cliff23

d'oh! I'm sorry, you are correct. My eyes skipped over that and I saw that you only had a stat class taking advantage of linear algebra, which is essential to the 1st year.... My fault :) this changes your entire profile and makes you much more attractive as an applicant IMO!

I think you have a great shot at ranked 15-20 schools right now, maybe a little bit higher. If you take a year off, do some math classes (analysis, diffeq, and definitely a formal linear algebra class) I think you'll do really well at the top10. I think your GRE is on the low side for top5, but you should only consider retaking if you are 100% sure you can do better than 780 (V and A scores are fine). I think what really makes you stand out is all your research experience - that's definitely something that most domestic applicants do not have, or at least not to the degree to which you seem to. I think I would take the year off and do the math classes (I think any DC school other than UDC would be okay.. GWU, Georgetown, AU, CUA, GMU, UMD... I would choose UMD, Georgetown or GWU to be honest), you'll do very well. If you do not take a year off, be sure to emphasize that linear algebra was included in the other courses you took - without any exposure to lin alg your application will be DOA I think. Good luck!

Where is your citizenship, and how important is funding? LSE funding will be tough if you are not an EU citizen. MIT is difficult too (they tend to bias toward NSF winners I think, which is available only to US citizens), and the UC system is experiencing funding woes as usual. At BU I believe it's a very competitive atmosphere to win the very limited funding for grad students, most awards are made to second-years....

I was honest. Where space was limited, I put peer departments in the same league as the one whose application it was. I too disliked this question - it must be galling for a school to know they're your safety.

I think it's bourne out by the experience of the majority of people I've seen posting online. There are a number of factors that go into admissions (GRE, GPA, SOP, LOR, &c.) and the goal is obviously to maximize them all. If you required a robust empirical study for everything that was suggested, nobody would ever be able to communicate anything. But I think it's sound advice to say "790Q, 250V, retake; 790Q, 600V, hold". But then it might not be sound advice to listen to me :)

What field are you applying for? I think if you are an international student your first score was more than fine and you didn't need to bother taking it again. If you are a domestic student it's on the low side, but not detrimentally so I think (unless you are applying for a writing-intensive discipline, in which case you need to get it way up probably).

You seem to have a very good masters GPA... try to get your GRE verbal up quite a bit, an your quant score up to around 770+ and i think you have a shot at your target range of schools. good luck!

I think if you take multiv. calc and linear algebra and get good grades in them (hopefully A's) you will definitely get into some of those programs. Mayybe not LSE and UCL, but you'll be good to go, I think, for at least BU and Duke, probably NYU too, and maybe some of the other international programs (I don't know much about them I'm afraid). I would be sure to take at least calc 3 and linalg though. Most schools I know of that offer masters in econ use them more as cash cows, so the admissions standards are less exacting, which is why I think you'd be a shoe-in with those math courses under your belt. Best luck!

Is that ug from an Asian uni as well? If so, I'd say pretty good assuming GRE Q score of 790-800. Research passion and experience is a huge, huge plus, and if you've got something published, that's great. Best luck!

This is especially true as far as economics goes. But a fair question nonetheless :)

I've heard Chicago and Penn are pretty bad as far as this goes, from my professors.

From what I gather..... Chicago has a reputation for enrolling too many grad students and weeding a large number of them out. It's a very high-stress, dog-eat-dog atmosphere, and more monolithic ideologically than the other schools. Harvard has a reputation for buying up professors from other schools, and for having a diversity in viewpoints as far as politics goes. MIT has a reputation for having a very small program where they lavish attention on the grad students. Yale is also a very warm, welcoming department; during the open house I felt like they really, really wanted me to come. I've heard Berkeley personalities tend to be quirky and interesting. Um.. it's not much, but those are the impressions I have off the top of my head.

My opinion is that if you can get your GRE Q score up another 30 points, you're a sure shot for some of the rear top20 programs and with luck you may get into some quite a deal better. Best luck!

UConn is in fact a state university. I suppose sometimes private universities are much better funded than state universities, so if funding is a big issue, it probably pays to apply mostly to private unis.

I never thought I'd be saying this, but I think the verbal score may be the achilles' heel of your profile. Usually it doesn't matter, but you are an American student and that is a very low score for an American. I think you should consider retaking it, but only if you're sure you won't do worse on the math section than 790 (that would do you in)... it's a risk, but it might be worth taking. Beyond that, I think you can apply to more schools in the 5-20 range, you will probably be able to get offers from at least a few. For Microtheory Stanford may be best. For metrics, definitely apply to UC San Diego and Yale, both of which may be within your reach. Best of luck!