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Which one, Numerical Analysis or Complex Analysis, would be more useful for Econ PhD admissions? I don't really understand the applications to Economics of either one... can someone fill me in?

The Rady School of Management (UC San Diego) is seeking applicants to the fully funded PhD program in Management, Economics and Strategy concentration. Students will have the opportunity to work on exciting research in behavioral, health, and education economics field experiments, and work closely with faculty thanks to the small student : faculty ratio. This is a small but growing program that affords close mentoring from great faculty (including Uri Gneezy, Marta Serra, Sally Sadoff, and Anya Samek) and access to the resources of both the business school and the Economics department. UCSD has a vibrant research community and San Diego is a beautiful place to live. Students can learn more and apply here (deadline is Jan 5): https://apply.grad.ucsd.edu/departments/rady-school-of-management#management-rs79

Hey all, I am currently a junior at a moderate level United States research school. I am studying math with a minor in economics, will have far more classes than required but am avoiding the business school pre-reqs of a double major. I am trying to start formulating a plan for how to boost my application to graduate school or pre grad school programs next fall. Here are my current school stats and relevant experience. GPA: 4.0 (80 credit hours) Relevant Courses: econometrics, intermediate micro/macro (planned), law and economics, natural resource economics. Calc 1-3, Intro diff eq, Linear Algebra, probability, stats (planned), advanced cal. Relevant research experience: Working paper on terrorism that I will be a co-author on. Started undergraduate research on energy regulations in the US. From this and my classes, I already have rec letter writers. Relevant job experience: Currently interning in a think tank out of DC where I am working on terrorism, energy, and carbon tariffs. GRE: I plan to take the GRE next spring and additionally next summer, shooting for a 165 quant or higher. I am wanting to go to graduate school somewhere that has energy and environmental economics as a top option, with preferably some decent connections in the public policy, government sector. Any advice on schools I should be looking at or things to do to boost my application are greatly appreciated.

Hello all, I am beginning to think / prepare to apply to graduate programs this cycle. I think that I have a profile with a decent chance of admit for a top ten school (high grades in econ & math at a T15 undergrad, full time research assistant for 2 years, etc.) However, I am having trouble choosing my third LOR writer. Given that the other two letters will come from senior, well-published professors, which should I choose between: (1) A senior lecturer at the T15 undergraduate school who helped advise my thesis and regularly advises honors econ students; or (2) An associate professor at a relatively unknown university I RAed for a few years ago (have not kept close contact) who publishes frequently in top field journals with a few articles in general interest journals. My prior is that both letters would be of similar quality--strong but not excellent. Additionally, both potential recommenders received their PhDs from top five programs. I guess my main question is how disadvantageous is it to have a recommendation from a senior lecturer compared to a professor? Would that outweigh the lecturer being in a better position to make relative comparisons between me and other top students at my undergrad?

From the 2020, AEA Papers and Proceedings, p. 641 PhD Applications 2019-2020, 71 institutions [TABLE=width: 500] [TR] [TD]Applications[/TD] [TD]Offers of admission[/TD] [TD]Acceptances[/TD] [TD]New students enrolled[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]19,039[/TD] [TD]3,266[/TD] [TD]1,070[/TD] [TD]1,020[/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE]

I am currently an RA at a policy institution and am considering doing a second RA role. Does not having taken Real Analysis significantly harm RA applications (for university based positions)?

I know that a lot of people work as an RA for 2 years before they apply for PhD programs. How common is it for people to have co-author and have a top-3 Finance publication while working as an RA? Is this a realistic expectation to have? And conditional on having such a publication, how much does it help with the applications?

Hello! Am new to the forum. Looking at a PhD application for 2020. I have read all the advice about getting academic not professional LORs, but I am a real outlier case and trying to work out what to do for the best. Advice welcome! For context the PhD will not be in economics but a more general management field. Options: 1. My undergrad economics professor. Well published in his field. Really, really liked me and we have stayed loosely in touch even though it was 15 years ago (!). I graduated top of my (large) class from an Ivy-type school so I think this one should work (though it will be very, very old!) 2. My graduate tutor in asset pricing. This was over ten years ago. It was a MSc in Economics from a top school. Problem is he would have absolutely no idea who I am. We never spoke beyond maybe my asking a couple of questions in class (all the actual teaching was done by PhD students). I could send him my masters thesis on asset pricing and my transcript (I was #1 in the year in all my papers so the grades are great). But he would be writing it totally and utterly blind. He is a published person in some good Econ journals but not super “eminent”. My worry is this reference would add basically nothing to my transcript which they would have anyway. 3. A professional reference. I have a successful 10+ year career in a global “name” company that is related to my field but obviously isn’t actually in research. I would have a large choice of referees including “impressive” names in the world of business but of course they would be practitioners. My company will be sad to lose me to academia and these references would be great and very personal, but wouldn’t speak to research ability. Unfortunately none of the prime candidates to write the reference would have PhDs (they would all be MBAs) If I have to provide 3 then it has to be all 3, but my “dream school” only asks for 2 so I need to choose. What would you do? Am asking well in advance as whoever I ask will need appropriate “warming up”! I am looking at top 10 schools so I realise I can’t afford to get this “wrong”. I know I have got a fight ahead of me! Thanks.

