stero

It is true that there is a pedigree bias in economics. Tyler Cowen mentioned this(Pedigree bias in economics - Marginal REVOLUTION). But that does not mean that going to top phd programs by starting to prepare for grad schools in top undergrad schools is the only way to success. Think of John List of UChicago. He received his phd degree from Wyoming University. I have no idea which programs you looked at, but I know of many economists not having "stellar" academic background you assume. Roland Fryer of Harvard went to UT-Arlington as an undergrad and is a Penn State phd. Nathan Nunn of Harvard is Toronto phd. Thomas Fujiwara of Princeton is UBC phd. Gabriel Zucman of UC Berkeley is Paris School of Economic phd. All of those schools are really great places, but getting admission from there is doable if you are a freshman you are committed to studying economics for several years. Plus, take a look at Table 1 of this paper(pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.28.3.205). The publication records of top 10 percent of UT-Austin or UC-Davis graduates is better than that of median Harvard or MIT phds.

Hi, I will be applying this fall. I have three questions regarding my profile at the end of this posting, but you don’t have to give answers to every one of them. Any suggestions are welcome. Undergrad Type: Top 3 in my country. Ranked 51-100 in QS economics ranking. Double majored in business administration and financial engineering. Undergrad GPA: 3.86/4.0 Grad Type: Same as undergrad. MA in economics Grad GPA: 4.0/4.0 GRE: 165 V/ 170Q/ 4.0 AWA TOEFL: 29reading/29listening/26speaking/25writing. Total score: 109 Math courses: Business Statistics(B+), Calculus I, II(B+, A+), Linear Algebra I, II(A, A), Analysis I, II(Rudin's PMA)(A, A+), Ordinary Differential Equations(A+), Introduction to probability theory(A+), Mathematical Statistics(A), Graduate Probability theory from statistics department(measure theory based)(A+) Econ Courses: Intro to micro/macro(A+, B+), Intermediate micro/macro(B+, A+), Econometrics I, II(A+, A), Grad micro(Mas-Collel)(A), Grad macro(A+), Grad econometrics(A), several other field courses in labor, public, development Letter of Recommendation 1) top 10 economics phd. He was an assistant professor in an university ranked around 30 in the US news ranking. He is very observant and seems to know how to write ‘informative’ LORs. I had several chances to present my research papers in his class or graduate student sessions and visited his office few times. He said that I am talented enough to be above median in any phd programs in the US and I have a strong potential to be a researcher. 2) top 30 economics phd. He coauthored several papers with a RePec top 10 economist and published many articles in some top (field) journals. He mentioned that my master’s thesis seems to be publishable in field journals. 3) top 40 economics phd. My main advisor for masters’ coursework. He coauthored several articles and a highly cited book with famous political economist. He is positive about my research potential. But sometimes he seems to be not quite familiar with the admission process(e.g. He advised me to make a contact to faculty members by email in phd programs that I am interested in. I found that several econ phd admission FAQs or economists blog postings explicitly mentioned that students are strongly discouraged to make a contact to faculty members.) 4) top 5 public policy phd. Undergrad Thesis advisor. He has several highly cited papers in corporate governance and coauthored some research with his advisor. Although my paper had very few observations to be published in decent journals, he told me that my research potential seems to be better than those of his graduate students. 5) top 5 economics phd. Associate editor of a top field journal. 6) top 10 economics phd. I discussed my research topics with him several times and he was quite positive about those ideas. Research experience: Unfortunately, I tried to have RA experience, but I have not been able to work as RA for any professors during my master’s coursework. Instead, I read through the literature that lies within my interests on my own from the scratch, sent several emails to authors of those papers outside my department asking for advice regarding my work(Some of them replied with detailed opinions and gave me dataset they built.), and visited office of my faculty members to discuss my research. 1) undergraduate honors thesis 2) master’s thesis: economics history, development, political economy. Without any help, I raised a research question after reading through several papers, constructed a dataset on my own from national archives of my country and colonial government’s administrative documents, and presented this research in several domestic conferences and will be giving a presentation in an international conference organized by a labor economics association with a strong reputation in December this year. Fortunately, I received harsh criticisms from discussants of other schools in the conferences and helpful suggestions from my faculty members. It was like getting a referee report: Dealing with those weaknesses, the quality of my paper improved significantly. I am still working on it. 3) Furthermore I recently began other research that investigates political corruption in my country, or working on several other vague ideas that exploits natural disasters as experiments. Teaching experience: TAed for undergrad political economy and public economics Research interests: economic history, public, development, political economy I have three questions: 1) Should I retake GRE or TOEFL? As you may have already noticed, I am a non-native speaker in English. Although I will try my best to improve my English skills for the rest of my life, it is unlikely that I could score over 5 or 5.5 in GRE writing or 30 in TOEFL writing within one or two months. I should probably aim for 4.5 in GRE and 27 in TOEFL writing if I could take those test once again(Years ago I scored 27 in toefl writing and the score guide said that my writing that scored 25 was a bit off topic. So I might be able to score at least 27 if I take TOEFL again). I became a little worried after seeing that Stanford admission FAQ page mentions that most of their incoming graduate students scored over 4.5 in the GRE AWA and Northwestern FAQ page said that most students score over 5. I know that research experience and LORs play a more decisive role and GRE or TOEFL is meaningful only at the cutoff score(such as 26 in speaking or 167Q in GRE), but my concern is that none of my letter writers would be well known to US faculty members and nor they have had much experience in placing former students in the US programs(e.g. My letter writer 1) recommended to apply for about 25-30 schools because the variance of my admission result will be quite big). Yes, it would be extremely difficult to get admission from top schools even with perfect score in GRE or TOEFL. But I’m worried that my low writing scores might bring any slight disadvantage to my admission as I do not seem to have stellar RA experience or LORs and my undergrad institution might not be well known to the admission committees. Are those concerns overblown? 2) Other than economics phd programs, I will be applying for Northwestern Kellogg MEDS(I found that they recently hired economic historians like Nancy Qian), UCLA Anderson GEM, UChicago Harris, Harvard Kennedy School PEG. Is there any difference in the admission process for Policy schools or business schools? I heard from somewhere that business school admissions put an emphasis on strong English skills. Does this also apply to econ-oriented units in b-schools or policy schools? 3) Assuming that the contents of letters are identical, does the letter writer’s institution of phd degree make a difference? For example, my undergrad thesis advisor has a doctoral degree in public policy from HKS but I have not contacted him for 2 years and he is on academic leave until next year. Would asking him for letters be a good idea? As I will be apply for about 30 schools, I’m reluctant to ask 30 LORs each for 3 professors. I am wondering how to mix three letters for each school.

