econquestion

ahududu, I am applying this cycle so no time to take those classes now. Supposing I get rejected basically everywhere and I apply again, I'd definitely take an RA sequence. No doubt, big mistake of mine. Suppose I get into a schooled ranked 25-30 and I get rejected from this T5 school, but the professor and I have a good relationship. Is it all likely he'd offer the chance for me to be an RA not in the PhD program as a possible stepping stone to a PhD program? And would it be wise to take that?

Thank you for the feedback! Last we spoke, my advisor told to do (3) in T10 (their alma matters), (3) in T20, and (5) in T25-T30. I had a feeling my record was not T10 material either. Though I feel somewhat obligated to apply to one T10 school because my advisor -- without me requesting this -- set me up to talk with a professor there as we have similar research interests and he's looking for an RA who knows machine learning. That professor said he'd be interested in working together, but re-iterated that ofc it's a whole admission committee decision. Though I can likely forget the other two T10. So maybe for the other schools a more realistic balance is to shift the T15-T20 to be more in the range of T25-T35? EDIT: I did take Advanced Econometrics and Macroeconomic Theory actually. But I think your point about not being T10 still stands so that does not change much.

UNDERGRAD School: Top 30 LAC, 3.98 GPA Major: Mathematical Economics (Highest Honors), Concentration in Statistics, Phi Beta Kappa Math Courses: Calculus I (A-), Calculus II (A-), Calculus III (A), Linear Algebra (A-), Probability Theory (A), Mathematical Statistics (A), Mathematical Modeling (A), Advanced Econometrics (A) Econ courses: I got all As/A- except for in Intermediate Microeconomics, where I got a B+. This is actually very bad because my interest is in micro Research Experience: Was an econ RA for 2 years as an undergrad, was also a psychology RA, did honors economics thesis (graduated with highest honors), got small grant for independent research, 1 peer-reviewed publication (not econ-related, it was oddly a CS thing) LORs: 2 of them very very strong, 1 will be good but not mind-blowing. All profs went to Top 10 schools. But they are not super famous in their field. Research Interests: Behavioral Economics / Applied Micro POST GRAD Worked as a data scientist for 1 year. This was not directly related to economics, but I actually did a fair bit of A/B testing, experimental design, and forecasting. So it is somewhat related to econometrics. And the industry that it was in (ad-tech) is somewhat related to behavioral economics, so it fits with my interest Where should I be looking to apply? I am applying to a three (3) T10 (just the ones my recommenders knew somebody at, vouched for me) and then three (3) T20 and five (5) T30. Is this too ambitious? EDIT: Included numerical breakdown of schools in ranges