drrtgcc

If the interest lies mostly in Behavioral/Experimental and micro theory, then definitely HBS, I would think. There is no real practical distinction between HBS and Harvard Econ. You share the first-year and second-year classes, share offices with Harvard Econ people in the Econ building (on top of getting your own second office at HBS), and absolutely have the same access to Harvard Econ professors as regular Econ folk. Any field is available to you as an HBS student that is available to Harvard Econ, so the two programs are in practice one and the same (except HBS has added perks like presumably more money, the second office, etc.), and some slight differences in requirements re: the "distribution requirement" versus some MBA courses, but that should not be an issue. So conditional on an interest in Behavioral, you can't go wrong with Harvard (Rabin, Laibson, Shleifer, Gabaix, Ben Enke, Gautam Rao, David Yang, Shengwu Li, etc.)

Sample size of one here and as such only anecdotal evidence, but I did econ consulting for a couple of years, and I came in with the goal of applying to PhD programs, which I did after a year at the job. I communicated this to people there and was able to get staffed on cases that helped me market myself a bit better during the application process (while many economists work at econ consulting firms, there are definitely cases that don't lend themselves as well to PhD programs or the kind of research they're interested (i.e. the arguments tend to be more legal or just more logic-based than actual economics)). I also had one of my recommenders be from the firm I worked for, and it all worked out well, so I wouldn't worry too much about how that might look (assuming you'll have at least one academic recommendation). As long as you worked with that person well and they were able to see your research potential (this is where you'll need to be a bit lucky getting staffed on a good, research-oriented case with someone who's a PhD and hopefully has a good record), I think their letter should still be valuable. It definitely didn't hurt in my case, I think. So it's probably pretty obvious advice, but I'd suggest you apply broadly to all of your options and pick from what you get that works best. If you get the Fed then that would be awesome and I think a fairly non-controversial top alternative. But my grain of salt is that an econ consulting experience can be valuable, would hopefully pay well (presumably better than a research gig on campus), would give you exposure to private industry in case PhD applications don't work out (or you realize you want to get more work experience right after college), and as you said, would allow a bit of a respite from campus. The great thing is that case interviews for econ consulting don't tend to be as structured as management consulting, so the whole preparation aspect for them is really a fairly moot point (i.e. I wouldn't bother preparing at all with Case in Point or anything like that) and as such the opportunity costs associated with applying to econ consulting internships are fairly low, since you really don't need to formally prepare for them as much (though the cases may vary across and within companies so I also don't want to lead you astray haha). On top of that, since you come from a respected school I think you don't have as much pressure to really compensate for anything (at least that you've revealed) and presumably feel competitive enough for a Fed internship, so I don't think you can go wrong with econ consulting or anything else! Hope this helps.

I'd probably say if you have no other research experience under your belt then definitely the RA-ship. Probably seen as more applicable experience to PhD programs (though I guess a lot has been debated about whether or not these ultimately help), and might even get a strong rec letter out of it if you do well. I can see an angle where the real-world experience might be useful to sell some sort of exposure to research interests, and in the world where applications don't work out that well for you (which I hope they do!) and you need to turn to industry for a bit or longer-term. Plus the money might be nice. Without the rest of your profile it's hard to say, but I would personally go for the RAship regardless of the money, since these IB programs aren't sometimes what they're cracked up to be (obviously it depends on the personality, but sometimes the culture isn't great and the work particularly demanding), and if you don't have substantial research experience or a research rec letter then this might be a great opportunity to get one (or another). Plus you'd have more free time, which might be important in terms of getting all your ducks in a row for the application season (there's a lot more things to do than one expects going in), and maybe you'd even have time to take or audit a class. But either way both good opportunities, so congrats!

I agree that many Master's programs at Columbia generally are perceived by many as more of a revenue source for the university (specially from international students who heavily make up these programs), but I think that's a bit unfair to say particularly of the Econ program, which is ​after all housed within a top 10 PhD department. Also to kingofloss6's point, while this is purely anecdotal, throughout a couple of visit days at top 15 and even top 5 programs I saw quite a few people who were currently in the Master's program at Columbia so at least for now it seems to be placing people well (or at the very least not preventing very good placements that would have happened on the strengths of the rest of the candidates' backgrounds) from among those who actually want a PhD program placement.

I'm sure this has been talked about before in prior years' NSF threads, but these reviews (and the whole application process in general of course) are so noisy! I simultaneously received a "Poor" and an "Excellent" from two separate reviewers on the Broader Impacts category alone. The "Excellent" reviewer's feedback was also so much more detailed, and the "Poor" reviewer wrote all of two sentences and basically claimed something to the contrary of what was laid out in my resume, so it all seems just a bit bizarre... Congratulations to all though, you should feel proud and honored!

Thanks! It has indeed been a pretty random process. Was a bit surprised though at how many schools are employing the strategy of deferring applications to their own MA degrees or even other MA programs (like Chicago with MAPSS)... It's a bit of a strange consolation prize haha.

Just got an email from Brown asking me to reply within 10 days if I'd be interested in their "MA track", which has no funding for the first year and might have 50% of the first-year tuition waived (though not all offers will have this aid), but has guaranteed admittance to the PhD program upon completing the first year exams, with full funding going forward.

Wonder if the NYU rejections (if real) are coming out piecemeal...

I can see how maybe asking for willingness to write a "strong" letter may be perceived as rude (maybe it implies you don't have full "blind" trust in their recommendation of you?), but that's actually exactly what I did with my letter writers. I didn't make a huge deal of it, but I definitely made sure to ask if them if they thought they would be willing to write me a strong letter. I think everyone understands that no one would be asking for a letter from someone without having given it some prior thought/ without thinking the letter would be at least good, so to me asking for a strong letter is really just a formality, and does indeed give them a bit of an avenue to maybe qualify their response (I had to ask for a fourth, academic letter as some of my letters were already from outside academia, and the fourth professor I asked explicitly mentioned that their letter would be short, and outlined specifically what they would be able to speak to). So I'd rather risk appearing just a bit "pushy" (which I doubt anyone would really think; if they really like you they won't take offense and will support your decision to apply and, in turn, will completely understand as they likely went through the same process that you want a strong and effective letter) than be mild and have an awkward situation where they feel uncomfortable saying they wouldn't be able to write you a good, strong letter (be that because they just don't know you that well, which is a possibility, or otherwise). So at least personally I suggest just flat-out asking (in a nice, not super obvious way).

Still nothing from Brown or Northwestern... I checked and no waitlists have been posted on GC yet for either of them. Don't want to get my hopes up or those of others, but if I haven't heard back over the next several hours or even days, should I consider this some sort of implicit waitlist? I feel like there's too many people out there who also haven't heard for it to actually be a waitlist, but can't see why it would be such a long delay...

Same! Still no Northwestern or Brown news though...

Same question for Brown! Some rejections have been posted for each on GC, and I haven't heard anything from them at all yet. Definitely not getting my hopes up as I'll likely get them myself at some point, but I would think those would be among the more automated emails that everyone got at the same time?

Anyone have any idea of when Chicago, Brown, Northwestern, etc. will start releasing what are presumably all rejections at this point? Specially for the first two we're going on more than a month since they sent their first (only, presumably) wave of acceptances.

Pretty slow day today so far... guess it's not terribly late yet today but I expected it to be a deluge given it's the last Friday of February... Last year Berkeley and Stanford both sent out their decisions around the last days of Feb and first week of March, so hopefully next week will be the last big push.

I can confirm Harvard. They're calling people since early this morning apparently. Got mine at like 9:30.