Hi, I'm currently studying in top 3 mater's program in my country.(QS ranking 51-100) Math and econ courses I took until now are as follows: Business Statistics(B+), Calculus I, II(B+, A+), Linear Algebra I, II(A, A), Analysis I, II(Rudin's PMA)(A, A+), Ordinary Differential Equations(A+), Intro to probability(A+), Mathematical Statistics(A), Graduate Probability from stat department(measure theory-based)(A+) Intermediate micro/macro(B+, A+), Econometrics I, II(A+, A), Grad micro(Mas-Collel)(A), Grad macro(A+), Grad econometrics(A) I'm interested in development, economic history, labor, and political economy and have about ten months left until I apply for PhD programs. For next semester, I was thinking of taking measure theory or undergrad topology from math department. However, every professor in my department I talked to discouraged me to take more maths and recommended me to start to make a good writing sample that is publishable in academic journals, if possible. My concern is that not taking measure theory might have any negative influence on my profile. I also think that my strength does not lie in performance coursework, but in research ideas. Some professors with whom I discussed my term papers spoke highly of my potentials. But the problem is that they do not seem to be not well known in their fields or have strong connections to US economists. To be clear, they received PhD degrees from top 10-20 schools in the US and published some articles in top field journals. Furthermore, I doubt if I would be able to write a good paper within few months although I have a vague research agenda and plan to construct a novel dataset from archives(I am not sure if I could find any statistical significance!*** or how much time will it take to digitize them in my spreadsheet). I also wonder how much importance does adcom place on taking measure theory? So given the time constraint, which option will be better for me in terms of increasing the marginal probability of getting admission or becoming an independent researcher? A: Take measure theory or topology, minimize the amount of time invested in studying maths and try to make a good writing sample at the same time. B: Stop taking more maths, and just try to advance your research agenda. Thanks.

