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I am interested in people's opinions as to the criteria I should be using to choose my letter writers. If it matters, I am an Australian student finishing Honours (some weird concoction involving postgrad level coursework and a substantial thesis). I am applying to top 10 + business schools. I have four people who are my primary options as referees: 1. Main supervisor for my honours thesis. I have also been his RA for 18 months or so. Very well known. Harvard PhD + top 5 assistant professor early in his career. Now full professor with lots of top 5 pubs. Will definitely be writing. 2. Secondary supervisor for my thesis. I have been intermittent RA for last 2 years, although the projects were not as substantial as for 1. Harvard PhD + MIT postdoc. Now equivalent to assistant professor at my uni. Will write a very nice letter, although isn't that well known (perhaps is at Harvard + MIT owing to education there). 3. Very well known professor from exchange uni I spent a year at (US top 30 for economics). I took an undergrad class and came first with 100% by a large margin. I audited a very difficult graduate class and kept up quite well despite, at that point, having not taken real analysis. This was almost 2 years ago though. I have, however, kept in contact and asked (and confirmed and re-confirmed) that he will happily write a letter saying I did very well in hard courses and have research potential in his opinion. But I haven't done any research with or for him. Also slightly unreliable (ocassionally takes a while or forgets to respond to emails). But I hope for something this important he would do it on time. 4. Very well known professor from my uni, who I am currently taking PhD level game theory/mechanism design class with. My marks are very good, and he has encouraged me to go to grad school and happy to write, but I have not done any research with or for him. 5/6 etc: a few professors I have done very well in courses with, and have done one or two brief RA projects for, all less well known than 1 - 4. So, I guess I am asking in general (also specific advice here would be great) whether having three letters from famous people even with only one directly speakign to research abilities and experience is better than substituting one for a much less famous but probably stronger letter that can speak to research ability/potential. I have also intermittently been an RA for faculty other than 1 and 2 in the last year, so if the advice is that speaking to research experience and potential is paramount, than I guess even 1 + 2 + 5 could be a possibility. Anyway, any advice is very much appreciated.

How exactly do adcoms evaluate the quality of the professors that write your letters of rec? I go to a large flagship university, but our econ department is a small applied environmental economics program, and I do not plan on pursuing environmental. I would say two or three of our professors are top-tier, but their work is very applied, so I doubt that their names would be immediately recognized. I have research experience with two of these professors, so I should get quality letters, but really I am making the most out of what the university provides me!!

Hey guys, I am a long time lurker but this is my first post so I just want to thank everyone up front for sharing your advice and insights here for aspiring candidates like me. Below is my profile. PROFILE: Type of Undergrad: Top 3 State School in Texas. Bsc. in Economics and Applied Mathematics Undergrad GPA: (GPA 3.9/4.0) GRE: None Yet, taking this summer Math Courses: Cal III and math proof class Econ Courses: Undergrad- Micro, Macro, Econometrics, Financial Econ and International Econ. Grad- Experimental Econ Letters of Recommendation: 2 potential LORs (Both from top 10 PHD program) Research Experience: Half year of RA experience in a neuroscience lab - acknowledged in a published paper. 1 year of RA experience in an experimental econ lab and a senior thesis on a behavioral econ paper. (RA experience wasn't very spectacular at all, I could have done better but got complacent. Prof seems supportive though) Teaching Experience: None yet Research Interests: Macro, Financial Econ, Experimental Econ I have about 1.5 years left in my undergrad degree. Since I've finished up all of my core Econ classes, the next 3 semester will be filled with math classes (i.e. real analysis, linear, diff eq,) . For the past year, I've undecided between going into finance or pursue a PhD in Econ so I played around a lot between the two without much focus. I will be interning in a hedge fund doing quantitative research this summer. I think this will give you guys a good enough idea on my background. I did some thinking and I realize that I ultimately want to pursue a PhD program so I would appreciate any response and advice from all of you. Since I have a 1.5 years left, what should my game plan be? I am planning to approach a financial econ professor to RA with but I also feel that I should continue my RA with this current professor. Is it sensible to work for two professor? I looked at the applicant profiles in the forum and I realize that most strong applicants have strong LORs from famous economist. How could I get hold of famous economist and eventually build a strong enough relationship with them to get good LORs? Lastly, there are many talks about a low-rank undergrad --> high rank europe masters --> top 10 PhD program path, not necessarily from this site. Should I focus on going to a PhD program right away or should I pursue a MA in Europe to strengthen my profile. Thank you.

