Profiles and Results 2015

[Bunny Colvin]

Type of Undergrad: Flagship public university, USNEWS top 30 (transferred from big public university after 1st year)

Undergrad GPA: 3.63

Type of Grad: Non-degree classes at large private university

Grad GPA: 3.7

GRE: V 164, Q 165, AW 4.5

Math Courses: Calc I (AP), Calc II (B), Calc III (B), Intro Proofs (B+), Probability (A-), Math Stats (A), Undergrad Real Analysis (A-), Grad Real Analysis (A-), Differential Equations (B-), Linear Algebra (A), Algebra (B+), Stochastic Processes (B+), Bayesian Statistics (A-)

Econ Courses: Intro Micro (A), Intro Macro (B), Intermediate Micro (A-), Intermediate Macro (A+), Intro Regression Analysis (A), Game Theory (B+), Public Econ (A-), Labor Econ (A), Seminar in Policy Analysis (A)

Other Courses:

Letters of Recommendation: 5 total from grad schools ranked 10-20. 3 from work, 2 from undergrad. With 2 from work I am coauthoring, the other I did a fair amount of math work for. 1 of the undergrad profs was my advisor, other taught seminar and saw my attempt at original research there. Mixed and matched letter writers to schools depending on connections (coauthors, those acknowledged in papers, etc.)

Research Experience: RA 2 years at the Fed, coauthoring a paper and a shorter note there. Spent 2 summers RAing, first for a think-tank, then for a professor at undergrad university. In a seminar class I had to write an original research paper.

Teaching Experience: Tutored athletes in micro, metrics, and calculus

Research Interests: Applied micro, consumer finance

SOP: Tailored to schools, adjusted my research interests based on professors at schools

Other:

 

RESULTS:

Acceptances: UCLA ($), Ohio State ($$), UC-Davis ($),

Waitlists: Minnesota, Michigan, Johns Hopkins, UMass-Amherst, Maryland (started teasing me about acceptance on Apr. 14)

Rejections: MIT, Harvard, HKS, Stanford, Chicago, Chicago Harris, UC-Berkeley, Columbia, Yale, UC-SD, Duke, UVa, Georgetown, NSF

Pending:

Attending: UCLA

Comments: My results are a good example of the randomness of admissions, especially for someone with less than stellar grades and GRE but good research experience and letters. The weight of letters really varies from school to school since professors sitting on an adcom have varying familiarity with letter writers. The fact that my best acceptance was at UCLA (rank 15) and lowest rejection at Georgetown (rank 48) really speaks to this I think.

 

What would you have done differently? Discovered this blog sooner. Perhaps tried for a higher score on the GRE. Definitely would have applied to more schools in the 10-20 range, but at least I won't have any regrets about the possibility that I could've gotten into a better school.

[chtliu]

Type of Undergrad: Top 40 liberal arts college in the U.S. Double Major in Math & Econ

Undergrad GPA: 3.98

Type of Grad:N/A

Grad GPA:N/A

GRE: 170 Q 163 V 5 AW

Math Courses: Cal 1-3 (A), Discrete Math (A), Linear Algebra(A) Differential Equation (A) Probability and Stats(A) Abstract Algebra (A) Stochastic Process (A) Real Analysis (A) Complex Analysis (A)

Econ Courses (grad-level): N/A

Econ Courses (undergrad-level): Intro & Intermediate Micro/Macro (A); Econometrics (A) International Economics (A), Development Economics (A)

Other Courses: Courses taken at LSE (junior year study-abroad): principle of finance (A+), corporate finance (A+); quantitative finance (A+); Stochastic process in finance(A+)

Letters of Recommendation:

1. Associate Econ prof was at my liberal arts college, now at Emory Econ Department. Top 3 UK PhD. Was Summer RA to him and his letter should be very strong.

2. Econ Prof. at my liberal arts college. PhD from Top 10 US program. letter should be between good and very good. He was my advisor for a field-study project.

3. Econ Prof. Research supervisor

 

Research Experience: 2 summer RA; 2 working paper( applied econometrics study); one on development economics, the other one on commodity pricing (GARCH model);

Teaching Experience: Math Tutor for 1 year, Econ Tutor 1 year

Research Interests: Development Economics, Applied Macro, financial economics

SOP: fine.

Concerns: undergrad school ranking ( also Econ-department pretty weak); good letters but recommenders not known in the field.

RESULTS:

Acceptances: UIUC, Pittsburgh, UVA, Vandy, LSE (MSc.Econ), Maryland, UCSD; all with full funding except for LSE.

Waitlists:

Rejections: HBS, NW, Yale, Minnesota, Michigan, LBS,Wharton, Wisconsin, Duke, Cornell, Rice, BU, Penn State, Iowa State

Pending:

Attending: UCSD!!!

Comments:

1. applying right after undergrad is hard, unless your school is good at econ

2. masters and RA experience do matter a lot

3. careful with picking safety schools, small safety schools will care more about "matchness". For example, I got rejected by Rice probably because I have no interest in micro...

