How Selection Is Been Done

[italos]

There is only ONE round at Berkeley!

[treblekicker]

Supposedly, it's not an "auto reject" pile and can still be saved by particularly strong LOR. I heard they just did the initial sorting of those above the cutoff to give to faculty for "serious review."

 

Still probably an autoreject for me. While I am pretty confident that I have very strong LORs, non of my recommenders are well enough known (or have ties to UCB faculty) to save me. Berkeley, Stanford, and NWU were probably the top 10 schools I had the lowest chance of getting into anyways.

 

I think this is going to be the crux for me. I know my letters are enthusiastic, but I need adcoms to recognize my letter writers. I feel confident that at places like Duke and PSU this won't be an issue, and there are a few higher ranked ones where I believe my letters will be seriously read, but for the others, my GPA and school prestige just aren't high enough to get me in on their own.

[fp3690]

There is only ONE round at Berkeley!

 

Italos, I've asked before, how do you possibly know that stuff?

 

Also, the 3.8 GPA cut-off is not applicable to international and/or people with masters. Also, perhaps some people have crappy overall GPA but really good math/econ. Wednesday last year had an okish GPA from Berkeley, but all core PhD classes with As.

[economics]

there's more than one round at Berkeley - no university that gets more than 70 applications has only one round.

[italos]

Italos, I've asked before, how do you possibly know that stuff?

 

I am not going to reply directly to your question but just only for Berkeley Patrick Allen replied to me in an email among others ''.... and there's only ONE round''

 

Check also what I posted some days ago about NWU..... I do not remember exactly in which thread it was but you can easily find it!

 

EDIT: I found it .http://www.www.urch.com/forums/phd-economics/109222-does-anybody-know-when-adcoms-meet-2.html#post703261

This is what a guy currently an assistant professor at NWU told me about them.

''...the graduate admissions director sends files based on nationality to other faculties usually to the assistants profs and they evaluate the files( by indicating strong ,medium or weak applicant!).Then the graduate admissions director gets all files together and then takes the final decision and... that's it!

 

Note he was a member of the admcom till last year at NWU.He also said that he never reads SOPs

[fp3690]

I am not going to reply directly to your question but just only for Berkeley Patrick Allen replied to me in an email among others ''.... and there's only ONE round''

 

Check also what I posted some days ago about NWU..... I do not remember exactly in which thread it was but you can easily find it!

 

EDIT: I found it .http://www.www.urch.com/forums/phd-economics/109222-does-anybody-know-when-adcoms-meet-2.html#post703261

This is what a guy currently an assistant professor at NWU told me about them.

''...the graduate admissions director sends files based on nationality to other faculties usually to the assistants profs and they evaluate the files( by indicating strong ,medium or weak applicant!).Then the graduate admissions director gets all files together and then takes the final decision and... that's it!

 

Oh ok. By nationality you presumably mean faculty from the applicant's county of education. Makes sense, apart maybe from the top masters schools in Europe, because it's common knowledge how good each is.

 

Note he was a member of the admcom till last year at NWU.He also said that he never reads SOPs

 

Oh, so that's many hours well spent. Legend had it that only Harvard, MIT and the like don't read those, I'd thought Northwestern would.

[italos]

Oh ok. By nationality you presumably mean faculty from the applicant's county of education. Makes sense, apart maybe from the top masters schools in Europe, because it's common knowledge how good each is.

 

 

Yes I mean that if someone comes for example from the US, Italy ,South America etc the application will be considered from an American, Italian, or South American presumably the got someone coming from those counties.

In other worlds from someone very familiar with the education system.Fair enough I think!

 

Note he was a member of the admcom till last year at NWU.He also said that he never reads SOPs

 

Oh, so that's many hours well spent. Legend had it that only Harvard, MIT and the like don't read those, I'd thought Northwestern would.

 

 

As for the SOP me too I was hoping to be considered but not for NWU.

They have also a very transparent anouncement on the

website on who has to write a SOP.Just have a look .You can also deduce that no one will ever read it.The same guy told me that other schools (i.e NYU) maybe will read it but is not sure!

[economics]

SOPs will be read in the final rounds when some very crude matching of candidates to faculty interests are done.

 

no one will read your SOP in the first rounds for sure. a stellar SOP won't rise you from reject to admit, but only from the waiting list to admit or vice versa, if anything at all. but they will be read/skimmed in the end...

[fp3690]

Couldn't find it, but it doesn't really matter any more....In the immortal words of Peter Griffin, "know I play the waiting game".

[evgenia]

Ok guys!For a long time I wanted to post that. Let us discuss how selections are been done in several schools.Those include UCLA,Princeton,Harvard ,Columbia, NYU, Marylaland ,UCI, and many others....mostly about the top 20!