Bellycan, YangmaL. Thank you so much for your advice. I wish all the best for both of your admission! Bellycan/ Yes, I finished my military service years ago. Some master's students who belive themselves to be prepared enough(LORs, RA experience, etc) in korea apply for phd grograms at the end of their 2nd or 3rd semester, which means they decided to give up MA degree in korea. So I was thinking of "1 year in master's program+1 year as an RA." It sounds to me quite opportunistic, having my feet on both sides. But I was afraid because I don’t know whether professors in my department are willing to support their students or their LORs are strong enough. I was told from one econ professor in the well-known US research university that Korean students’ weakest points are lack of research experience and LORs. Like I said, it is highly likely that I will not be able to take RA job other than trivial errands. For LORs, I heard from the aforementioned professor that even if LOR writer is not famous in his/her field or have a good contact with US professors, adcoms take LOR seriously if LOR writer evaluates the student “compared to” former students of theirs. There haven’t been many students applying for US schools in my college until recently compared to other top 3 schools in south korea. There are a number of professors who are ranked high on repec economists ranking, coauthored papers with big guys, or highly cited for some of their articles. But I actually have no idea whether professors who have common research interests with me are influential, have a big sample size of former students who applied for phd programs, or are doing interesting empirical research with RAs. Well anyway, as you said, the most likely and desirable thing to do for me is to take research seminar course, get consistent feedbacks, and keep asking questions about my fields! Thank you again and good luck with your admission. YangmaL/ Nice to meet you! Your guess is correct. I go to the ‘K’-one among three of them. Can I ask you one more question about 2)? So, is it strictly better to take courses taught by professors who received their phd from top schools, coauthored with big guys, or well known in the US schools for whatsover reason, even if their research interests does not exactly fit into mine? I was thinking of mixing courses that seem interesting to me with other courses organized by influential professors. For now I have a broad set of research interests, it might change after taking many courses. But on the other hand I’m worried that if I just follow the path of optimizing LORs, then they would easily notice that I am not interested in their fields or I might not be able to impress them. Yes, your advice did help me. Hope your admission cycle goes as you planned.

Undergrad Institution: top 3 in south korea Major: business administration & financial engineering GPA: 3.86/4.0 Masters Institution: currently attending MA in economics in the same university Undergraduate Courses: Econ: Intro to micro(A+), intro to macro(B+), intermediate micro(B+), intermediate macro(A+), econometrics I(A+), econometrics II(time series)(A), graduate micro theory I(Mas-Collel et al.)(A, took as an undergrad) Business school: inventments(A), financial management(A), international finance(A) Math/Stat: business statistics(B+), single variable calculus(B+), multivariate calculus(A+), Linear algebra I, II(A, A), Analysis I, II(Rudin PMA, covered up until multivariate differentiation)(A, A+), ordinary differential equations(A+), intro to probability theory(A+), mathematical statistics(A) GRE: not taken yet Research Experience: none. only senior thesis. Letters of Recommendation: My senior thesis advisor. Other than that I haven’t barely talked to anyone yet. Applying to: where should I be aiming? 1) That is my first question here. Research Interests: political economy, public finance, corporate governance 2) I already took graduate micro theory I as an undergrad, so I can skip it as a master’s student here. I was thinking of taking macro theory I, econometrics I, and measure theory for this coming first semester. But it came up with my mind that my priority should be given to having strong LORs. So I am thinking of taking graduate macro, econometrics+”two other electives in econ department” for LORs. I can take measure theory a year later and focus on getting to know professors related to my research interests for now. Would that be a good choice? 3) I am also considering to apply for RAs hired by US top schools. I found that some of the job postings in nber website mentioned supporting visas for international students. Could I be hired as an RA in those jobs? my question is, is it quite usual for them to hire international students? I want to compensate my lack of resaerch with working as an RA, but it seems that they would not likely to employ me because I have no prior experience in research. 4) I will definitely take measure theory at least before applying for phd, but what is the increased marginal probability of getting admission from top phd programs by taking more rigorous math classes such as topology, measure theory-based probability theory, or complex analysis? I am not afraid of taking math classes and I like math even though I am just a hardworking student rather than being a talented one. I am always willing to learn more math if necessary, but I read from one professors in my country that after meeting minimum requirement for maths, it would be more efficient to learn math by oneself topic by topic when she feels that would help solve a current research question rather than stifling one’s mind with tons of math at the expense of doing serious research, especially when you’re not thinking of being a pure theorist. 5) My last question is about LORs. I think it might be about my social skills. There weren’t barely any chance for undergrads to work as an RA in my country. I have no regret for not being able to have any position for RA. But what else can I do to have strong LORs? Months ago I just sent an email to some econ professors in my school and told them I’m interested in pursuing my career as an economist. I met them in their office and they just said “well you are in a good position in this sense, while you got behind in this aspect and good luck.” If they are not hiring RAs, then would it be ok to just discuss my research topics or asking questions about institutional details of their fields? I think I am having trouble understanding what it exactly means to keep contact with professors. I got interested in economics research while I was reading random books, newspaper articles, policy reports, and academic articles, not while I was taking economics lecture. That might be one reason I feel difficulty with talking to professors.