4. the application doesn't take a lot of time once your SOP is done. Marginal cost of applying to one more school is basically 2-3 hours. Hence, apply to as many schools as possible.

5. Lucky for me to get UCSD and Maryland

 

What would you have done differently?

1. Apply to Columbia, NYU, UCLA, CMU. Basically all the schools in 10-20 range. You never know what is gonna happen.

2. Be more relaxed writing SOP, it won't matter that much in the end. Enjoy your life when applying and waiting as well.

3. Talk to more people and ask for their advice.

 

[Michalz]

PROFILE

Type of Undergrad: BA in Finance, internationally unknown Polish university

Undergrad GPA: 4.8/5

Type of Grad #1: MA in Applied Mathematics, a bit more reputed but still rather unknown Polish university; 1 semester of exchange at Economics department at UC3 Madrid

Grad GPA: 4.9/5

GRE: V 155 / Q 169 / A 4.5

Math Courses: Bunch of it during the Master but more advanced courses mostly in Statistics

Econ Courses: Introductory Micro, Macro, Pub Finance, bunch of Finance courses during BA; Political Economy, Applied Macro and graduate Econometricsduring MA - in the end lack of solid econ background actually

Research Experience: BA thesis published in peer-reviewed but not very top quality local journal; independent MA thesis on Energy Economics with article with my supervisor based on the thesis published in reputed field journal; second article with supervisor in the same field journal; 1 year of full time researchassistance for Law&Economics professsor, MIT PhD.

Letters of Recommendation: RA supervisor, MIT PhD, tenured but still rather young ; Course instructor from Madrid, PhD from Toulouse, past work in US T10 ; Supervisor from Poland, well known in his narrow field but not beyond it, no ties to top PhD programs; I think all letters were strong

Research Interests: applied microeconomics, political economy

SOP: discussing my research experience an just a bit about research interests

Comments: I'm two years out of school. I spent one year working in business (personal reason to delay application) and applied last year. I was accepted to some European programs (Madrid, Cambridge, Oxford) but decided to take an opportunity as RA and try to crack Top 8 this year.

 

RESULTS:

Acceptances: Northwestern Kellogg ($$$), Minnesota ($$), Zurich ($$$), EUI Florence ($$), Oxford & Nuffield College (?)

Rejections: Harvard, MIT, Stanford GSB, Stanford Econ, Princeton, Berkeley, Yale, Chicago Econ, Chicago Booth, LSE, NYU, Stockholm Uni (!)

Pending: Stockholm SE (they lost the application or what? :))

Attending: Northwestern Kellogg

Comments: I achieved what I wanted and so I'm very happy.It must have been quite a lot of luck too since I only got one offer from Top8 schools and got rejected from some schools which I considered inferior but the beauty of this game is that you only need one!

 

What would you have done differently?

I think that improving my profile would require quite a lot of changes early in my education, e.g. different BA or MA institution. This would be very difficult for many reasons though. But since I only learned that I want to do Econ PhD when graduating from BA program and had no idea how the application process works, I think I ended up very well. If I could made up my mind earlier and start getting interested about serious research earlier maybe it would help.

One advice for applicants coming from places which don't have the history of sending people to US/Top European programs nor the faculty with PhDs from relatively well reputed institutions - you must reach outside! Exchange, RA, intership - whatever. It's difficult but doable.

One thing is certain, I wouldn't be where I'm now without this forum. For people from outside of US whose UG institution has probably never sent a student to any US Econ PhD and has virtually no professors who can introduce you to the admission process this forum is very valuable. Thanks folks!

[CanadaEconomics]

Deleted Edited April 29, 2015 by CanadaEconomics
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[lvczzm]

PROFILE:

Type of Undergrad: Economics

Undergrad GPA: 8.5/10

Type of Grad: Masters in Economics

Grad GPA: 8.6/10

GRE: Q168/V154/AW4

Math Courses: Real Analysis, Functional Analysis and Measure Theory

Econ Courses: Grad Level Micro, Macro and Metrics standard sequences

Other Courses:

Letters of Recommendation: Masters Adviser, two professors I worked for as an RA (but I'll sign the article as well) and another professor.

Research Experience: 1 year RA experience

Teaching Experience: TA of 3 courses. An undergraduate course and two professional masters courses.

Research Interests: Macroeconomics and International Finance (although my master's thesis relates to Finance)

SOP: In comparison to my fellow students at the Masters Program, I focused my SOP in my research interests (which I claimed to be Macro and Finance), rather than talking to much about personal and professional accomplishments. Anyway, I think the SOP didn't make a difference, for the good or for the bad.