Okay, I'm letting my anxiety get the best of me because I've now applied to all 17 programs I'm going to apply to and I know that nothing here is going to make a difference... but I'm basically thinking about my prospects non stop, so I want to see what this community thinks my chances are. PROFILE: I am a senior in my undergrad at a pretty small and, to be honest, kind of mediocre liberal arts school. I am wanting to go into a PhD Econ program in fall 2019. Type of Undergrad: Dual major in mathematics and economics Undergrad GPA: 3.94 overall, 4.0 in economics, ~3.9 in mathematics GRE: Q 169, V 167, A 5.5 (96th %, 98th%, 98th %) Math Courses: Calc I (A), Calc II (A-), Calc III (A), Intro to Proofs/Number Theory (B), Diff Eq (A), Probability and Statistics I (A), Probability and Statistics II (A), currently in linear algebra (A), mathematical modeling (A), and abstract algebra (A) and I will be taking real analysis this spring. I wish I had been able to do RA before, but given my schools size and being a double major it wasn't possible. Luckily, one of my letter writers is teaching the RA course and he said he is going to mention it in the letter (and that he expects me to do well -- me and him are close and I've done well in three classes with him) Econ Courses: Intermediate Micro (A), Intermediate Macro (A), Econometrics (A), Game Theory (A), Environmental Econ (A), currently in History of Economic Thought (A) and doing my senior seminar capstone project. Other Courses: Just standard general eds (all of which I have gotten As in) Letters of Recommendation: The first is from the chair of the econ department, who has been my adviser and also my boss (I work for his consulting practice). He (completely on his own) showed me the letter he wrote, and I was stunned at how complimentary it is about my character, work ethic, academic ability, and research skills. He places me in top 3 students he's taught over his 35 years. Second letter is from my thesis adviser; I've been working on this project with him for months before the seminar even began, I am doing another research project with him next semester that we've been planning out, and I think he's writing a good letter for me. Third is from a math professor (I thought it would be good to have one math professor in the mix) who I am currently taking my third class from. I've gotten As in all of these, and I go see him a lot outside of class to talk about things, and I know he's writing me a really good letter that places me in the top of the classes he's taught. Research Experience: No academic research jobs, or published papers -- one of the drawbacks of having gone to a small school is there really aren't RA opportunities. But, I have written several papers on the Greek debt crisis and the structure of the eurozone (intermediate macro, game theory, and now in my seminar) and I intend to research similar topics going forward so I think all those tell a research "story." I also have two years of experience as a research assistant for my professor's economic consulting practice-- it's not academic research, I know, but better than nothing. Teaching Experience: I just started a job teaching standardized test prep classes, but I'm not sure that really counts for anything. None other than that. Again, no TAing opportunities at my school. Research Interests: monetary economics, macroeconomics, debt crises and currency unions SOP: Vetted by several professors, I feel confident in it. I spell out the research I've done, am doing for my seminar, and an independent research project (for course credit) I am undertaking next semester, and outline some directions I want to go in grad school. I feel good about it. Other: I've gotten mixed advice on my prospects. I've got some things very much going for me: GRE scores, GPA, strong letters of recommendation, a strong math background, and a good SOP. That said, my current school is not well known or highly ranked. I also have a nontraditional academic history-- I spent a year in college after I graduated high school, did well but not stellar, and left (in good standing) for personal reasons. I worked for two years before deciding I wanted to go to school and end up in a PhD program, which is how I got to where I am now. I'm hoping schools can see that whole story, and my one professor talks about it in his LOR, but I know at some schools they might not like that. I tried to apply to a safe range of schools. Three of them I know I will almost definitely get rejected, but I thought "why not": Stanford, Columbia, and Harvard. Another batch are only slightly less competitive: Brown, U of Wisconsin, U of Michigan, U of Minnesota, Johns Hopkins, UT Austin, Maryland. I then applied to some that seemed a little bit safer: USC, University of Pittsburgh, University of Oregon, University of Washington, University of Illinois at Chicago, Stony Brook, and Tulane. Sorry if this is too long, but I would really really love anyone's input. What do you think? Will I get in with funding *somewhere*? EDIT: Because my school is small, we haven't sent a ton of people to econ PhD programs so the sample size is small. But, students have in the past gone on to funded programs at University of Oregon, University of Maryland, University of Virginia, University of Arizona. SECOND EDIT: Took of all the bold typeface to make this more readable :)