Hi everyone, I've been on this forum for a short period of time but I can safely say that I've read a fair share of threads on profiles/results and recommendations for applicants. I must say the information I found is incredibly useful and I'd like to take just a second to thank all the people who have posted advice and their profile/result, this helped a lot ! However on a more selfish note, I was wondering if you guys could tell me what you thought of my profile, I'm not posting my current profile but the profile I will have when I graduate from my MSc in Behavioural Economics (U of Nottingham) in september 2013, so a year from now (I'll only start that degree in september of this year). Type of Undergrad: Low ranked (56 out of 69) UK Econ department Undergrad GPA: 3.67/4.0 (equivalent to a high 2:1 in the UK according to I forgot whom) Type of Grad: Top 35 UK Bus School (Business Management) & “World top 52” and “UK top 6” Econ department (Behavioural Economics) (==> thats U of Nottingham) Grad GPA: 3.7 (Business) & and I am hoping 4.0, I know I can achieve it, but worst case scenario, I should still end up with at least a 3.8 equivalent GRE: not taken yet but when I do I'll ensure I score perfectly on Quants Math Courses: Mathematics for Economics (A), Statistics (A), Calculus, Multivariate Calculus, Complex Numbers & Vector Calculus, Real Analysis (A-), Linear Algebra, Dynamic Analysis, Probability Theory, Linear Regression Econ Courses: Intermediate Macro (A), Micro theory, Macro theory, Econometrics, Econ data analysis, Behavioural Econ, Time series econometrics, Adv. Micro (hoping for all A's by the end of the MSc) Other Courses: Business courses in strategy analysis and development, HRM, Marketing and so on, mostly A’s and B’s Letters of Recommendation: PG teachers I guess (Micro, Macro, Metrics) Research Experience: 1 UG and 2 PG theses Teaching Experience: None, since this is not customary in Europe to RA or TA while in UG, too bad Research Interests: behavioural econ, experimental econ & decision theory SOP: really standard, I put the accent on my PG degrees and the math I took, as well as emphasise my interest in behavioural economics/ decision theory Ok so i'll need to clarify some things: 1) Most of the math I took was in high school in France where I studied Real Analysis, Complex Analysis, Multivariable Calculus, Linear Algebra, Probability Theory (Bernoulli distribution, Pascal’s Triangle), Congruence, Bézout’s identity, Euclid’s lemma, Scalar Product and Similarities. I achieved the equivalent to an A-, but it was 6 years ago. And my MSc at Nottingham will offer a pre-sessional math class covering: Univariate Calculus Functions, Differentiation, Integration, Optimisation Linear Algebra Matrix algebra, Inverse, Determinant, Systems of linear equations, Eigenvalues Multivariate Calculus Functions, Differentiation, Opimisation, Constrained optimization, Comparative statics Dynamic Analysis Systems of difference and differential equations, Stability, Dynamic optimization 2) I do plan on scoring a 170 on the GRE, it's quite feasible though not that easy I am aware of this, but I am currently revising to take it in September/October, so plenty of time to ensure a perfect quant score. Also I know I'll be able to get straight A's in my modules at Nottingham, if I don't (which is always possible of course) then I'll just stay there for my PhD, since it might be easier. 3) I am not too confident about asking my professors there about recommendations for a December/January deadline :/ these people will have known me for 3/4 months and unless I majorly suck up to them, I have troubles seeing how they could possibly write outstanding LORs which I know are crucial to the process I do know a few other people who could help, but they are either not econ profs or not very well known, even in their field. Bottom line is I hope I can sell my math high school and pre-sessional grad math as sufficient, and pray for good LORs from my professors, if all this panned out, what would you guys think I should do? Look for work as RA or TA somewhere in the UK or apply for a north american MA perhaps? I realise none of you are really experts per se, but I figure you have seen enough of it to give educated guesses and valuable advice :) Thanks a lot for taking the time to read it and may the force be with all of us -__-

Hello, I am a double major (statistics/econ) undergrad. I need 3 referees for my oxford application: one of my economics teacher (macroecon) agreed to write me one, i've been to some of his classes, another one who hasn't teach me but works in the college also agreed, he's known and has publications. I am hesitating between my microeconomics teacher and my stat teacher. I had good grades in both. What would you think the admission jury in oxford would like better? I had a 780 in quant in the gre, so maybe i need more econs teacher recommending me since i dont have a pure econ bsc? or is it better to choose 1/3 referees to be a more quantitative one? thank you all :)