hallowedelegy

1. You should talk to your economics letter writers to see what they think about your chances. They should also have the best sense of whether or not your lack of research is going to be an issue, especially since they're theorists themselves. 2. It seems like you should apply straight to grad school, though. If you want to do micro theory, then a predoc isn't too useful. There are very few (if any) predocs in micro theory, and the skills you develop are unlikely to be helpful for micro theory research (e.g. empirical applied micro, data cleaning). Further, your math skills will likely decrease since you're not using those skills very much on the job. In my cohort of my PhD program (T5), none of the micro theorists did a predoc, and the ones from the states all got in straight from undergrad. FYI, I'm currently a PhD student, so this should be reflective of the current application process.

Several of my coworkers during my predoc listed every school to which they applied, and I don't recall any of them being rejected because they looked like they were top 10 material for sure. In particular, one of my coworkers who was on paper definitely a shoe in for top 10 schools and was indeed accepted everywhere in the top 10 except NYU and Princeton also got admissions from all the top 20 schools to which they applied.

On paper, your grades and research experience should be sufficient for any T10. The main question is whether your professors will write you strong letters. You should ask them to give an honest opinion about what sort of schools they will strongly recommend you. These professors have presumably sent many students to T10 locations already, so strong letters from them will get you into a T10 almost certainly. The process is mainly a toss up depending on the strength of your letters. If you have multiple strong letters from professors who routinely send students to good schools, then it is very unlikely that you won't get into good schools.

startz's advice still holds. If you want to attend a US PhD program, then it is common for European students to get a European masters (e.g. EME/MSc at LSE, BGSE, etc.). If you do very well in a European masters, then you'll have a good shot at a good US program. Doing a good predoc (i.e. working with someone who's actively invested in the professional development of their RA) is helpful, and there are many of these positions in the US. Check out or Opportunities | Pathways to Research and Doctoral Careers. Googling Economics predocs will also show a bunch of results. Some, but not all, predocs will sponsor a visa.

I think that your worries would be best addressed by speaking with an economics professor from your undergrad with whom you took a PhD level class. Send them your CV and a brief discussion of why you're interested in doing an Econ PhD after working in finance as well as your concerns about your application profile. They should be able to provide decent guidance about whether you even need to take a masters/predoc or not. However, I do think that you're vastly over-weighting the small "sub-optimal" parts of your profile and vastly under-weighting the good parts of your profile. With respect to EME, many people take the EME course after undergrad, so they can't have had that substantial amount of research experience yet (compared to a predoc), and every year, the top EME students get placed in fantastic programs. Many EME students also do not major in econ in undergrad. I don't see why your application results would be so different from the profile of successful EME students given these facts about the program. Your primary problem is getting good letters of rec; getting top grades in EME would give you the necessary letters from LSE professors (where else are EME students getting their letters, after all?) In contrast, the track record of terminal American masters is just much worse than the track record of the EME program. No matter how strong a candidate you might be, don't forget that there are also many other candidates who are just as strong. Your best bet for getting into good programs is to follow the path of other successful candidates. For candidate who don't have good recs, the best bet is applying to a predoc or to a non-American masters like EME.

1. You should apply to LSE for its EME program since it seems like your mathematical preparation is good. That program does a far better at job at placing people at top PhD programs than any American masters. 2. You can still apply to predocs even after working. It is not uncommon for private-sector people to apply to these jobs. If your main weak point is research and letters of recommendations, then you may want to still apply for predocs. 3. Is there a reason why you are working first? It's not a bad thing, but I also want you to be certain that an economics PhD is actually what you want to pursue.