Hi all, I took the GRE in June, and selected 4 schools after the exam as my free score recipients (obviously, this was before the applications for this cycle opened). If I'm beginning to submit my applications to schools now, will I need to request to send the scores again, or will the scores sent in the summer be OK? Best, pulsars

Hello! I'm looking for advice on what kinds of programs to apply to given the interdisciplinary nature of my interests: I'm interested in how we can use game theory & mechanism design to augment other areas, like machine reasoning and multiagent modeling Methods I am enthusiastic about: - machine learning - algorithm analysis - simulation techniques Potential application areas: - negotiations, conflict resolution - corporate strategy and M&A I've thought about business PhD programs in economics, operations management, and management so far. What do you guys think? Would love any input.

Hello! Hoping to get suggestions on what types of PhD programs in business to apply to given that... I'm interested in the following application areas: negotiations, M&A, corporate strategy However, I'm specifically interested in applying alternative/rigorous quantitative approaches to the areas, such as: machine & deep learning simulation game theory & mechanism design algorithm & complexity analysis With these interests, where should I apply? A business Econ PhD program, Operations, Management? On the one hand I'm afraid the focus in management will be too qualitative, and operations too abstract or specific to supply-chain type problems (also not confident I have the background for it), and also not sure if this falls under the scope of economics... If it helps, my background is in mathematical economics and I have industry experience in risk analytics & modeling. Please let me know what you think!

Can GRE scores be sent after a GRE exam even when the MS applications have closed?

Undergrad Institution: University of Failureville - Loser City Satellite Campus (economics program? unknown, you haven't heard of it) Major: Economics and Math (Applied Statistics) Overall GPA: 3.8 Economics GPA: 3.9 Math GPA: 4.0 Math Courses: Calc Series, Linear Algebra, Differential Equations, Probability Theory, Discrete Math, Number Theory, Mathematical Statistics (Spring 2018), Stochastic Processes (Spring 2018), Intro to Analysis (Spring 2018) Statistics Courses: Statistical Learning (graduate-level) Economics Courses: Intermediate Macro/Micro, Econometrics, Industrial Organization, Labor, Money and Banking, Development, International Economics, Letter of Recommendation: I've got them and they're solid enough to land me interviews for institutions. Other Info: I am an "underrepresented minority". GRE: 163 Q, 167 V (will retake and I am not worried about this tbh) I don't have a lot of money to spam applications - in fact, I will likely have to ration myself to three or four master's applications. I want to apply to, at bare minimum, a safety, a reach and one that's somewhere in between. To maximize my odds, I will be applying to Duke and Tufts - I need the URM status to work in my favor - but I'm unsure if I have even have a shot at both. I come here because I want to have a more solid appreciation for which MA programs are good and relatively easy to get into. Unfortunately, I cannot afford to even bother applying to Canadian programs that are the U of T, otherwise I'd probably spam McGill, UBC etc. Spain is very attractive to me (CEMFI, Carlos III, PF) but I can't see myself swinging these programs nor Bocconi. I could go and on but my point, really, is as follows: I am not a strong applicant but I don't think I'm weak enough for my application to be tossed out (maybe I am though?). If I had an arbitrarily large sum of money, I'd spam applications to every half-decent MA program in the world. I'm in the unfortunate position of not being able to do this and, thus, need to have a good sense of my odds at MA programs so I can plan accordingly. Unfortunately, my awareness/understanding of MA programs in Europe is limited - I can rattle off names but I have no sense of how competitive they are and I don't know of lesser ranked but still solid ones. Let me know if you have suggestions!

