EconPadawanBR

Well, I didn't get anything, so that's possibly a good sign. Have you received anything already? On the other hand, I have been keeping in touch with the department quite a lot recently, and it would have been comical if they asked about my interest in NYU after I had signaled to them a few times that they are my first option. So, if someone is in the same boat as me, everything might still be fine.

@waiting have you emailed them? They rejected me from the WL a few weeks ago when I asked for updates. Good luck For the NYU WL folks, do you know anyone who have already received a decision from the WL? April 15th is right around the corner...

My two cents: 1st: Move fast. Stanford, for example, already decided to reduce their waitlist based on a higher-than-expected projected yield rate (or at least they claim that's the reason). 2nd: Some departments rank the waitlist explicitly, and they might tell you that if you ask. Others, rank it by field, nationality, sex, etc, but do not explicitly say they rank it. However, movements on the waitlist are mostly out of your control. It depends more on who Harvard/MIT decided to accept that year and if you would be a reasonable replacement for them. 3rd: Yeah, go to the visit day if possible. Much better to talk for 30 min to different profs that show up in the conference, than to have a 15-minute meeting via Zoom with 2 profs. Good news to you: If your vaccine is recognized by the UN, you only need two doses of it, it does not matter if it is one of the ones distributed in the US. (For example, Brazilian students can come to the US with two doses of Coronavac. The Oxford vaccine would also work).

They are not trolls, Yale has been calling up people this afternoon.

This week has been surprisingly quiet so far. Either we will get a lot of results tomorrow, or many schools decided to delay releasing their decisions compared to last year.

I also didn't get the email yesterday: waitlisted!! Such a delightful experience. Congratulations for all of you that were accepted!

I applied to 12 out of the top 15 programs and a few business schools here and there. I went with the very risky approach and certainly do not recommend it to everyone, but that was what made more sense given my future goals. Also, if you are curious from my previous posts, I decided that the RA path is not for me, so I will spend the next few months trying to find a job at a bank in case the Ph.D. route does not work. What about you?

Hey Guys! I just finished my last application and I am happy that I did everything I could and that it is now out of my control. Just here to wish you all good luck! Whatever happens next, everyone should already be proud of the effort put into this process over the years! 😄

Also, does anyone know where the "golden rule of the 90%" comes from? From all I know, it appears to be coming from the NYU FAQ website. However, it is pretty clear to me what they mean from that. From https://as.nyu.edu/content/nyu-as/as/departments/econ/graduate/phd/faqs.html:

Sure, you are totally right - at some point it starts to get bad. My argument was completely directed to people in that grey area where a couple of questions separate them from their desired score. If you are really at that point that you need to take the GRE again, you will know (usually). Also, of course, if you are applying to a school that explicitly sets a minimum, PLEASE respect it.

It is good that you are not feeling bad - you shouldn't. I understand @tutonic 's comment, but really, do not stress too much about this. Believe that the admission officers are sensible people and that they know the true importance of a high school math test (zero to none). They all say exactly that in their websites, and it does not seem productive to believe otherwise. Good luck in this cycle!

If it is any consolation, I am in the same situation as you but I am quite relaxed right now. The GRE is extremely dull and it should almost not count. I took 3 practice tests (official/Princeton) and scored 169/170Q and below 160V in all of them. In the real test, I got 167Q and 168V. Why? Because the GRE does not measure anything useful. I am relaxed because: 1- the top of the top does not require the GRE (they realized that it is useless), so you can automatically save 30 bucks not sending your score to them (no possible score would actually help your application). 2- For the selective group of schools that require the GRE and you might think that they may automatically drop your application (Princeton, Columbia, Yale, etc.), they all say in their website that they evaluate applications without automatically discarding students because of the GRE. Of course, if you have a very low GRE (say, 162/163), that's not great. But the distance between 167 (which ranges from 89 to 92 percentile) and 168 is not big enough to change anything. 3- If my reasoning above is wrong and in fact there are schools ready to discard otherwise stellar profiles because of a high school math test, even if they got As on several advanced undergraduate math courses, that department has severe problems in their Grad Program Admission committee. Not only they have problematic measures of evaluating students - they are also lying when they say they do not discard applicants. Would it be good to go there? Go get stressed by your grades, letters of recommendations or Statement of Purpose. Those things can actually affect your outcome meaningfully.

Well, I will be applying during this Fall, so take my advice with a grain of salt. I would say that more math is always good, but for sure there is a decreasing marginal return effect and (apparently) you are at the point where more classes and As shouldn't have any significant effect on your outcomes. However, if you enjoy math and have already fulfilled all the requirements to be a competitive candidate (great GRE, Toefl, 3 letters of recommendation, etc...), taking those classes should be a no-brainer. Go have fun and learn things you like!

