atb2615

Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts, chateauheart, 2017applicant, tm_member, specious, and soundchaser. This really means a lot to me. I think I was very naive in the entire process (even in school selection) and didn't really make an informed decision in many stages of my application. I will try not to repeat my mistakes in the next admissions cycle. Thank you so much again for all of your suggestions.

Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts, chateauheart, 2017applicant, tm_member, and specious. This really means a lot to me. I think I was very naive in the entire process (even in school selection) and didn't really make an informed decision in many stages of my application. I will try not to repeat my mistakes this year. Thank you so much again for all of your suggestions. chateauheart: I think what you told me makes a lot of sense; perhaps I wasn't really prepared to discuss my research interest. Hopefully, I can accumulate more research experience beforehand so that I can at least "know what I'm talking about" before submitting my next application. 2017applicant: Thank you so much for your encouragement. I was so disappointed at first, but I'm hoping that I can learn something in this one additional year. tm_member: You are totally right. One of my letter writers actually told me that perhaps their letter might not work well compared to one from an econ professor. As you said, that kind of research experince would definitely be a great asset. Again, thank you so much. specious: Yes, the signaling problem is something I have to work on. I decided to apply to PhD in economics very late compared to other applicants (I was initially thinking of a public sector career initially), so I wasn't really prepared well. As you and chateauheart said, I will definitely apply more broadly with careful selection of schools.

Hello all, As the title says, I got rejection from every school I applied this year. It was very disappointing, but I still want to work as a researcher/professor at universities in the future and don't want to give up at this stage. Could you share any opinion/advice how I can improve my profile over the year and have a better result? Here's my profile: Type of Undergrad: US Top 10 UG, US Top 10 Econ Undergrad GPA: 3.94 (Econ Major) Type of Grad: US Top 5 Public Policy Grad GPA: 3.95 GRE: 156/168/4.0 Math Courses: Real Analysis (A), Linear Algebra (A+) (both recent), Calc 3 (A-), Intro Stat (A-) (both long time ago) Econ Courses (grad-level): None Econ Courses (undergrad-level): Intro Econ (A), Intermediate Micro (A), Intermediate Macro (A), Econometrics (A+), Financial Econ (A), Industrial Org (A-), Corporate Finance (A), Macro seminar (A+), policy school micro (advanced) (A), policy school macro (advanced) (A+) Other Courses: Lots of policy school courses (mostly A) Letters of Recommendation: Two from policy school professors and one from undergrad Research Experience: One summer for political science professor Teaching Experience: 3 semesters as TA (all econ; undergrad level) Research Interests: IO, Political Economy SOP: I briefly explained my motivation for transition from policy to PhD Econ. Otherwise, fairly standard. Concerns: Well, rejections and rejections Applied: Brown, UCSD, Columbia, MIT, Princeton, Stanford, Chicago, Yale, Northwestern Kellogg, UCLA Anderson, NYU Stern Rejected: Same as above As you can see, I was overly optimistic (and therefore severely punished by the result). I plan to apply much more broadly next year. In addition to applying more broadly, I would like to do something to improve my profile. I'm currently thinking of one of the following options: 1) doing one-year Economics master in the UK and take graduate econ courses 2) working as an RA for a year (I'm not sure whether I can find a prof though) while taking graduate econ courses & some math courses However, I'm open to any other option available. I would like to hear your opinion and thoughts. Thank you so much in advance. Also, I wish the best luck for those who are still waiting!