Dear Community, I've been a lurker for quite a while (May), and feel that it is a good time to ask you all for your suggestions and advice on my applications. I will first put down some of my profile stats: I am coming from a large state school (The department has not placed anyone in an economics grad program) GRE: 166 Q, 161 V, 5.5 A Major/GPA: BA Economics, Math minor, 3.94 GPA / 4.0 Econ GPA Economics classes (all A's): Intermediate Micro/Macro Analysis, Business Cycles and Forecasting, International Economics, Money and Banking, Public Finance, Advanced Economic Seminar, Applied Econometrics, Math Fundamentals for Economists, Development of Economic Thought, Financial Economics Math classes (All A's): Calc I-III, Linear Algebra, Advanced Calc 1, Differential Equations, Statistics [Quick aside, I have the chance to take Numerical Analysis, Probability, or Statistical Techniques for Social Sciences for my last semester. Not sure which to take] LOR: Two graduates (2010/2012) from Cornell (older, international professors), both with whom I have taken classes and have been personally working with me on getting my applications ready and keep my math up. One of them actually teaches the math camp course at an Ivy and has close ties to faculty still. The other LOR I am deciding between the chair of the department with whom I began a chapter of Omicron Delta Epislon and have taken classes with, or an Economist at a Fortune 100 Financial Services company (Risk Management department) with over a decade of experience with the New York Fed and being professor at CUNY (he himself went to Fordham) Experience: Other/Concerns: I know I have a relatively weak profile compared to others, and I will appreciate being given advice to me straight up as I have seen you guys been. Truth is, I am a DACA recipient and am extremely lucky to have gone to college*. A few months after high school, I was kicked out of my home for financial reasons and worked to pay for community college for a bit, and, after months of grinding and sending applications to all of my state's schools for aid, I was granted a full scholarship due to my strong high school and community college profile. Due to the limited resources of my school and me working full time still, I have not had any research assistant opportunities, although I am doing some light research work with a professor in my department. For what it is worth, and I assume it is not much, I have management, industry research, and extensive tutoring experience. I have wanted to go for a PhD for a long time, in part, to research the kind of behavioral constraints that an immigration program like DACA (which has been likened to being told, "you are a person, but not really") has on people, and how constraints like this affect other types of economic players and the nature (rational/irrational) of their decisions. I have other research interests, of course, but this is my main drive that keeps me going. I am hungry for education and I want to further understand this thing we call life. Schools I am currently working on their applications: Cornell, Iowa State, Fordham, CUNY, UC Boulder, U. Southern California, Clemson, UMass Amherst. The two professors from Cornell have been encouraging to apply to higher but I simply do not see how I can get in, and the cost of these applications is of growing concern for me. I would love any and all sort of comments and suggestions. Thank you, once again, and good luck to the rest of the applicants for this year! It is extremely inspiring hearing about other high achieving academics in this field. * For anyone who has not had a chance to learn or hear about what this is, DACA is a deferred action executive order from President Obama given in 2012 that allowed undocumented immigrants brought as children to the United States to work legally, go to school at in state tuition rates (in some states), and obtain driver's licenses. It does not qualify the recipients from getting federal aid for school or loans. This came full circle after I could not qualify for loans I needed in order to go to Columbia for my undergrad.

Hello Urch Community! This is my first time posting here, so bear with me if I flout some rules. Following is my profile and I am currently in the process of applying to PhD programs in economics. I have applied to a few universities already but I need tips on where else I can apply (and soon!) PROFILE: Type of Undergrad: Applied mathematics and economics at top 5 U.S. University Undergrad GPA: 3.563 overall, 3.63 in applied math Type of Grad: London School of Economics M.Sc. Econometrics and Mathematical Economics Grad GPA: Not available yet GRE: 168Q 167V 5.0A Math Courses: All the basic stuff: real analysis, linear algebra, probability theory, discrete topology, advanced complex algebra, differential equations Econ Courses: intermediate micro and macro, political economics, advanced game theory, public economics, macroeconomic finance Letters of Recommendation: One Nobel Laureate I did research for (he thanked me in his book), three other professors of economics (all MIT or Harvard PhDs, well established, one most cited in his field), and one math lecturer with whom I took real analysis and discrete topology Research Experience: UG thesis (received a bad grade), several short research projects with professors, two research-focused classes Teaching Experience: taught introductory calculus to freshmen/ sophomores Research Interests: labor, urban, political economy SOP: standard, some description of past research experience and future plans Weaknesses: Horrible undergraduate grades, though As in all math courses I am currently applying to the following: Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Yale, Stanford, Stanford GSB, Chicago, Northwestern, UCLA, Berkeley, UPenn Where else should I apply considering my bad grades? Do I even stand a chance at these/ should I be looking at universities ranked much lower? I really, really need a response by tomorrow so I can send recommendation requests to professors. Thank you so much, you guys!

