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Hi folks, let me be clear since the very beginning, as the thread title may potentially look misleading: this is not going to be a thread aimed at scaring offer holders from U Maryland so as for me to successfully get off the waitlist. It would be a very mean attempt to benefit from this screwy admission process and I am not that type of person, believe it or not. Period. I am just another applicant like you all, with no work relationship whatsoever with any grad school and no intention to mess things up on this forum. I have continuously considered whether opening this thread or not since two days ago and have always postponed the moment in order not to interfere with other applicants' decision process as well as not to look selfish (see first sentence above). Evaluating admission offers is very serious stuff indeed and many people rely on this forum to look for an advice before April 15. But at the end I thought it would be actually in the interest of all those involved in the admission process at Maryland to have a place in here where to discuss what has been going on at this school since at least one and a half years, so as to ultimately help everybody make an informed decision. This may really benefit lots of people, I believe. These are the facts I would like to start with: Office of the President, University of Maryland and Office of the President, University of Maryland . Also, many top-class senior professors left the department in the last years (first Guillermo Calvo, then John Rust, Enrique Mendoza and Carlos Vegh) as well as promising assistant professors like Anton Korinek and Pablo D'Erasmo. It is not clear if this was due to financial issues such as pay freeze or salary cuts though. This actually seems to be the case according to many posters (some of them being alleged insiders too) on EJMR, even if it may very well be 99% pure trolling. The department website does not help shed light on the current situation either. It is impossible to find an update of any sort about new hires or existing financial hardships. Except a brief post on two faculty promotions (Faculty Promotions | Department of Economics ), there is simply nothing right there. Last but not least, I was contacted yesterday by one faculty member (whom I prefer not to reveal) and asked about my availability to accept an unfunded or limitedly funded admission offer (unclear if valid only for the first year or for the entire program) in case they end up not being able to make more funded offers. The tone of the email was pretty gloomy. So my concerns are: is the Economics department going to be directly affected by the planned budget cuts? Are other professors about to leave in the near future? Is the situation for the next years really worrisome as it seems like? I would love to hear from insiders and/or people with first-hand experience about all this. Many thanks in advance.