PROFILE: Type of Undergrad: T5 LAC Undergrad GPA: 3.99/4.0 (4.0 in Math and Econ) Type of Grad: N/A Grad GPA: N/A GRE: 167V/169Q/6.0AW Math Courses: Linear Algebra, Applied Topology, Real Analysis, Regression Analysis, Measure Theory & Probability, Differential Equations, Abstract Algebra, Indep. Study on Stochastic Calculus (measure-theoretic from Oksendal (2003)), Bayesian Statistics, Applied PDEs (covered functional analysis & numerical methods) Econ Courses: Intermediate Micro, Intermediate Macro, Seminar in Theoretical Macrofinance, Game Theory, Adv. Econometrics (VARs, SVARs), Financial History, Indep. Study on Research in Continuous-Time Macrofinance, Seminar in Labor Economics, Honors Thesis Other Courses: Intro to CS (Python), remaining courses were not quantitative or economics-related Letters of Recommendation: (1) Undergrad advisor (2) Direct supervising economist at Fed (3) Joint letter from another Fed economist and a well-published tenured professor at a T10. First two letter writers have sent multiple students to Top 5 schools in recent history and likely compared me to them as equally good or better. First letter is very strong b/c I am a co-author with them on 3 papers; they advised my thesis; and they have told me and others that they consider me "a co-author" rather than just a student. Second letter is nearly as strong as the first. Third letter is also strong b/c I worked extensively for them as an RA for a published paper and for an internal Fed briefing. Research Experience - 4 Papers w/ undergrad advisor: 1 under review at a T5 journal; 1 under review at low-ranked field; 3rd is work in progress; 4th is my senior thesis (may be re-written in the future); all 4 used continuous-time methods from Brunnermeier and Sannikov (2014) - 2 Years at Fed: RA for a published paper in a journal like NBER Macro Annual, Brookings; co-author on working paper with a HANK model; co-author on 2 internal briefings Teaching Experience: Undergrad TA for 6 math & econ courses (held TA sessions and graded problem sets). 2 most adv. courses were Measure Theory and Seminar on Theoretical Macrofinance Research Interests: Macroeconomics, Finance (espc. Business Cycle Theory, Macrofinance, Applied Theory, Computational Methods) SOP: I described my research experience in undergrad and postgrad. If there were faculty at the school whose research I've read and my SOP did not reach the word count yet, then I mentioned my interest in these faculty by citing papers I have read. I based my SOP off the SOPs of other successful RAs from the Fed at which I worked. Other: I have contributions on GitHub to a couple open-sources packages in economics and applied math. RESULTS: Acceptances: MIT (36k for years 1-2, 35k for years 3-5), Stanford (46k), UChicago (43k), Princeton (36k), UChicago Booth (43.5k for years 1-4, 36.5k for year 5, 33k for year 6), Harvard (from WL) Withdrew application before hearing back: UCLA, UC Berkeley, Univ. of Rochester, LSE, Yale, Univ. of Minnesota, UPenn, Northwestern, NYU, NYU Stern (UCLA, Yale, and NYU Stern still issued me explicit rejections, so they may have evaluated my application anyway) Waitlists: Stanford GSB Finance Rejections: HBS (received an interview) Attending: MIT Comments: After my admission to Stanford in January, my direct supervisor at the Fed said that I ought to withdraw my application early from schools whose programs are strictly dominated by Stanford's (for macro, at least). This way, admissions committees at other schools could offer a spot to someone else rather than waste time on me if I almost surely was going to pick Stanford over them. After receiving admission from MIT, I turned down more schools. On the business school interviews, while HBS's interview was a straightforward "talk to me about your research experience and interests" interview, both Stanford GSB and UChicago Booth asked more "complicated" questions like "Why choose our school?, "When was a time you encountered an adverse situation and how did you go about overcoming it? Did you come up with creative solutions to your problems?", and "Describe a time in which you had a disagreement with someone and how did you go about navigating the disagreement." What would you have done differently? Nothing really. I'm happy to have done my 2 years at the Fed and learned a lot, even if it may not necessarily have been necessary to get into a top 5 program. I'm confident that there will be long term benefits from having done the predoc.

As the cycle is mostly over for most people, starting this thread now. Some people have been interested in knowing whether some programs have shrunk their target cohort size, so if you have that information and are willing to share, please do! PROFILE: Type of Undergrad: Undergrad GPA: Type of Grad: Grad GPA: GRE: Math Courses: Econ Courses: Other Courses: Letters of Recommendation: Research Experience: Teaching Experience: Research Interests: SOP: Other: RESULTS: Acceptances: Waitlists: Rejections: Pending: Attending: Comments: What would you have done differently?