I'm gearing up to begin the application process during the summer, and I was wondering if I should be concerned about my grade in Calculus 3 (multivariate). I struggled generally that semester and ended up with a C+ in that class. I'm applying to schools as high ranked as U Michigan and LSE, and I wonder if they will see that C as a big drawback. I have an A in real analysis and am taking linear algebra and differential equations in the fall. My economics GPA is sparkling, at a top-75 US undergraduate school, and I have research experience and I will be writing a senior thesis. If I score high on the quantitative GRE, will that resume be solid even with the glaring C? Thank you for any advice and opinions.

[h=1]LETTER WRITING: 2 JOB APPLICATIONS A WEEK[/h][h=2]FOR 50 YEARS---JOB HUNTING 1957-2007[/h] The 3600 word statement which follows describes my transition from employment and the job-hunting process which took place from 1957 to 2007 to retirement and the pursuit of a leisure life devoted to writing in the years 1999 to 2011(the present). The years 1999 to 2007 marked the years of transition. During these years I also gave up PT work and most casual-volunteer work. The information and details in my resume, a resume I no longer need or use in any direct sense in the job-hunting world after fifty years of use, but which I occasionally post on the internet for a range of purposes, should help anyone wanting to know something about my personal and professional background, my writing and my life. This resume is useful now, in many other contexts, as some residue, some leftover, but not to assess my suitability for some advertised or unadvertised employment position. This resume could be useful for some readers in cyberspace to assess the relevance of some statements I make on the internet, statements on a wide variety of topics at a wide variety of internet sites. If I feel there is a need for readers to have some idea of my background, my credentials and my experience; if I feel that it would be useful for them to have a personal context for my remarks at an internet site, I post that resume. But I do not post that resume here. This post, this essay, for it is a sort of essay or article, is a statement, an overview of my job application life. This overview may be of value to those who have to run-the-gauntlet in the job-hunting world, and it is a gauntlet for millions of people. Let there be no mistake about that. My intention is to be of encouragement; to help those who read this statement become more persistent, more optimistic about their own position, a position which is often a bleak one, in a bleak house. I never apply for jobs anymore, although I have registered at several internet sites whose role is, among other things, to help people get jobs. Perhaps this act of registration at such sites on the world-wide-web is an act in which I engage out of some sense of nostalgia, out of habit, out of an inability to stop applying for jobs after five decades of persistent and strenuous efforts in that direction. These decades of efforts were aimed at obtaining jobs, better jobs, jobs more suited to my talents, jobs that paid better, jobs that freed me from impossible situations which I had become involved with, some work-scene in which I was ensconced--along the road of life. I stopped applying for full-time jobs, as I say, in September 2007 and part-time ones in December 2003. I also disengaged myself from most volunteer or casual work six years ago in 2005 so that I could occupy myself as: an independent scholar, a writer, a poet, a journalist, a publisher, indeed, what some might call a man of leisure in the Greek tradition. At the age of 67, then, and on two old-age pensions, one from Canada where I worked from 1961 to 1971 and an Australian pension, I am in one of the formal conditions, one of the many definitions, of old age. I am now in the middle years(65-75) of late adulthood(60-80), as one model that the human development theorists in the field of psychology use to define this period in the lifespan. I have become self-employed in the many roles I outlined above. None of these roles pay any money, although I did receive royalties for my books at one internet site. The royalties were for six years of the sale of one of my books at that site. I received a cheque for $1.49. Years ago, back in the 1970s if I recall correctly, I could have bought one of those chocolate frogs for, at the time and again if I recall correctly, 25 cents. But at 50 cents, their current price, this money, these royalties, only allow me to buy one frog every two years. I have gradually come to this current, some would say, penurious role in the years after I left full-time employment in 1999, more than a decade ago. Not being occupied with earning a living and giving myself to 60 hours a week on average in a job as was the case in the three decades from 1969 to 1999; and not being occupied with giving many other hours to community activity, as I had been for so many years as was the case from at least 1969 to 1999, marked a turning point in my life. I became able to devote my time to a much more extensive involvement in writing and reading material of my own choice. The ancient Greeks believed leisure was much more than free time. It was free time well used, free time with a moral mission. In the Politics, Aristotle makes this arresting assertion: The first principle of all action is leisure…. Leisure is better than occupation and is its end; and therefore the question must be asked, what ought we to do when at leisure? Clearly we ought not to be amusing ourselves, for then amusement would be the end of life. Aristotelians see human time divided into three major spheres: (1) working for a living, (2) recovering from