wakaba

If you're asking why there have been no acceptances, in fact MIT has already made some offers - I know of 2 from quite a few days ago. One of my friends was in fact waitlisted for funding, so I would assume they have made a substantial number of offers.

Re MIT Econ: - I'm not certain about the friday thing. based on 3 bits of information which all point to this being the case - 1 bit being a post on another forum. sorry for being vague. Certainly, as of tuesday, decisions were not yet final. Where better to start random rumors than a message board?

rumor and hearsay follows. NYU has notified of their funding offers... if you did not receive funding information it may be bad news. I heard that final decisions were made friday.

I am sympathetic to this viewpoint, and I will certainly factor this into my decision. On the other hand, how many econ students, especially those starting out with a bachelors, finish their phd with the same interests as when they started out? if my friends are a representative sample, about half. And of the remaining half, quite a few of them may have stuck with their interest simply out of path dependency, and may have enjoyed another topic just as much. So I don't know how much weight should be put into this factor, as opposed to choosing a school which is strong in many areas. It is certainly emotionally difficult to choose one school over another which has a closer fit to your interests.

Thanks for the kind words, but standardized test scores don't mean much, and I'm sure most of you agree. RE b-sch vs. econ dept: economics phd does give breadth and flexibility; finance phd at some schs may, however, have the advantage that they are more selective, which translates to positive signal on the job market, more fruitful collab amongst peers, more faculty attention, etc. Besides, of course, there are obvious advantages for someone who is only interested in finance. Opinions?

I'm a foreign math undergrad at a US school (some exposure to econ). I have decent test scores (GRE 800/780/5.5, Math 880) but I'm convinced that none of this mattered for any of my admits. Rather, I had the good fortune of having the profs that I worked for write recommendations that are incommensurate with my ability.

Congrats... FSU is a math finance center.

it came by mail... I live in cambridge. patience ... =P

I don't understand your question... I ranked the programs roughly based on difficulty in gaining admission. Chicago arguably has the strongest finance faculty, but it's PhD program isn't as selective as others. I didn't know they published JoF - but it probably won't factor that much in my decision. I'll choose programs on how well I seem to mesh with the profs, how receptive they are to my intended research, the quality of the student body, etc. As for whether top programs are the same, I have no idea. However, the point of my ranking was to differentiate them, however spuriously.

hmm - alright, I'll make a ranking in terms of how difficult it is to get in - since I don't have other significant criteria for ranking at this point. This, of course, is hearsay. In decreasing order of difficulty: Stanford Finance MIT Finance (pending) Harvard Econ (full funding - H makes many unfunded offers) Harvard Business Econ Princeton Econ Chicago Finance CMU Math Finance (pending) Stanford Econ Wharton Finance Cornell ORIE As for my rejects, I would place NYU Math on top above Stanford Finance, and MIT Econ between Stanford Finance and MIT finance.

Not at this point. I'll have to make some visits before my preferences become clearer.

A gratituous update follows. Accepts: Stanford Finance Chicago Finance Wharton Finance UCLA Finance Harvard Business Econ Harvard Econ Princeton Econ Stanford Econ Cornell Ops Research Rejects: MIT Econ NYU Math (no funding) Pending: CMU Math Finance MIT Sloan Finance Berkeley Finance

Thanks for the kind words, everyone. I have been really lucky for this round of applications.

cornell OR has made offers.

got email from courant saying "you won't get funding and you haven't even been admitted yet."