Wahasky
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It's hard to gauge how your grades will be perceived. The upward trajectory and strong grades in final two years is meaningful and not unusual, and it seems that often people are able to successfully explain that in their SOP. However, regardless of all that the grades in Calc III and DiffEq and even alrebra are going to hurt your chances some. Your targets don't seem terribly unrealistic to me, if a little high. There are probably some reaches in your target, and Pittsburgh is not any less competitive than Georgetown. For a true "safety" (if that even exists_ you would probably have to apply much lower in the rankings. Ask your advisers what they think and apply widely, this year could be another tough admissions cycle.
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First, the obvious advice: ask people at your university, specifically the 3 researchers that you have worked for, what they think. They will be *far* better able to help you answer these questions than anyone on here. I suspect this is especially true because people here may have a hard time evaluating a candidate from a top South East Asia university without knowing the school. Other thoughts: 1. Retake the GRE and get a 167+. 163 is likely low enough that your profile will not be considered by most schools you list 2. Many international students do an MA program in Europe or the US before applying for top 30 programs Your research experience, classes, and grades are all very impressive. But even with an improved GRE score, my feeling is it is unlikely that you will get into the programs you listed without an MA or competitive predoc, though you may be more competitive for schools in the top 50. However, take my opinion with a grain of salt, and go talk to the people in the position to better answer your questions, ie your advisers.
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There's some really good advice here, thanks all -- I actually had never even heard of LaTeX before so that was a good tip. My goal is to make sure my basic skills in calculus, linear algebra, and stats are sharp (shouldn't take too much work), then do extra review in Simon and Blume. I would prefer to take bookworm510 and others' advice to just relax, but I think my anxiety about starting off behind my peers outweighs my desire to relax. I have actually never used Stata (my school and current job don't have licenses) but I'm very comfortable in R (and know a little Python). I've generally heard Stata is much more user-friendly and intuitive than R, am I right to assume my programming skills in R will let me pick up Stata pretty quickly?
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I know the standard advice is "enjoy your last summer before grad school" but I'm definitely going to be reviewing before classes start since I've been out of undergrad for two years and my school's economics major wasn't very rigorous. I've been working through a calculus book (Kline) to sharpen up basic skills, and was planning to do the same for linear algebra. I have Simon and Blume "Mathematics for Economists" that I bought at the recommendation of a professor and want to work through as well. Is this a good plan? Anyone have other recommendations?
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We made it guys! Congrats to everyone on getting through this hellish admissions season. PROFILE: Type of Undergrad: Low-ranked, small LAC, math and econ double major Undergrad GPA: 3.95 GRE: 167V/169Q/5.5W Math Courses: Calc I-III (A, A-, A), Prob and Stat I-II (A,A), Topology (A), Linear Algebra (A), Mathematical Modeling (A), Abstract Algebra (A), Differential Eq (A), Intro to Proofs (B+) Econ Courses: Intermediate macro and micro, environmental, econometrics, history of economic thought, game theory, political economy of Africa, senior research seminar, independent research course Other Courses: object oriented programming with Java Letters of Recommendation: From three econ professors, I think they were exceptionally strong (one of the few advantages of having gone to a small, low ranked school) Research Experience: two independent research projects for credit, part time work as undergrad RA to professor’s consulting practice, two years public sector research since undergrad Research Interests: labor, macro SOP: Normal RESULTS: Acceptances: University of Illinois Chicago, Tulane, Rice, Johns Hopkins (off of waitlist) Waitlists: UC Irvine and WUSTL (I removed myself from both of these), Pittsburgh (was rejected off the waitlist; they filled up quick) Rejections: Maryland, Minnesota, U Penn, Georgetown, Vanderbilt Pending: UNC (I assume a rejection but they're weird lol) Attending: Johns Hopkins Comments: Tough year. I applied two years ago, I got some offers but for personal reasons decided to work for two years before reapplying this cycle. Obviously I had no idea how tough that would be; last time I had an offer from Pittsburgh and a waitlist from Maryland, so not getting either this time around stung a little bit. On the other hand, I was rejected outright by Hopkins last time and got an offer this time. Overall, considering where I went to undergrad and other weaknesses in my background, I am very happy with my outcome and excited to start my program. What would you have done differently? I realized that I was interested in this path pretty late, and so there are things that I wish I’d done differently when I was younger, but I don’t think there’s anything I could have done differently in my applications.
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I'm also curious if in the results thread people can post whether their program was affected by COVID. I'm wondering overall how much smaller our cohort (across all programs) is going to be this year.
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Let's go ahead and get it going -- I think at this point a lot of people have committed somewhere.
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I did this at 4 schools and it was super helpful, also pay attention to how active they are over the last few years. I also, at the urging of one of the schools' professors, checked to see which professors had a top-5 publications. Just one data point, but every part matters.
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This is really true. I'm going to commit tomorrow, but the choice ended up being way more difficult than I thought and I'm not at all sure I've made the right decision.
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Just judging off of GC looks like there's some momentum. I imagine it's self reinforcing since people accepted off WL can decline their other offers, so it should only pick up steam from here. Good luck.
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I've been in touch with my WL schools. I think it's valuable to make sure they know you're still interested and sometimes you can get information about the size of the WL and likelihood of an offer. If you didn't hear back I wouldn't read too much into it, and I think at some point closer to the deadline it's completely fine to send a followup checking in again.
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UC Riverside vs University of Missouri (Columbia)
Wahasky replied to phdenthusiast's topic in PhD in Economics
You can learn a ton by talking with current grad students, who in my experience will be quite honest. Ask them how happy they are with the program, how supported they feel, what their interactions with faculty are like. If research fit and locational fit are equal, conversations with current students and some faculty you'd be interested in working with are probably the best way to decide. -
UC Riverside vs University of Missouri (Columbia)
Wahasky replied to phdenthusiast's topic in PhD in Economics
They are similarly ranked; it's possible someone on here will be able to give specific insight on programs but it's a pretty personal decision. Decide which lines up better with your research interests, has better placement, and is somewhere you'd like to live. Talk to professors and current graduate students to learn more and see how they like the program. If you ask professors at each program (as part of a larger conversation) what they think about your choice they will likely give you honest feedback. -
Has UMD sent out rejections? The only rejections I see on GC are for the Ag Econ program. I'd love for this to be true but given they're taking a super small class and already sent out WL I think no word from them is probably an IR.
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I'm there with JHU and WUSTL... think there's a lot of people in this position this year. Couple more weeks.