Thanks for the amazing inputs, everybody. They helped me a lot to direct my thoughts to some questions I wasn't considering very much.

I am using "top 5" as a vague catchphrase to refer to the best schools in the US, not as a specific set of 5 schools. Also, if I am preparing for those schools, I presume I am also becoming a good candidate to awesome programs like Columbia, UPenn, etc, so I might as well do that.

@Zubrus, l beg to disagree. I can name 5 students from the last 3 years in my school that went directly from undergraduate to top programs (1 to MIT, 2 to Stanford, 1 to Berkeley and 1 to Chicago). I study at a top 15 US News, so I imagine better programs have even better results. @yabu00 that's very good. I know a lot of people that have trouble with their dissertation during their PhDs, so that very good to know. Another question: do you guys think it makes sense to apply to grad schools during your senior year if you think you might have a shoot. I understand if you make the case that the first cycle rejections might serve as bad signals for a second cycle of applications, but its very tempting to apply in UG and see how it goes

Thanks for sharing your experience and knowledge, everyone. I understand your arguments and I suppose you are right that the PI would have way more things to say after 1.5 years than after a semester. On the other hand, I had never planned to work as a RA after college. Some students from my undergrad have been able to go directly to great PhDs after college, and I have been trying to emulate their footsteps. I have been taking the right classes and got good grades on them, and I also have done extensive research with two experienced professors that really like my job. However, there are some flaws in my profile as well, most noticeably: my third letter writer won't know me much besides from a PhD Metrics class, and I got an A- in PhD Micro. So, I do not know how competitive I will be for very competitive schools (I entered my profile in a previous post if you want to check it). I am at the end of my junior year and I think I will still apply to grad schools at the end of the year. However, if I do not get an acceptance and end up going to an RA job, I do not see a problem in going for a second year if I am enjoying my routine, the city and the life as an RA. But it would be nice to start the RA job committed to work only one year and then decide later if a second year makes sense. And of course, it would be nice that, if an I decide to work for one year, the one year would be worth the investment and would impact my grad applications positively.

Hi guys, Quick question: do you guys think there is a huge marginal difference between RAing for one year after college instead of 2? I saw that most RA job descriptions mention that they prefer if the applicant is available to RA for 2 years, but it seems like too much time. Will it impact my grad school admissions a lot if I decide that I only want to RA for a year? (think about top 5 admissions) By RAing for one year, I mean starting during the summer, applying during the winter, and leaving the job when the grad program starts the other year.

First time poster, long time reader here. I am a junior and an international student at a top 15 undergrad program in the US (top 50 econ), and I started to prepare myself to apply to grad programs relatively early, and once I wanted to be competitive at the very top schools, I planned to have taken multiple Grad level courses by the time I apply in my senior year. Well, I had my final exam for Grad Micro I today and I ended up making a series of errors due to lack of sleep and not knowing when to take the hit and move on to the next question (no excuses, I could have prepared earlier/better, my fault) that dropped my course grade from 97% to 92% (A-) So, from what I have read here, an A- in Grad Micro I is not the end of the world (even though I am feeling like it is today), but it does not help me either. First, how affected were my chances at a Top 5 program? Is an A- something I need to make up for, or is it something that will simply not stand out and I need to work on other things? Also, I am still a junior, so I have 1 year until I apply. I was planning to take 5/6 math courses next Spring, and then take Grad Metrics/Macro + Senior thesis during the Fall of my senior year, but now I might consider taking Micro Theory II next Spring to make up for the A-. Any ideas on that? I will leave my standard profile below. Any thoughts/advice you can give me will be appreciated. PROFILE Type of Undergrad: US News Top 15 - Math and Econ Major Undergrad GPA: 3.93 GRE: N/A Math Courses: Calculus (I,II,III), Linear Algebra, ODE, Intro to Math Reasoning (A-), Scientific Computing, Real Analysis, Operations Research, Intro to Probability. All A unless indicated otherwise I was planning to take next semester: Numerical Analysis, Complex Variables, Math Methods in Fin Econ, Topology, Stochastic Modeling, Algebra (can cut one or two if useless) Econ Courses: Intro to Micro/Macro, Intermediate Micro/Macro, Stats for Econ, Metrics, Monetary Theory, PhD Micro Theory I (A-) All A unless indicated otherwise Letters of Recommendation: Still a little bit unclear, but I am currently doing separate research for 2 Full-time Professors both for 1 year. Started talking about a senior thesis with another professor recently. Research Experience: RA for the above professors for 2 semesters and 2 summers. Teaching Experience: Math Grader if it counts