working for a living, and (3) leisure time. Leisure is the highest use of time. It is the antithesis of "wasting time" or "killing time" with diversions and amusements. Nor is it rest and relaxation; the downtime we need to recover from work should really be considered an extension of work. After several years of retirement from the different kinds of work which involved me from 1957 to 2007--from FT, PT, casual and volunteer work--a period in which, in some ways, I am still recovering, I have begun to enter, sensibly and insensibly, by subtle and not-so-subtle degrees, Aristotle’s third major division of time into which life can be divided. After nearly fifty years of the first two kinds of work I am finally free to pursue leisure in the recreational, in the old, sense of the word, a sense that is indispensable to achieving our human potential. Writing is for most of its votaries a solitary, hopefully stimulating, but not always pleasurable leisure-time, part-time or full-time pursuit. In my case, as I say, in these middle years(65-75) of late adulthood(60-80), writing and its companion activity research and reading has become full-time about 60 hours a week. This activity is for me, and for the most part, an enriching and enjoyable pursuit. I have replaced my former paid employment and extensive activity with people in community with a form of work which is also a form of leisure, namely, as I say: writing and reading—independent scholarship. Not all is easy-sailing on the western-front, though: health issues still abound; money is, at worst, an annoying tick and the inner battle of life, the only real one which we all face, still goes on. Inevitably the style of one's writing and what one reads is a reflection of the person, their experience and, often, their philosophy. On occasion, I set out a summary of my writing, my employment experience, my resume, in an attachment to this brief essay, this introductory statement, this commentary on the job application process which occupied my life for five decades: 1957-2007. If as that famous, although not always highly regarded, psychologist Carl Jung writes: we are what we do, then some of what I was and am can be found in that attachment, that resume and its several appendices. That document may seem over-the-top as they say these days since it now occupies some 30 pages and many more pages if the appendices are also included. Half a century of various forms of employment as well as community, leisure and volunteer activity in the professional and not-so-professional world, all this time in many towns, institutions and venues produced a great pile of stuff. It also produced what used to be called and still is by several different names: one’s curriculum vitae, one’s CV, one’s bio-data sheet, one’s resume, one’s life-narrative, life-story, storyline. This document is now, at least as I see it, more of the latter, more of a lifeline, a life-narrative, a memoir, an autobiography-of-sorts. As I say, I make the list of this stuff available to readers of this account, this essay, when appropriate, when requested and, occasionally, when not appropriate. I update those many pages to include recent writing projects I have completed, or am in the process of completing, during these first years of my retirement from full-time, part-time and most volunteer activity. My resume has always been the piece of writing, the statement, the document, the entry ticket which has opened up the possibilities of another adventure, another bit of gadding about, another slice of a quasi-pioneering-travelling, a peripatetic existence, a moving from town to town, from one state or province to another, from one country to another, from one piece of God's, or gods', Earth to another piece of it. And so it was that I was able to come to work in another organization, gain entry to another portion of my life and enjoy or not enjoy a new world and a new landscape with a whole new set of people and experiences, some familiar and some not so. The process, I often thought, was not unlike a modern form of a traditional rite-de-passage. To some extent I came to take on what often seemed like another personality, another me in the long road to discover if, indeed, there was a Real Me underneath all this coming and going. I'm sure this process will continue, will also be the case in all its many forms in these years of my late adulthood(60-80) and old age(80++), if I last that long and should, for some reason, movement to yet another place or, indeed, from place to place be necessary to continue for some reason I can not, as yet, anticipate. This continued movement, though, seems highly unlikely as I go through these years of late adulthood and head into the last stages of my life, from sunset and early evening to night’s first hours and then, finally, the last hours of night, the final syllables of my recorded time. This process, this rite de passage, expressed in the form of yet another job in another place seems, for the moment, to have come to an end. Time, of course, will tell. The last six years(60-66) are, as I indicated above, the first ones of late adulthood. In this first dozen years of my retirement(1999 to 2011), I have been able to write to a much greater extent than I had ever been able to do in those years of my early(1965-1984) and middle(1984-1999) adulthood when job, family and the demands of various community projects kept my nose to the grindstone, as they say colloquially in many parts of the world. With the final unloading of much of the volunteer work as well which I took on when I first retired, in the years from 1999 to 2005; with the gradual cessation of virtually the entire apparatus and process of job-application by 2007; with my last child having left home in 2005; with