eatorange

Hi, I am in similar situation like you are in (although my profile was not as solid as yours). I was overly optimistic, applied mostly for top 20 programs, and received zero offers. I plan to re-apply this year (but will apply mostly for applied programs), and am getting feedback from my letter writers, supervisors, colleagues, etc. Here's a couple of comments from me, based on the feedback I have collected so far. - It is needless to say that Econ Ph.D. admission is getting extremely competitive, especially this year. Many applicants, presumably most applicants, have either Master's degree in Econ (mainly international applicants) or have taken a couple of grad-level Econ courses (U.S. applicants). Econ adcoms are risk-averse and they strongly prefer applicants with grad-level experience. I have neither masters nor grad-level Econ courses taken, and it seems you have not taken any grad-level econ courses either. One of my letter writers advised me to do either Masters in Econ (he mentioned U Wisconsin Madison as an example) or take 1~2 Ph.D. level Econ courses near my place as a non-degree student. I am considering the latter (since I cannot afford Master’s program), but it is still not an easy option for me as a current full-time RA… (working as an RA and taking grad-level courses will be very rigorous). Anyway, completing Master’s in Econ or taking a couple of grad-level courses and get good grades from them would be the best you can give to adcoms next year. - RA experience are useful only if you can make intellectual contribution to the studies you will assist. For example, if your RA tasks are mostly managerial (updating data, maintaining system) rather than quantitative (design & analysis), then you won’t learn too much and won't get a good rec letter either (Your PIs can write “this student is very responsible and good at project management…”, but Econ adcoms want letters like “this student is intellectually inspiring, …”. Therefore, I think taking Master’s program is much better than working as an RA, unless tuition matters. - Econ adcoms care and only care job placement in academia. If you wrote something like “I plan to do research in academia as a professor, but also consider doing research outside academia…” in your SOP, adcoms won’t be really interested in you. Since you already have MPP, adcoms might think that you might leave academia after Ph.D. You mentioned you explained why you became interested from Public Policy to Econ…. Maybe it was not strong enough. - It is also a good opportunity to think of your interest and career. For example, are you REALLY interested in producing a lot of high-quality papers to be published in major journals more than anything, and ready to dedicate yourself to it? If yes, then go for Econ Ph.D. If not, then Econ Ph.D. might not be the best choice for you. In my case, I like studying and doing researches, but I am not sure whether writing large number of papers to be published will be the best joy in my life. In my workplace, many PIs don’t have Econ Ph.D. but they are still making great contributions to the world (and publishing papers). Think of what your life goal/motto is, and whether getting an Econ Ph.D. degree is necessary to do that. Although it is true that Econ Ph.D. degree gives you the most number of choices with its rigorousness, you might still be able to do what you really want without it. In my case, I am considering Ph.D. in information, which seems to be a combination of Economics and Computer Science (I am still doing research), since I am interested in both.

@econpost: Thanks so much for sharing your story. Your story encouranges and discourages me (even publishing paper didn't make any significant difference in econ ph.d.) at the same time. I appreciate it.

@specious Thanks again!

@Zubrus: Thanks for feedback, unfortunately I cannot check if they really wrote in such way. @Stratz: Thank you so much! I will check that.

As an UM alumnus, I recently had a chance to speak to a professor who recently left the college. S/he told me that UM has lost good professors and is likely to lose more in the future. Of course it is still a good school and you should definitely consider taking an offer if you get one, but think once again before you do so. (One more thing - Ann Arbor is SUPER cold. Blizzards is common even in April).

Thank you for all the comments above. @mathenomics: Then it might imply that more international students with masters get accepted to programs compared to U.S. appilcants. @to2012: Hmm that could be true. Good point @specious: Thanks for long comments. My home-country friends who are studying in Top 3 programs have masters from the No.1 college in their home country. They are smart and the program they completed is very demanding, thus it is natural for adcom to prefer those people. Also, as a guy in 30's, cost-benefit analysis is more important for me. That's why I am thinking more applied-programs, even masters with funding (ex. Princeton). But I don't care too much about money, since doing what I want is more important than making lot of moneys as long as I can make living with it. @stratz: Hmm I am now really interested in how the profile of incoming Ph.D. students have changed in the last decades. That would be fun topic to research. Wonder where I can find such data.:apple: @Catrina: It seems it is getting more and more difficult for U.S. applicants to compete against international students in top 20 colleges, and taking grad-level courses is one way to back-up. If they failed to do so in undergrad(like me), then it could be much more difficult or nearly impossible. @Kaysa: If there is an external edge b/w groups which cannot be overcome via their efforts only (in this case, those who cannot afford master's program tuition can't take it), I think that's at least something we can discuss over. If we found it as not desirable (not sure in this case though), we can talk over the way to improve it. The primary reason why I wrote this post was raising the issue if this trend (requiring masters for Ph.D.) is desirable rather than complaining about the edge, but I understand your intention and I appreciate it.

