hscjoe Posted February 16, 2021 Share Posted February 16, 2021 Hello all wise men, I am in a desperate need of advice to calm myself and view this matter realistically, not with a too pessimistic nor too positive attitude. Also, please let me ask various and personal questions I have about Econ Phd admissions. To give you some background, I am a Purdue University (flagship, 50s National Ranking, 40s Econ Ranking, 20s Math and Stat ranking) undergrad in Economics Honors with Math and Stat minors. So, I will be completing Calc1~3, Linear Alge, Diff Eq, Foundations Analysis, Probability, Regression Analysis, Quality Control, Experiment Designs, as well as Econometrics, Trade, Micro Macro Theories, IO, Game Theory, Banking. My GPA is 4.0/4.0 for now, and I believe I can make it at least 3.9 by the time I apply and I graduate. I am also an RA to renowned professors here, and will be doing some TA and RA works at the department starting Summer 2021. So, I will get a lot of experience in Stata and may get decent LORs from top faculties who studied in universities like Michigan, Oxford, Stanford, etc. I will applying this year. Also, I am an international. I transferred to Purdue to study Flying, but ended up in Economics because of both my personal interest and COVID's detrimental impacts on Aviation Industry. I did not have enough money and time to transfer again to another prestigious university/college. I want to study Trade and Development. Here are my concerns: 1. The name of Purdue as an undergrad in this elitist world. 2. The timing of courses; I will be taking Diff Eq, Senior Honors Thesis, Probability, and some Stat courses and Econ courses during Fall 2021 and Spring 2022. I believe this means the performance in these courses will not be counted toward my admissions. Please let me know what this actually means in real world admissions. 3. Poor performance in prior university: I took some electives in a foreign university (quite good actually) for a year before I transferred. There I got 27 credits and GPA was about 3.2/4.0. How is this going to play out? I am planning to apply for the following universities due to my personal reasons (I want to go somewhere that is not too far from here): (1) Northwestern, Michigan, Wisconsin (2) OSU, Wash U (3) Purdue (Including AGEC), Notre Dame, UIUC, MSU What do you think my chances are at these universities? Also, I want some advice on AGEC. One of my plans is to pursue a AGEC Master's here and proceed to AGEC programs in places like Berkeley, Davis, and Maryland. How is this compared to the Econ PhD admissions? Better shot? AGEC vs ECON in real world academia? Would AGEC Master's with thesis be an advantage to ECON PhD admissions if I try once more after the Master's? Thanks for reading this long story+questions. Please help me out. I would appreciate any advice and opinions. Thank you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Evonomist294 Posted February 17, 2021 Share Posted February 17, 2021 I think the top ones will be hard. Just my 2 cents, I am not in the committee but applying this year. Unless you write a thesis that publishable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hscjoe Posted February 17, 2021 Author Share Posted February 17, 2021 I think the top ones will be hard. Just my 2 cents, I am not in the committee but applying this year. Unless you write a thesis that publishable. Thank you! You mean NWU, Michigan, and Wisconsin, all of them right? Also, do you mean you are applying for Fall 2022 or applying to be in a committee? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Evonomist294 Posted February 17, 2021 Share Posted February 17, 2021 No, I mean it is just my 2 cents because I do not serve in the admissions committee but am a student. I am in this discord with lots of applicants who all did their undergrad in usnews rop 20, wifh 3.9+ gpa in maths/ econ, and currently doing predoc at top 10. Yet so far all of us have been rejected by all the top 10 and only person got into Michigan. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rtj Posted February 17, 2021 Share Posted February 17, 2021 I agree with the above poster. I don’t think the bad grades in your home country will hurt too much for most of these schools. I wouldn’t do a masters in agricultural economics to help with economics admissions, at least based on the course content I’ve seen in such programs, though it may help with Ag Econ admissions. Anyways, go for it! A couple of additional pieces of advice: talk to your professors and ask them these questions. They know you better than anybody here, and can give you the best advice possible. Secondly, once you start going down the rankings, research fit becomes much more important. One classic example of this is not to go to Minnesota to study applied micro. Just be aware of this when picking schools to apply to. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hscjoe Posted February 17, 2021 Author Share Posted February 17, 2021 I agree with the above poster. I don’t think the bad grades in your home country will hurt too much for most of these schools. I wouldn’t do a masters in agricultural economics to help with economics admissions, at least based on the course content I’ve seen in such programs, though it may help with Ag Econ admissions. Anyways, go for it! A couple of additional pieces of advice: talk to your professors and ask them these questions. They know you better than anybody here, and can give you the best advice possible. Secondly, once you start going down the rankings, research fit becomes much more important. One classic example of this is not to go to Minnesota to study applied micro. Just be aware of this when picking schools to apply to. Wow thanks! That is a very good piece of advice. Just out of curiosity, which has not really much to do with the original post, what do you think about Griffin VS Booth VS Harris in terms of getting admission? I am also thinking about Harris and other PP programs, and want to know your and others' thoughts. Let me also include Berkeley ARE. Wanna know if I have better shots at both Harris and Berkeley than other T20 schools. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hscjoe Posted February 17, 2021 Author Share Posted February 17, 2021 Thanks for the reality @rtj. Maybe I should look into other 20~50 programs + PPs and AREs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Evonomist294 Posted February 20, 2021 Share Posted February 20, 2021 I know many people with similar or better record than yours, most of whom are applying this year or next year. If there is nothing special about your profile (publication) then I believe even OSU will be a coin toss. It is just that competitive - there are people with 3.9+ gpa from respectable universities (top 50 usnews) who got nothing so far except some waitlist at top 30. Having said that, I also know people with similar background to you getting straight into top 10 without any predoc (lower top 10 though). In the end it depends on LOR perhaps. Have you thought about applying to some predoc or msc europe? If you are top 5% at lse eme then you have really good chance at northwestern and chicago Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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