Search the Community

I am an undergrad at an HRM school in the US majoring in math. I will likely finish a B.S/M.S at a very high level of pure math (think Kac-Moody algebras and Galois cohomology). I am unsure whether I will be doing grad school in economics or physics. Will economics departments care about substantial research done in physics or mathematics? What about LORs from physicists or mathematicians? Thanks in advance for your help.

PROFILE: Type of Undergrad: Lower ranking UC Undergrad GPA: Majored in Applied Math - Physics Emphasis (3.43) and Minored in Economics (3.9) Type of Grad: N/A Grad GPA: N/A GRE: 169Q/158V Math Courses: CALC II (B-), Vector Calc (C-) Lin Alg (B), Stats I (B+), Complex Variables, Intermediate Diff Eq, Numerical Analysis, Linear Analysis, Numerical Methods for Diff Eq (All A's), Partial Diff Eq (B+) All of my lower div math courses had pretty bad grades, but I picked it up for the upper div courses. Econ Courses: Intro, Interm Macro and Micro, Corp Finance, Investment Econ, Long Run Development, Money and Banking, Econometrics (All As) Other Courses: 5 physics upper div (all As), 2 physics lower div (b- and c+) Letters of Recommendation: 2 econ professors that I RA'ed for, and 1 math professor. All will give me strong LORs Research Experience: 4 months physics doing lasers and nanoparticles 1 year econ doing historical economic development 1 year econ doing demographics Scared due to no publications and/or presentations Teaching Experience: 1 semester TA for corporate finance Research Interests: Savings rate of US countries vs other countries and factors affecting it, naturalized vs native-born American and their differences on savings rate, early/late retirement and economic repercussions of that. SOP: Talk about: Why I became interested What I want to achieve Why school is good fit for me Why I am good fit for school (proactive, love of knowledge) Professor 1 who I think would help Professor 2 who I think would help Things I will do after achieving my PHD Actually not sure if I should combine the paragraph with professors 1+2, or if I should just mention one professor and say that I'm open to others. Other So part of the reason why my earlier college years were so bad was that I spent 16+ hours of my time playing League of Legends (although I did get to masters and was offered spot on competitive team), not sure if I should mention that aspect in my SOP, or just keep it purely professional and write about my future research interests. First 3 semesters I had 3.6, so does that also help my case? Schools that I plan on applying to: Stanford, Berkeley, UCSD, UCD, Irvine, UCSC, Georgetown, Virginia, U Arizona, Rice University. Thank you!

Hoping to get some advice here, as my situation is a bit odd-I'm a physics major with little economics experience. Ideally, I'd get an RA job at the Fed or at one of the jobs on the NBER site. However, to hedge my bets, I'm also planning on applying to several lower ranked schools in the DC area. PROFILE: Type of Undergrad: US private technical institute, known mainly for its engineering and computer science departments Undergrad GPA: 3.98 Type of Grad: N/A Grad GPA: N/A GRE: 167 V 169 Q Math Courses: Linear Algebra (A), Calc 3 (A), Real Analysis (Expected A), Differential Equations (A), Discrete Mathematics (A), Topology independent study (A), Mathematical Methods and Advanced Mathematical Methods for Physics (As) Econ Courses: Intro Micro (A), Intermediate Micro (Expected A) Other Courses: 2 semesters of programming in Python Letters of Recommendation: Not sure yet, but here are my options: 1: undergraduate physics capstone advisor who I've worked with for around 6 months, can speak to my independent research ability. 2: Another physics professor who I've done research for, including using R to analyze data. 3: Physics department coordinator, whom I've taken 4 classes with and been at the top of the class for each. 4: Intermediate Micro professor, who I have a decent but not outstanding relationship with. 5: lab professor who has seen my ability to conduct physics research and do data analysis. Research Experience: 1 summer working with R, 1 year on physics capstone project (focusing on physics education), currently independently reproducing an applied development paper in Stata Teaching Experience: Worked as a Learning Assistant (basically a more involved TA) for a year and a half in physics, will have TAd for intro Micro Research Interests: Development, political economy, public choice? Still not entirely sure. Would be happy with any sort of RA job, regardless of specialization. SOP: Haven't written it, but will focus on me knowing Stata, Python, and R, and being comfortable with data analysis and manipulation. So, I'd love to know if I have a shot at departments around Georgetown ranking (~50.) I'd also appreciate any advice on applying to RA jobs, including SOP, interviews, and the like. Thanks!