Hi all, I had a chance to speak to my former professor who is now in one of Top 30~50 colleges and at adcom of that college's Econ Ph.D. program last year. According to what he said, more and more students apply with master's degree. In his college, 90% of current first-year Ph.D. students have master's degree. Out of 10% who have bachelor's only, ALL of them already took several Ph.D. courses in undergrad. I knew that many incoming Ph.D. students have master's degree, but did not expect that they dominate this much (and 100% of them have grad-level experience). If a college in b/w 30~50 have such student profiles, imagine what student profiles would be in Top 30 schools! It is also disappointing to me. It is true that grad-level experience is a good signal if everyone has perfect/near-perfect undergrad GPA/GRE scores/reserach experience. However, grad-level experience being a necessary evaluation factor of getting into a grad program sounds kinda ironic (i.e.We need something to do something). In case of master's degree, to make matters worse, it is originally designed for those who DO NOT need Ph.D. degree! (Many colleges still don't recommend their Econ master's programs for those who plan to pursue Econ Ph.D. in the future) Simply put, Ph.D. admissions are dominated by those who completed programs which are designed for those who do NOT need Ph.D. In addition, master's program costs money and time, but having master's degree or grad-level grades don't really waive anything during 5-year Ph.D. curriculum. (It's like what role AP scores play in US undergrad admission. Although they are NOT required, more students have many AP scores to make their profiles stronger. Howver, at least AP exams don't require huge tuition and extra years of commitment, and they acutally make students waived from a couple of intro-level classes.) Applicants with master's degree deserve better evaluation, since they invested money and time to study advanced materials. However, if they keep dominating Ph.D. admission, and their dominance becomes stronger as Ph.D. admission becoming extremely competitive, future applicants will be strongly recommended to have master's degree, which are designed for those who do NOT need Ph.D., just to get into Ph.D. For those who can afford tuition and time, they will be forced to invest huge amount of money and time for something which has little value in Ph.D. program (because master's degree won't save extra money and time during Ph.D. curriculum). For those who cannot afford tuition and time, their chances of getting into top programs will significantly decrease. Master's program will be dubbed as "pre-Ph.D.", totally different from its purpose. Any thoughts or comments are appreciated. * I admit that I am little bit emotional on this post, since I don't have any grad-level courses taken and cannot afford master's program either....

Oops my bad. I intended to write that nationality and such things are NOT the only things that matter to disagree with Rohanps (I have MANY friends from my home country who are now studying in TOP 3!) Such a typo T.T I will leave the typo.

@Rohanps - I understand how you feel, but unless you are going to accept OSU offer and not gonna re-apply this year, you need to be better prepared, more strategic and objective which I will try to be. We all know that names, nationality and contacts are the only thing that matter right? @specious - Thanks for sharing your perspective. I strongly agree with that undergrad grades are the most important and bad signal is significantly worse off than no signal. To share my personal story, I changed my major to Econ during my second semester of junior year thus I only had three semesters to take all required econ courses (to make matters worse, my college has a strange regulation s.t. I cannot satisfy some of my graduation requirement via upper-level econ courses, which forced me to take low-level econ courses). I had no time to take grad-level econ courses... but I thought I was fine since I got As on core classes (Econometrics, game theory, honors, etc.) As I said, RA experience itself doesn't tell you anything, or it could be worse. It is like a college course - RAs must prove their potential via RA works. If RAs can not, it means nothing or worse.

Thanks for updating. I just checked the Duke website and confirmed rejection.

One more person here with good but not outstanding undergrad grades with RA experiences, and was shut out this year. What I recognized is that, adcoms REALLY care "potential" of applicants, like "Is this applicant brilliant enough to survive in ph.d. programs and produce a lot of research papers?" Math grades are good way of evaluating individual brilliance, but there are many other ways of evaluating it. (My colleague didn't take too many quantitative classes in undergrad but she was super smart. This year she got at least 4 offers from Top 6~7 programs.) In terms of RA, RA experience matters if and only if that experiences "proves" applicant's potential, such as via putting his/her name as a co-author or get an extra recommendation letter from PIs saying "This applicant is the best RA I have ever had, and I have no doubt that s/he will succeed in Ph.D. as well." For people like me who couldn't excel as an RA, it means nothing (or even worse since adcoms might think that I have no potential as an economist). If I (and am very likely to) re-apply this year, I will apply less pure Econ programs and more econ-related applied programs (ex. public policy, information, etc.) where I "assume" undergrad records are less weighted and work experiences are more weighted compared to pure Econ. I am getting old (already in 30s) and am outside academia for 3 years, thus I believe my probability of surviving in academia is getting lower and lower haha. ** And I agree with that "every signal matters". In top 10~15 programs where the world-best applicants compete, there' no such thing as "matters less"! They have to be as perfect as possible to survive.

Just got a rejection e-mail from Cornell

Just got a rejection letter from Brown.

Yes they said they will soon send me an information of visiting day.

Thank you so much for your comments. I really appreciate it. @chateauheart: I could not have a chance to go over my profile and range of schools with my recommenders comprehensively - some asked my GRE scores only, some asked my grades only, etc. I could not speak in person since they are far away from where I am now so I could not bother them too much via e-mail. Maybe that's why I had a wrong range of schools I had in mind. (TBH, I thought my profile is good enough to aim for top 20....) One of them is a retired professor so he might have a wrong sense of feasible range (he said he sent his former students to TOP 5 programs and I am equally as competitive as they were and that's why I applied for those schools.). I also agree with that taking graduate course might not be the best option I have. Since I have been outside academia for more than 2 years, taking a graduate course has a high risk of giving bad signal (bad grades) which is definitely worse than no signal. I should focus more on my current work to impress my current PI so he can give me a good rec letter. ** May I ask why you think my math background is not strong enough? Is it because I did not take grad-level math courses, or I didn't get solid As on upper-level undergrad math courses? (ex. real analysis, logic, etc.) If that's the case, then I should aim for more applied PhD programs (ARE, public policy, etc.). @to2012: Thanks so much for your comment as well! It is quite disappointing to hear that even As from grad-level math courses might not be enough to make difference, since I have none of them.