Anyone can start it; I was planning on doing it if no one started the thread tomorrow after 5pm since that's the deadline for most people.

As long as your school has signed onto the April 15 Resolution, your school has to let you renege on acceptances. April 15 Resolution | Council of Graduate Schools

The main caveat about applying next fall for grad school and then for RA positions if it doesn't work out is that several of the "top" RA positions (e.g. NY Fed, SIEPR) are typically filled before you hear back from grad schools. Of course, you could say yes to them and then turn them down if you get acceptances, but I'm not sure that's a good idea, at least from a normative perspective. It also seems like you really don't want to do an RA if you don't have to. However, I haven't really seen you speak to why you're against it. My main impression is that you just want to go to grad school immediately just because you might be able to. Thus, my advice to you would be to critically consider why you think spending 2 years on an RA job is a waste of time for you. It sounds like you already know you want to do a PhD, so conditional on that, you should be making decisions based on whether or not they improve your long-run career outcomes rather than only getting you into a good PhD school. It's not like attending a T5 school automatically makes you a better job-market candidate than other students. There's more to it than that, namely your "intellectual maturity." Do you think that, by next fall, you'll have a sufficiently strong grasp of economics research that you'll get the most out of the first two years of coursework that you could possibly be getting? Don't forget that many very successful JMCs already had master's degrees, so they're reviewing material they already know, to some extent, during the first two years of grad school. Seeing material twice generally ensures you maximize what you learn and also reinforces what you already have learned. Further, just spending more time thinking about and doing research may help you get the most out of your interactions with advisors. Of course, you could already be at this stage in your intellectual development, in which case going to grad school could be better for you. But just because you can get into a top grad school doesn't mean you should go immediately. At this point, I think most people have given what advice they can, so it's up to you to decide whether or not you should try for an RA first. Just make sure to think about the decision with long-run outcomes in mind rather than just "can I get into a good PhD program"?

It depends on how much you need a really strong letter. If you start during the summer and apply in the winter, you wil only have worked on a significant project for a few months (applications are due in December, it takes some time to train you, so maybe you'll work on an extended project during August-November (4 months)). Depending on the quality of your work and how impressed your recommender is, this length of time may be sufficient. If you just need a decent third letter to back up two strong letters, then this could be fine. But if you need your recommender to boost your chances substantially, then 4 months of RA work may not be enough for a letter writer to say a lot about you. From the letter writer's perspective, the two years preference is a "return on investment". At the Fed where I work as an RA, economists say that RAs learn most of what they'll get from the job during the first year, and the second year is for the economists to "recoup" their investment during the first year. For this reason, economists at my Fed want RAs to stay for two years, or otherwise they're not getting much value out of their RA. For my own experience, I spent the first fall of my job experimenting with possible research projects, but all of them didn't lead anywhere interesting. It was only in December that I started working on a substantial project that eventually got published (though not with my name on it, only in a footnote). If I had applied during the first year, then my letters from the Fed would have been substantially weaker due to the lack of "success" on the research side.

1. I don't think schools are going to be doubtful about the quality of your math courses unless your school is ranked very low or is unknown. Given your RAships, I suspect I know which university you attend, and I'd be skeptical that people would think that university's math department is significantly subpar. Further, you've completed two semesters of analysis with As. That should be strong enough of a signal that you're sufficiently prepared in math, especially if you're not thinking about studying very technical micro theory. 2. Based on the admit classes of the places I was admitted, it is very difficult to land a T5 spot without a predoc. Most admits from undergrad were either "connected" or theory oriented. I highly suspect that those admits who did not fall into one of these two buckets had absolutely fantastic letters. Based on what you've stated, it doesn't sound like your letters are going to be that outstanding compared to other applicants'. Unless you have strong personal reasons for applying immediately to grad school (e.g. a significant other) and you want to maximize your shots at a T10, I think you should do a predoc. Especially if you want to enter academia, you should be making your decisions from here on out in terms of how it might benefit your "long-term" research career outcomes. It is not clear to me (based on discussion with faculty and other professional economists) that going straight to grad school has large long-term benefits unless you want to study micro theory, in which case you want your math skills to be very sharp. Taking 1-2 years to focus exclusively on research may be very helpful in fleshing out your research interests as well as developing the know-how for approaching research projects. Once you enter grad school, you have 5-6 years to complete a JMP, followed by 5-7 years for your tenure clock. Better to spend time outside of grad school figuring out all the nuts and bolts of research than spending precious months during grad school on that. . Of course, you should take my advice with a big grain of salt, since I was an applicant this cycle . . . plenty of people still think that if you're prepared to go to grad school, there isn't that much a benefit from a predoc. Plus, the ability of predocs to land you a spot at a T10 seems fairly heterogeneous, at least based on this application cycle.

