tgycmzwj Posted November 20, 2016 Share Posted November 20, 2016 Hi everyone: I'm Jeffery from China and now preparing for the Ph.d application for Fall 2017. Type of undergraduate: one of the Peking/Tstinghua University, Economics and Mathematics (TOP2 university in China) Graduate: N/A Toefl: 109 (19+30+30+30) GRE: 155+170+5.0 Math courses: all A or A+ in math except linear algebra, I took math advanced math courses including Real Analysis, Functional analysis, ODE, probability theory, dynamic optimization .etc Econ courses: all A or A+ in econ courses except intermediate micro, many field courses such as regional econ, public finance, development econ, I.O., Econometrics, political econ .etc (intermediate micro and linear algebra only B because of serious illness during final exam that year) Grad Course: N/A Research Experience: two RA experience at UCLA, in health and labor respectively; undergraduate research at PKU TA: for Econ 101 SOP: standard Recommendation: (1) & (2) two mentors at UCLA, well-known economists in Health and cultural economics respectively, both editor-in-chief for Top journal. (3) Instructor for a undergraduate course at PKU (got 99/100 in that class, the average is below 80), who got the PHD from US Top school in 2010s and now has 7 top journals (Not top 5, but journals like JET, REStat) SOP: standard Writing Sample: a health econ related paper, using method PSM-DID Interest: Health, IO, Development Applying to: Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, Northwestern, Columbia, Berkeley ARE, NYU, Upenn, UCLA, UCSD, Umich, Brown, Cornell, UWM, bu, utaustin (welcome for suggestions) corcerns: (1) Low score in TOEFL Speaking (2) Low score in intermediate micro and linear algebra (I explain for these two course in my SOP but not sure whether anyone will notice that.). Grades in the third semester (first semester of second year) are bad becasue of illness (3) One of the reference (at UCLA) said she would write me a "very strong letter" but the other two didn't told me how they would write me the letter, not very sure about that. Any advice or comments are welcomed, thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mathenomics Posted November 20, 2016 Share Posted November 20, 2016 Your application looks great (to me at least), but the letters will probably determine how competitive you are in the process Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eatorange Posted November 20, 2016 Share Posted November 20, 2016 - Low speaking in TOEFL shouldn't be a big problem since you got good scores in other sections. - If you are interested in development and considering your great background, you should also consider Yale as a school to apply for (New Haven is a very boring city to live though) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tutonic Posted November 20, 2016 Share Posted November 20, 2016 I'm not entirely sure whether the debacle has been resolved over at UT Austin. If it isn't, I'd suggest you steer clear of them. Not worth the risk, regardless of whether the information is legit or not. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tgycmzwj Posted November 21, 2016 Author Share Posted November 21, 2016 Yale is strong in Development, but it requires 26 for TOEFL speaking :upset: Although I do know someone who did't meet this requirement got an offer last year, but my speaking is much lower... I will reconsider it, Thanks - Low speaking in TOEFL shouldn't be a big problem since you got good scores in other sections. - If you are interested in development and considering your great background, you should also consider Yale as a school to apply for (New Haven is a very boring city to live though) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tgycmzwj Posted November 21, 2016 Author Share Posted November 21, 2016 Yes, it's so said that the determinant factor is what we cannot control at all:upset: Your application looks great (to me at least), but the letters will probably determine how competitive you are in the process Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tgycmzwj Posted November 21, 2016 Author Share Posted November 21, 2016 What happened there??? I have no idea about that. I'm not entirely sure whether the debacle has been resolved over at UT Austin. If it isn't, I'd suggest you steer clear of them. Not worth the risk, regardless of whether the information is legit or not. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tutonic Posted November 21, 2016 Share Posted November 21, 2016 Don't quote me on this. I'm simply recalling from memory what I read here a couple months back. Â Funding for a couple of international students who were in their final year of their studies got randomly pulled by the new programme director or something like that. You can try searching online about it. Granted, we can't believe everything we read online but if there is even a slight possibility that it might be true, it's a lot safer to just avoid the school for now. That's just my opinion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cjyNel Posted November 21, 2016 Share Posted November 21, 2016 For UT-Austin: It's said that some Chinese PhD students who stayed in the program for too many years were forced to leave. They strongly suggest that Phd students graduate in 4 years, which is shorter than the usual 5-year length. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chateauheart Posted November 24, 2016 Share Posted November 24, 2016 Can't you retake your TOEFL? In my understanding, the speaking score may not get you TA funding for a number of programs, beyond the fact that it's inadmissible for UChicago, Yale, and some public universities. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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