Hello, I did my graduation in Physics. Now i am going to try for subject GRE test. But i do not know about the resources to get prepared for the test. Please provide me necessary resources to follow and some guidelines in order to prepare myself fully. Thank you.

Hello, I haven't took my GRE yet. My undergraduate CGPA is very low which is 2.61 I had a poster presented at a conference which was held in my campus. I want to know that if i score 305 (157Q + 148V) which varsity should i pursue for MS in Physics? I prefer a full scholarship. I am open to not only US unversities but also other schools in various countries. Please reply. Thank you.

I have just joined this forum today. I'm a undergrad student majoring in Physics in Dhaka, Bangladesh. I am in 5th semester now and hoping to complete MS/PhD from US/Canada. I have not taken any tests yet. I joined this forum just to know things so that I'll not mess up when the right time comes up!

Hi everyone. I am new to the economics field and am not really sure how I will fit in. I am not stellar on paper since I did not care about my undergraduate much. I was focused on sports and getting a good job. I accomplished both, but schools won't care about that. With my different background, I might have a shot with higher schools if they are willing to take a chance. Looking for what others think. PROFILE: Type of Undergrad: Physics at Top 50 Liberal Arts College Undergrad GPA: 3.44 Type of Grad: Masters in Economics, Top 5 Europe Grad GPA: N/A GRE: 89Q/87V Math Courses: Calculus I (A), II (B+), Multivariable Calculus (A-), Differential Equations (A-), Partial Differential Equations (C+), Linear Algebra (A-), Math Camp Econ Courses (grad-level): No grades yet- Microeconomics, Macroeconomics, Econometrics, Information Economics, Game Theory, Introduction to Policy Evaluation Econ Courses (undergrad-level): Japanese Economic Development (A), Upper-level Money and Banking Seminar (A), History of Thought (A) Other Courses: Physics Major Letters of Recommendation: 1 physics undergraduate full professor (PhD Duke, 1 economics graduate Research Professor (PhD Rochester), 1 economics graduate full professor (PhD Northwestern) Research Experience:None Teaching Experience:Physics lab TA, Astronomy TA Research Interests: Applied micro, disequilibrium analysis, information economics, political economy SOP: Focus on my analytical preparation in physics, plus my graduate work in applied economics, combine for a rounded applicant. I skipped undergraduate theory courses and have been fine in my upper level undergraduate and now graduate work. Concerns: My undergraduate GPA is not great. I took hard courses and did not care about physics. My graduate professors have not seen any term grades from me. Where should I be applying?

Hello All, I'm a 3rd year (domestic) computational physics major with a strong interest in machine learning (stemming from my physics research). I would like to transition from "physics" to computer science for my graduate studies. Currently, I've taken the following CS courses: Intro to Comp Sci Data Structures Discrete Math Algorithms Network Programming Several good ML schools (UTA UWash etc) encourage students from non CS disciplines to apply but highly recommend certain courses as background (computer organization, operating systems, and other 'standard' cs courses). My research in ML is purely through a few years of research with different physics applications (particle physics/ astrophysics), and my formal background in this area has been through self-digested textbooks and video tutorials. So here's the bind: This upcoming semester will be the last semester of CS coursework that is guaranteed to be on my transcript for CS grad apps. I'm currently enrolled for the following courses: Optimization Techniques Mathematical Statistics Advanced Electricity and Magnetism (Physics course, irrelevant here) Computer Organization There's no explicit ML courses offered this upcoming semester however there is a course in web mining that is offered at the same time as comp org. Would I be better off taking the course in web mining and pushing off comp org and os to my senior year? Web mining would give me another course in the field I want to pursue in grad school but comp org might fill some basic requirements (of course I could explain that I'm taking these courses in my personal letter, or something...) Any advice would be much appreciated. PS) IF it matters, assume my research background is strong, my GPA is perfect, and I will have some good recs. PPS) Perhaps if I left out some of the standard coursework (focusing more on ML-related topics) but scored > 90% on the GRECS?