I was essentially trying to make the same point as FMiller, but they were much clearer about it. Presumably, Columbia Business Economics is trying to replicate HBS b/c, like HBS, Columbia Bus Ec wants to "house" its students within the Economics department but merely give these students greater access to faculty in the business school. Regardless, I don't think Columbia is seriously in your choice set unless there are reasons you haven't given that lead you to consider Columbia over Harvard. Other business schools typically do not operate completely integrated programs like HBS, aside from taking some of the same core courses as the Economics students.

On the other hand, graduates from economics schools also frequently place at business schools (e.g. Chicago Booth hires many people from Economics programs). However, I don't know to what extent business schools prefer people from business economics programs.

My understanding is that, aside from Harvard, if you want to study economics (as opposed to finance) and you don't want to study a field the business school is clearly stronger in (e.g. micro theory at Stanford GSB), then you should go with the economics school, not the business school. Based on a discussion my predoc cohort had with a tenured professor at a T10 university, job market candidates from business schools interviewing for economics positions are penalized relative to candidates from economics schools. Why this is the case was not entirely clear to me though.

I don't think HBS is where people who didn't get into Harvard go to (and similarly Stanford GSB is where people who didn't get into Stanford Econ go to). For other business schools, there is probably a penalty on the job market for economics positions (I say this based on a discussion my predoc cohort had with a tenured prof from a T10 school). With respect to HBS and Stanford GSB, these programs have slightly different preferences for the students they admit (e.g. if you're into finance, there's more weight on you since business schools do more finance research), and there's nontrivial noise in the application process, especially as the admit classes are smaller at business econ programs. At this point, I think the most informative thing for you to do is ask the programs directly for their advice and views on this point (is there a reason to favor business economics over economics or vice-versa). I've gotten fairly honest advice from faculty (e.g. I was explicitly told by several faculty to choose a different program over theirs because, based on my CV, the other program strictly dominates any other places to which I was admitted).

Congrats on your admissions! I wonder if we had interacted at the Stanford visit day hahaha. To answer your question, when I said "Northwestern", I meant "Northwestern Economics". I have not really heard anything about Northwestern Kellogg's ranking in micro theory, and I don't know how close Kellogg is with the Econ department (compared to Stanford, for example). But if you have strong locational preferences, then you could hardly go wrong with choosing HBS/Harvard over Stanford/Stanford GSB, especially if you think that your interests may shift slightly, given the historical advantage Harvard/MIT students appear to get (as long as you don't think you'll do macro theory, in which case Stanford Econ is the place to go). My understanding is that doing a PhD at HBS is essentially the same as doing a PhD at Harvard because your primary advisors don't have to be in HBS (e.g. Andreas Schaab's main advisor was Emmanuel Farhi before Farhi passed away, and two of Schaab's current advisors are housed in Harvard Econ). The primary difference is that you'll need to take MBA courses at HBS, but on the upside you usually get more funding at HBS. If you decide on Harvard/HBS, then you should definitely just ask Harvard Econ/HBS faculty what their advice would be. I sincerely doubt they'll be "competitive" about which program you attend since you'll be in contact with them regardless. To reiterate advice I've received from multiple professors, once you're into the Top 5 programs, as long as your interests are well represented at the program you attend (which they are for you), then your post-PhD outcomes will depend mostly on your own effort and ability. The relative added value between these programs is miniscule, and other factors (like your location preference) should matter far more. In other words, don't stress about it. It's not going to matter very much in the long run.