Other:

 

RESULTS:

Acceptances: Stanford (Econ), Wharton (Finance), NYU Stern (Finance), LSE (Finance) and Carnegie Mellon (Finance)

Waitlists: MIT Sloan (Finance) and Minnesota (Econ)

Rejections: Harvard (Econ), Princeton (Econ), Columbia (Econ), Chicago Booth (Finance), UCLA (Econ), Yale (Finance)

Pending: None

Attending: Stanford (Econ)

Comments: My masters adviser gave me a great help by calling people at some places. This feature in my application, plus some strong letters of recommendation, made a huge difference to me.

 

What would you have done differently?

I would have applied to Harvard Business School (Bus Econ) instead of Harvard (Econ). I had a good application for Finance and I had really strong competition in my Masters class for Econ programs. Also, I would have struggled less with the GRE (168 in quant section is ok) and SOP.

[econandonandon]

PROFILE: (This is probably enough info for people to identify me but whatever)

Type of Undergrad: Prestigious UK politics + econ degree

Undergrad GPA: First

Type of Grad: Top 2(?) UK econ masters

Grad GPA: 75/100 (2nd in year)

GRE: 169Q 168V 6.0A

Math Courses: Nothing other than examined Mphil maths course

Econ Courses: From undergrad: micro, macro, quantitative economics, micro theory, econometrics. From grad: micro, macro, econometrics (and 5 not yet examined)

Other Courses:

Letters of Recommendation: Undergrad tutor (not really known in the states but knows me very well), thesis supervisor (well known professor), professor I RAed for (well known professor)

Research Experience: Summer internship at well-known research institute, summer RA work, masters thesis.

Teaching Experience: None

Research Interests: Empirical micro/econometric theory/computational econometrics.

SOP: Mostly about my thesis and research interests.

Other:

 

RESULTS:

Acceptances: MIT (fully funded off the waitlist), Columbia (special fellowship with extra funding), Berkeley (partial funding in first year then full), LSE (fully funded), Oxford (fully funded), UCL (rejected offer before hearing about funding).

Waitlists: MIT, Stanford (rejected offer before finding out if I got in)

Rejections: Harvard, Princeton

Pending:

Attending: MIT

 

Comments: I think the thing I'd like to emphasize is that if you do really well at a good European masters you can get very good offers. This was something that was always unclear to me when I was applying. I didn't expect to do anywhere near as well as I did because my profile was somewhat unusual in terms of the lack of examined math courses. Getting MIT was obvious fantastic, for people reading this in the future, you should understand that MIT is unusual in that it waitlists around half its admits for funding and then allocates funds only when the NSF is released. It has also recently (this year) started to put some people who would previously have been on the funding waitlist on an attendance waitlist in order to better control numbers, so the conventional wisdom that people waitlisted for attendance won't get funding is no longer true.

 

I think the other thing I've realized is the degree of randomness, many people get into courses more highly ranked than those they were rejected from (for instance MIT vs Princeton in my case). On that basis I would recommend applying very widely (which I did not, although I was fortunate enough that this did not cause me any problems).

[Mitt]

PROFILE: Latin American University best in the country.

Type of Undergrad: BA in Economics

Undergrad GPA: 9/10 (all my grades are out of 10)

Type of Grad: Took some courses of my school’s PhD program.

Grad GPA: N/A

GRE: Q 167 / V 161 / A 4.5

Math Courses: The standard courses in Math and Stats plus grad level Real Analysis I (8) and Real Analysis II (9).

Econ Courses: The standard courses in Econ plus grad level Micro I (8) and Micro II (9).

Letters of Recommendation: 1 from senior thesis advisor with whom I continued pursuing some research projects afterwards, 1 from a professor for whom I was TA for 2 years and RA for one semester and 1 from my boss at the office.

Research Experience: Senior thesis (highest honors), RA for a semester and research intern at a government agency for a year.

Teaching Experience: TA (4 semesters).

Research Interests: Applied micro theory.

SOP: Talked a lot about my thesis and described roughly my research ideas for the future. Personalized for each school naming a member of the faculty with whom I’d like to work.

Comments: I’ve been working at an IB firm for the last 3 years.

RESULTS:

Acceptances: Kellogg MECS ($$$), U Michigan ($$), UCLA (0$), USC ($$), Georgetown ($$).

Waitlisted: Stanford GSB (asked to be taken off from waitlist).

Others: I was asked if I would be interested in Brown’s MA with automatic pass to PhD after the first year. I received an email from Boston College telling me they thought I’d get better offers.

Rejections: HKS, Yale, Chicago, Stanford, Princeton, Columbia, NYU, UPenn, Duke, BU, Maryland, Caltech.

Attending: Kellogg.

Comments: I think I did a good job emphasizing my strengths, building a congruent profile and matching all of this with my interests in a convincing way. Unless you have a stellar profile, I think it is better to concentrate in the schools’ where your abilities will be more valued.

 

What would you have done differently?

Deciding sooner about how seriously I wanted to pursue a PhD would’ve helped me get greater support from my school’s faculty but, honestly, I do not think this could have turned out any better for me.