a more settled home environment than I’ve ever had--by 2007 and with a new medication for the bipolar disorder that afflicted my life since my teens, also by 2007---the remaining years of my late adulthood beckon bright with promise. As I indicated briefly above, though, all is not clear-sailing for rarely in life is everything clear sailing, at least in my own life—and I suspect this is the case in most if not all of our lives, if we are honest about our experience down life’s road. My resume reflects the shift in role, in my lifespan activity-base and lists the many writing projects I’ve been able to complete in this first decade of independent scholarship and full-time writing. The process of frequent moves and frequent jobs which was my pattern for fifty years, 1949 to 1999, is not everyone's style, modus operandi or modus vivendi--to use two still commonly used Latin phrases. Many millions of people live and die in the same town, city or state and their life's adventure takes place within that physical region, the confines of a relatively small place, a domain, a bailiwick as politicians often call their electorate. Such people and other types as well often have very few jobs in their lifetime. Physical movement is not essential to psychological and spiritual growth, nor is a long list of jobs, although a great degree of inner change, extensive inner shifting, is inevitable from a person’s teens through to their late adulthood even if they sat all their lives on the head of a pin and never moved from the parental nest. That reference to the head of a pin was one of the theologico-philosophical metaphors associated with angels and often used in medieval times. This metaphor has interesting applications to the job-hunting process but I will leave that for another time. This process of extensive change in people’s lives is even more true in the recent decades of our modern age at this climacteric of history in which change is about the only thing one can take as a constant--or so we are often led to believe because it is so often said in the electronic media. For many millions of people during the half century 1957 to 2007, my years of being jobbed and applying for jobs, the world was their oyster, not so much in the manner of a tourist, although there was plenty of that, but rather in terms of working lives which came to be seen increasingly in a global context. This was true for me during those years when I was looking for amusement, education and experience, some stimulating vocation and avocation, some employment security and comfort, my adventurous years in a new form of travelling-pioneering, globe-trotting, pathfinding of sorts, as part of history’s long story, my applying-for-job days, some five decades from the 1950s to the first decade of the new millennium. My resume altered many times, of course, during those fifty years. It is now, for the most part and as I indicated above, not used in these years of my retirement and especially since 2007, except as an information and bio-data vehicle for interested readers, 99.9% of whom are on the internet at its plethora of sites. This document, as I say above, a document that used to be called a curriculum vitae or a CV, until the 1970s, at least in the region where I lived and dwelled and had my being, is a useful backdrop for those examining my writing, especially my poetry. Some poets and writers, artists and creative people in many fields, though, regard their CV, resume, bio-data, lifeline, life-story, life-narrative, personal background as irrelevant, simply not necessary for people to know, in order for them to appreciate their artistic work. These people take the philosophical, indeed, somewhat religious position, that they are not what they do or, to put it a little differently and a little more succinctly, "they are not their jobs." I frequently use this resume at various internet locations on the World Wide Web, again as I indicated above, when I want to provide some introductory background on myself. I could list many new uses after decades of a use which had a multifactorial motivational base: to help me get a job, to get a new job, to help me make more money, to enrich my experience and to add something refreshing to my life as it was becoming increasingly stale for so many reasons in the day-to-day grind, to help me get away from supervisors and from situations I could not handle or were a cause of great stress, to help me flee from settings where my health was preventing me from continuing successfully in my job, to help me engage in new forms of adventure, pioneering, amusement, indeed, to help me survive life’s tests in the myriad forms that afflict the embattled spirit, et cetera, et cetera, inter alia, inter alia, inter alter, inter alter. The use of the resume always saved me from having to reinvent the wheel, so to speak. One could photocopy it and mail it out with the covering letter to anyone and everyone. The photocopier became a common feature of the commercial, business and government world in the 1960s just as I began to send out the first of the literally thousands of job applications that I would over the next forty years: 1967-2007. One didn’t have to write the application out each time; one did not have to “say it again Sam” in resume after resume to the point of utter tedium. The photocopier itself evolved as did the gestetner, one of the photocopier’s predecessors. There were many ways one could copy one's basic data. For a time, my mother used to type applications for me back in the late 1950s and early 1960s. I became entrenched in the job market in the 1960s. This entrenchment was so very much like trench-warfare back in that Great War of 1914 to 1918--when millions died, were simply mowed down on the