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Thanks startz for the clarification! Kaysa and hkke- thanks for your very informative comments. Much appreciated.

Kaysa and startz, thanks for your opinion! startz, can I just clarify what you said? So you mean: First, who is recommender Second, LOR Third, GRE Fourth, undergraduate coursework, GPA Fifth, writing samples Just to be clear, is this the order in which things are looked at, or the order of importance, or both?

Yeah that makes a lot of sense. Thanks tutonic and mathenomics!

Thanks tutonic! I see. I wasn't sure if the GRE, math grades, or both were involved in the initial cut. I guess the two are usually correlated, though.

Hello everyone, Can anyone help me better understand the process by which adcoms look at our files? I learned from another forum that at one school, adcoms look at math/econ grades and GRE scores, and if good enough, looks at LORs, and if that's good enough, they (maybe) look at writing samples. Is this generally the case for all the schools? If our math grades are not good enough, will our application be thrown away by adcoms even without referring to the LORs? How about if we have a good GRE score? Thanks in advance.

Yeah that makes sense. Thanks for your reply!

Sorry if this has already been discussed, can't seem to find information on this. Does anyone have ideas about who reads the writing samples, especially for the schools that require one? Let's say we're really interested in a specific field and wrote about it, but it seems unlikely that the admissions committee includes a person in that field. It makes sense that they would send the writing sample to someone in the field for review, but it also seems unlikely that professors would spend their valuable time reviewing many samples. Maybe they do so only for borderline candidates? Thanks in advance.

Thanks for your advice, thagzone and ytam1! I wish I had realized what I want earlier in the game, but it is what it is. I think I will take the abstract math class, do whatever else I can do, apply this fall, and see what happens first. I might prefer enrolling into a masters program next year to waiting another year to apply.

Will do. Thanks so much! So is it definitely the case that intro to abstract math > econometrics > differential equations?

Thanks for your reply, student93! Yes, that is definitely an option. I will most likely apply this fall as well as next year (and I'll apply widely including many masters programs). I do strongly prefer enrolling next year, though, so I wanted to see what would give me the best chance for this cycle, even though I realize that one math class will likely make no noticeable difference. So you would recommend the intro to abstract math course, too? Maybe I've been overestimating the importance of differential equations.

Thanks for your reply! No, I haven't taken real analysis. I realized that I wanted to get an economics phd pretty late in the game (thinking that I will probably end up getting a masters first). So you would recommend the intro to abstract math class out of the three? I thought about doing that but Differential Equations seems to be considered a fairly basic prerequisite--am I wrong? But, of course, all the listed courses (+real analysis) are basically prereqs but I just haven't had them...

Hi all, I have about one semester left before I apply to PhD programs and would love to hear your thoughts on which courses to take for the final round. Took multivariable calc, linear algebra and probability. - differential equations - econometrics - intro to abstract math (basic proofs course) I can only choose one from the above. Which one should I take? Thanks in advance!!