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The professor that I am RA for actually suggested me to take some finance coursework too. Guess I'll focus on that then. Thanks a lot!

Thanks a lot for the reply! There is no official ranking in my college but I guess I am slightly better than average. I spent a lot of time self study mathematics in my final year in college. Those efforts paid off, although not on paper. I have taken mathematics GRE sub and got a decent score, but I'm not sure if that really helps. As to my masters program, in recent years top students normally go to top 30 econ programs, but there is some uncertainty. What do you think is the weakest link in my profile? Or what should I focus on improving in the next 7-8 months? Really appreciate it!

Hi everyone, I really appreciate any thoughts and feedback from anyone on my profile. English is not my first language, so please forgive me for any mistake I might have made. Type of Undergrad: Four year engineering degree from a top university in my country. Undergrad GPA: 83/100 (around 3.3-3.4 in US system) Type of Grad: Master's degree in economics at an US university with a top 50 econ department Grad GPA: 4.0/4.0 GRE: 164 V 170 Q 3.0 AW Math Courses: Everything you would expect for an engineering student, including differential equation, introductory complex analysis, etc. I got terrible scores in most of them (B or even C). I took 2 math courses in the graduate program, i.e. Introduction to Analysis and Introduction to Topology, got A in both of them. Econ Courses: MA level micro, macro, stats, econometrics and game theory. PhD level macro. A & A+ in all of them Finance Courses: Audited a financial stochastic process course, so no score. Research: RA: 1) Working for an AP in the business school in my graduate university, on some macro-finance stuff. Mainly programming. 2) Worked with a econ PhD candidate on a health economics project. 3) Working on a term paper on some applications of time-series econometrics on financial market. 4) A bunch of engineering stuff I did in undergrad. Mostly computational mechanics. Teaching: Did a math workshop for first year MA econ students. Also tutored them on their MA-level macro course. Letter of recommendation: 1 from the AP I am working with. 1 from PhD level macro course professor. Have not decided on the last one yet. I wondered what range of schools I should be aiming for? Also, since I still have a few months, I wondered what area of my profile should I focus on to improve? Many thanks!

I applied to U Washington too and also did not receive any information...but it's still early and I'm not too worried.

Hi everyone, I am having some trouble picking schools and I really appreciate any thoughts and feedback from anyone on my profile. English is not my first language, so please forgive me for any mistake I might have made. Type of Undergrad: Four year engineering degree from top 2 university in China (best engineering school in China) Undergrad GPA: 81/100 overall, 87/100 for junior and senior years. (Probably around 3.2 and 3.6 respectively in US system) Type of Grad: US top 50 econ department Grad GPA: 4.0/4.0 GRE: 164 V 170 Q 3.0 AW Math Courses: Everything you would expect for an engineering student, including differential equation, introductory complex analysis, etc. I got terrible scores in most of them (B or even C). I took 2 math courses in the graduate program, i.e. Introduction to Analysis and Introduction to Topology, got A in both of them. Econ Courses: MA level micro, macro, stats and econometrics. Also taking PhD level macro and a MA level seminar course. Research: RA: 1) Working for an AP in the business school in my graduate university, on some macro-finance stuff. 2) Worked for a professor in econ department for a month. Very short and only did some literature review involving labor markets. 3) Working on a term paper on some applications of time-series econometrics on financial market. 4) Just started working with a PhD student at a top-30 department on a labor and health project. 5) A bunch of engineering stuff I did in undergrad. Mostly computational mechanics. Teaching: Did a math workshop for first year MA students. Also tutored them on their MA-level macro course. Letter of recommendation: 1 from the AP I am working with. 1 from PhD level macro course professor. Both of them should be decent. The last one is a hard choice. I can get it from either the professor I worked with or the seminar course professor, but both of them do not know me extremely well. Research Interests: Not very sure yet. I like monetary macro, but I also enjoyed reading some labor papers. Concerns: 1) Terrible mathematics score in college. I have taken a mathematics GRE Sub and got a 93%, but I doubt this is going to help. 2) Lack of research experience in economics, since I only studied economics for a little over a year. This results in a lack of recommender. 3) I am also considering finance programs since the macro-finance work I am doing now is really interesting. But I guess they are a lot harder to get into? I am not very familiar with finance programs, so any thoughts and school suggestion on this is much appreciated! Schools aiming for: UCLA, Duke, Rochester, Boston U, WUSTL, Boston College, USC, U Washington I hope I am not aiming too high :) By the way, the top students in my program normally end up in top-30 departments like BU or WUSTL, but there were years that no one got into top 50 departments. Thank you very much!