European continent in a process whose meaning we have yet to fully plumb. But, however little or much we have come to understand the meaning and significance of WW1, we--my generation--have come to experience a new warfare. As Henry Miller, one of the first to get away with using the "F" word in his trilogy: Sexus, Nexus and Plexus, expressed back in 1941 the new warfare of my generation: "a war far more terrible than the destruction" of the first two wars, the first two phases, with fires that "will rage until the very foundations of this present world crumble." It is not my intention to document any of these three phases of the destructive calamity that visited humankind in the century I have just left, for this documentation has been done in intimate detail elsewhere, both visually, orally and in print. I do not document, but I frequently refer, to these three phases. I have different purposes here than mere historical documentation. My job application process was clearly, at least as I look back over half a century of the process, part of that third war. Applying for jobs as extensively as I did in the days before the email and the internet came on board in the early 1990s, became an activity, for me, that sometimes resembling a dry-wretch. Four to five thousand job applications from 1957 to 2007 is a lot of applications! At least since the mid-1990s, a few clicks of one’s personal electronic-computer system and some aspect of life’s game could go on or could come to a quick end over a set of wires under the ground, the electronic world of cyberspace. During that half-century of job-hunting years I applied, as I say, for some four to five thousand jobs, an average of two a week for each of all those years! This is a guesstimation, of course, as accurate a guesstimation as I can calculate for this fifty year period. The great bulk, 99.9% of those thousands of letters involved in this vast, detailed and, from time to time, exhausting and frustrating process, I did not keep. I did keep a small handful of them, perhaps half a dozen of all those letters, in a file in my Letters: Section VII, Sub-Section X, a part of my autobiographical work which is now entitled Pioneering Over Four Epochs. This autobiographical work Pioneering Over Four Epochs goes for 2600 pages in five volumes and, due to its length, will not likely be read while I occupy space on this mortal coil. Much of my autobiography, portions of it, are now found, though, on the internet at a multitude of sites where in nano-micro-seconds anyone can find portions of my writing in addition to my autobiography or my resume. I am known in a multitude of microcosms, microworlds, miniworlds, where neither name nor fame can reach me, and where all the problems that go with any degree of celebrity status in our fame-hungry world will pass me by into cyberspace, into an electronic ether. Given the thousands of hours over so many years devoted to the job-hunting process; given the importance of this key to my venture across two continents, two marriages, with at least two personalities being the bipolar person that I am; given that this new style of pioneering, voyaging-via-employment, venture in our time has been at the core of my life with so much that has radiated around this core; given the amount of paper produced, the amount of energy expended and the amount of money earned and spent in this great exercise of survival; given the amount of writing done in the context of those various jobs, some of this employment-related correspondence seemed to warrant a corner in the written story of my life. It seemed appropriate, at least it was my desire as I recently entered the years when I no longer applied for jobs, to write this short statement(“not short enough,” I can hear them say) fitting all those thousands of unkept resumes and job-applications into a larger context as well as all those letters, emails and internet posts written in connection with trying to make connections with others, into some larger framework of action and meaning. For those who would like to read more on this theme, I invite them to go to the internet site: Baha’i Library Online>Secondary Source Material>Personal Letters>The Letters of RonPrice: 1961-2011. If such readers prefer, they can simply google: Ron Price Letters and more of this story will become available with only a few clicks. Updated on: 13/3/’11 3700 Words

I'm a junior in a math-econ program. I plan on sending grad applications next fall, so this year I'm preparing the ground for LORs and having a strong application. To that end, which courses would you recommend taking this year before I send applications? For example, should I take modern algebra this year to show a strong math signal, or do adcoms want to see my aptitude in econometrics? Does it even matter which courses you've taken/are currently taking when you send apps? Here's my list of courses to allocate to each year (excluding courses I can't move): Math: Probability, Numerical math, Modern algebra, Complex analysis, Combinatorics Econ: Advanced Micro, Advanced Macro, Intermediate Econometrics, Econometrics seminar Which courses should I take before I send apps, and which should I leave for my senior year?

Since a lot of programs have different application dates, I was wondering how all of you dealt with applications where you submitted transcripts that did not include your entire course history. For example, if you apply in the Fall, then courses from Fall and Spring are not listed. In my case, this means the absence of very important coursework (Linear Algebra, Math modelling, graduate level microeconomics, etc.) Would you advise sending a supplemental letter explaining recent coursework once grades are in and enrollment is complete? Thanks everyone.