With regard to Stanford GSB specifically, their "Econ Analysis & Public Policy" program is a top micro theory program thatshould compare favorably to other top theory departments (e.g. Stanford, Northwestern). They've placed people at Northwestern and NYU. The main advantage of doing Stanford GSB over Stanford (if you're fortunate enough to have the decision!) is presumably the fact that the GSB micro theory PhD sequence requires only 1 quarter of macro. In terms of advising, while formally you will need advisors from Stanford GSB, there shouldn't be that huge a friction stopping you from working with people in the Econ department.

This is a bit unclear to me. Do you mean that you should only go to BGSE if you're exceptional at math because it's difficult to succeed in the program without strong math?

First, I think it's still worthwhile confirming with your advisors what they think your chances will be next year (e.g. in a more "normal" year, especially the extent to which your T3 professor plans to advocate for you in their letter). Second, I would put your mental health first and foremost. If you feel relatively confident that you won't do worse next cycle, then you should make whichever choice will improve your mental health. Grad school is not known for beingthe most hospitable place for one's mental health. Third, I think the most growth you'll get, unless you start working on substantially new material next year, is from doing your own research on the side. I had the time and depth of knowledge in my field of interest to pursue my own research. I arguably learned a lot more from doing my own research during the second year of my predoc than from the predoc work itself, and it also gave me some idea about the various pitfalls you'll encounter as you start doing research. In particular, people always say that the biggest hurdle first-time researchers have to overcome is actually starting on a research project. A lot of students struggle with their first idea because they feel like they have to have a winning idea right out of the gates, which is rare. It would be great if you could learn how to handle the disappointment from seeing your bad ideas turn out to be bad and how to develop your initial ideas into something workable. Assuming you want to work in academia, your "tenure clock" essentially starts once you enter grad school (5-6 years of funding + 5-8 years for tenure (depending on the school, postdoc, etc.)). By taking an extra year to do your own research on the side, you won't have to struggle as much with starting on research in the middle of your PhD and thus squander time that matters for tenure. But if you don't think you'll have the time or sufficient training to do your own research as an RA next year, unless we know more about what you'll be doing, it's hard to know for certain that you'll actually learn that much compared to the past year.

I once had the chance to speak about admissions and economics research with a T10 tenured professor (along with other predocs in my corhort). According to them, once you're into the T15 PhD programs (or in their words, "Rochester and above"), your post-grad placement is going to be more a function of your individual effort than a function of the quality of training the institution provides. In particular, among the T15, they argued that the quality of faculty/advising is generally not that different. To emphasize this point, this professor repeatedly said to us that every year Rochester always produces great candidates who do well on the market. My take-away from this discussion is that while there may be some stronger peer effects from attending Harvard/MIT, ex-ante going to a T15 (as long as it's still a good match by field) is not going to make or break you. Given the concerning statements you've made about your mental health and the type of RA work you're doing, I suspect that going to grad school now may be better for you than continuing the RAship. In my predoc, for example, it is generally thought that the first year gives you a lot of training, but the second year is for the supervising economists to reap the rewards from training the predocs (i.e. the benefits for predocs are mostly done by the end of the first year). I'm not sure another year of RAship will benefit you much if you don't seem to like it a lot and don't see it resulting in your actively participating in creative research. With regard to the quality of your letters, note that it's not enough for you to just be the RA for a professor at a T3. This year's admission cycle proves that. Plus, you can also look at placements of predocs from SIEPR and Opportunity Insights. Not everyone does well. For the letter from your T3 professor to be great, that professor needs to actively vouch for you in their letter and favorably compare you to other students that professor has sent to top schools.

This is the exact language, if this helps clarify things: "Due to a university-wide policy, we were only able to admit around a quarter of our usual class size this year" My understanding is that the target cohort is 1/4, not that they admitted 1/4 of the usual number (though presumably those are highly correlated).

The calls from Harvard earlier may have been real. I just received an email from Harvard stating that I have been waitlisted. Apparently, due to a university wide policy, only 1/4 of the normal class size was admitted.

Some predoc/RA job boards: Opportunities | Pathways to Research and Doctoral Careers EJM - Econ Job Market