aroyaltenenbaum

I failed a statistics course in first year, got severely depressed and got really bad marks in two subsequent courses (a linear algebra course and second year micro). I thought my life was going to end. It did not. It did present challenges afterwards, but my trajectory definitely did not significantly change (that I know of). The most important thing you can do for yourself is to understand that bad marks happen, understand why it happened, and pick yourself and move on. It'll be okay. You're not defined by your grades.

I know a couple of people who deferred top-5 offers (depending on what you count as top-5) and a smaller group who declined top-5 offers to go do an RA position. The idea is that if you're confident about your work ethics and want to develop more as a researcher, it can only better your chance after two years of RA. Currently in my top-5 (again, depending on what you count as top 5) cohort, about 60% have done a pre-doc, the rest are evenly split between European masters and straight out of top undergrad.

This is surely more than enough to identify me, but since I probably wouldn't have gotten into grad school if I didn't learn of this forum when I started college, I will repay the favor and imbue unbearable anxiety on future generations the same way this did to me. PROFILE: Type of Undergrad: top 2 Canadian (the better one ;)) Undergrad GPA: 3.9 Type of Grad: none, do grad courses count? Grad GPA: if grad courses count then 4.0, otherwise none GRE: 168Q Math Courses: grad real analysis, grad functional analysis, and all the analysis courses up to those; graph theory, nonlinear optimization, topology, linear algebra (B+), measure theoretic probability theory, stats I © and II (all A's and A-'s except for noted) Econ Courses: phd metrics at top 5, phd micro sequence at undergrad, phd education econ, two thesis-courses, development, urban, empirical IO, and core courses up to advanced level (all A's) Other Courses: basically none. Letters of Recommendation: top 5 prof (leader in field) who I work for as an RA for two years, prof from undergrad who taught me a field course and we discussed a lot of research, prof from undergrad who I worked for as an RA for 2.5 years (see below). All of them are young and recently-tenured and probably think that I'm halfway decent (that's my posterior anyway). Research Experience: second year project over at the school of the environment, 2.5 years with J-PAL/IPA affiliated project during undergrad, 2 years at a top 5 full-time RA. Two work-in-progress projects that definitely made it into my rec letters. Teaching Experience: none Research Interests: IO, political, development SOP: basically the abstract of my undergrad thesis and the abstract of one of my current projects back to back Other: RESULTS: I applied to basically everything on Earth Acceptances: Princeton, Berkeley (partial), Northwestern, Columbia, NYU, UBC, Michigan, Wisconsin-Madison, Duke, Maryland, Toronto MA Waitlists: Chicago, NYU Stern, UCSD, Chicago Booth, UCLA Rejections: MIT, Harvard, HBS bus ec, Yale, Chicago Harris, Stanford GSB, Stanford, Wharton AE (declined to interview), Brown, Sloan sociology (lol), Columbia management (lol^2), Fuqua decision sciences (withdrew), Penn Comments: What would you have done differently? Probably not get a C in first year stats? I should have started my own research earlier instead of riding on coat-tails for a couple of years in undergrad. I should have gone out of my way more to talk to professors at my undergrad and at the top 5 I'm currently at --- that way I would have had a wider advising network for both my own work and different research opportunities (although I've gotten my ideal RA-position each time I've had to apply for one). To any undergrad at my alma mater: feel free to send me a message or email if you know who I am, I'm more than happy to advise!