about your admissions prospects; also, the people you ask for letters are probably those who you believe have the most positive assessment of your abilities. But the lesson to learn is that different professors have different preferences over graduate student profiles. Rohanps's professors might have actually preferred Rohanps to the student from five years before, but as evidenced by admissions outcomes, other professors felt differently. That should be motivation to apply broadly and include safety schools.

Spectrum, Your post is enough to bring me out of the woodwork. To use your words, let me tell you something -- it sounds like nonsense. "Math for economists" and "linear algebra applications" and similar courses are not discounted because they are applied, they are discounted because they are not sufficiently rigorous. Algebra and geometry (and topology) are discounted because success in real analysis is typically considered sufficient preparation for the first year of the PhD. There are declining marginal returns to the signal sent by more advanced courses. At the same time, such courses do not provide any evidence at all of an applicant's aptitude for research or demonstrated interest in economics. Take them should you wish, but do not expect them to be decisive in your admissions to economics programs.

I have evaluated 100s of SOPs. No one's circumstances are as unique as they believe. Write less about your undergrad GPA. Write very little about your MA unless you can connect it to your research interests or qualifications for a PhD. Doing something out of the ordinary, i.e. your proposed table of contents, calls only negative attention to your application.

I concur with chateauheart and Zubrus. This candidate would be competitive for the top 20 program where I am on the faculty. Candidates from the top-tier European programs like PSE will not have as many classes in the math department as expected of American students. European programs have much less flexibility in course selection but much higher mathematical rigor in the economic sequences. I expect this candidate is already utilising linear algebra and mathematical statistics with a familiarity and regularity in excess of American-trained students who have taken more math classes but less rigorous economics classes.

If you want to change your plans, you should contact the admissions director at the school you accepted and explain your situation immediately. That person is likely to grant you a release, because no one wants a unhappy or resentful student. If you plan to act on this, you need to do so immediately. On April 15 it would have been inconvenient but not entirely unexpected, and the school you withdrew from would have had more options. On April 16 or later it is more complicated for the school. It either has a smaller cohort than intended, or it offers admission to someone on its waitlist -- who will also have already accepted a different offer, which means that your move will have triggered precisely the sort of cascading events the common deadline was designed to prevent. You can (likely) do what is privately optimal. It is unlikely that either institution will try to stop you, unless they feel that this sort of behavior is getting too common and a strong signal needs to be sent to maintain the credibility of the April 15 deadline and CGS resolution. You shouldn't expect your fellow applicants on this forum or the faculty at the school whose offer you are now refusing to feel kindly towards you, though.