I have know many academics from those schools and by asking them I understood the following.My sources:

UCLA Roger Farmer

Columbia ;Mike Woodford

Princeton:Lars Svensson

Mayraland:Enrique Mendoza

UCI Fabio Milani

Harvard :Alberto Alesina

 

It was rely funny when talking about this with Mike(Woodford) I used a term largely used among Central Bank Economists :"The Segrets of the Temple"!!!:D

 

I will proceed with an example as it will be more comprehensive. Suppose we have 800 applicants as it happens frequently to be the case in the top 10

 

The first thing they look is the Quantitative GRE score!If you are below a certain cut off standard (UCB states if 760 test should be retaken) then you are OUT ! No one will ever see your complete file even if you have excellent records and LORs

Suppose now we are left with 200 applicants. Now is time for the most important thing;THE REFERENCE LETTER

As Roger Farmer told me he first looks at the NAME and he asks him self: Do I know him?Then of course he reads it.If it is a good letter you 're still in the game.Other wise.......:(.Note that if among your referees you have only one that is well know then they will put a part the other letters and you will end up with one letter in your file:Here is the question;From who do you ask the letters?

At stage 3 now we are left with only 100 applicants.Life is more easy now!

Now they look at the file.I you already have a Masters then you have an advantage ....except from the case you come from a US university or a very good undergraduate program.

Stage 4 candidates now are say 50.We want to admit 25 plus a waiting-listed, ok? What comes next?A direct email/phone call to the referee to ask additional information :Those could be the character,if the things stated in the LOR are true,grades and other.

S/he replies and that's it.Is done!

 

To sum up as both Mendoza and Milani told me the MOST important thing is the LETTER!!!!!!This is what makes you admitted or rejected!

 

So now you know everything!

 

This post is laughable. The most important thing is the undergrad institution you went to. If you went to a crappy private school or a public school, forget about top programs. Check current students' and alums' profiles on top programs' websites to convince yourself that this is how it works. Also, GRE scores are placed into context. Say, a top program received 50 applications from Chinese students with perfect GRE scores, perfect GPA's and perfect LORs (they probably paid some agency to put together a perfect application for them). Of course admissions are not going to admit 50 Chinese students, maybe one or two at most. They are also looking for diversity you see?

[ForbiddenDonut]

This post is laughable. The most important thing is the undergrad institution you went to. If you went to a crappy private school or a public school, forget about top programs. Check current students' and alums' profiles on top programs' websites to convince yourself that this is how it works. Also, GRE scores are placed into context. Say, a top program received 50 applications from Chinese students with perfect GRE scores, perfect GPA's and perfect LORs (they probably paid some agency to put together a perfect application for them). Of course admissions are not going to admit 50 Chinese students, maybe one or two at most. They are also looking for diversity you see?

 

How dare you question the wisdom of veteran member italos? He is a rising star in Greek central banking.

[chrishacker]

This post is laughable. The most important thing is the undergrad institution you went to. If you went to a crappy private school or a public school, forget about top programs. Check current students' and alums' profiles on top programs' websites to convince yourself that this is how it works. Also, GRE scores are placed into context. Say, a top program received 50 applications from Chinese students with perfect GRE scores, perfect GPA's and perfect LORs (they probably paid some agency to put together a perfect application for them). Of course admissions are not going to admit 50 Chinese students, maybe one or two at most. They are also looking for diversity you see?

 

I once saw one person got his undergrad and MA from U of South Carolina but managed to get into a top 5 in econ.

Anyway I agree with ForbiddenDonut that italos is truly legendary. Period (OK let's not make TM another EJMR...) .

[PhDPlease]

This post is laughable. The most important thing is the undergrad institution you went to. If you went to a crappy private school or a public school, forget about top programs. Check current students' and alums' profiles on top programs' websites to convince yourself that this is how it works. Also, GRE scores are placed into context. Say, a top program received 50 applications from Chinese students with perfect GRE scores, perfect GPA's and perfect LORs (they probably paid some agency to put together a perfect application for them). Of course admissions are not going to admit 50 Chinese students, maybe one or two at most. They are also looking for diversity you see?

 

I agree that applicants who didn't have the opportunity to attend top-rated places are often unfairly penalized. However, given there is often correlation between undergrad attended and other factors, it is kind of hard to determine the precise effect of the undergrad attended.

[nontrad dreams]

Not to mention the fact that the overall distribution of students is correlated with undergrad institution attended at least to some degree. It's not as if there is a pure lottery for top 5 undergrad admissions. And that is leaving aside peer and network effects once in school, etc...

 

I have heard both very deterministic and very meritocratic stories about job placements and admissions, so we can all keep hope alive a little bit.

[PhDPlease]

I think part of the problem is that the GRE quant isn't very challenging/doesn't cover more advanced topics and so many applicants have perfect or near-perfect quant. Therefore a top GRE score doesn't go as far as it otherwise would in helping candidates from lower-ranked scores show how prepared they are. (Despite that, I think more than enough time and money is spent by applicants on test preparation as is, so I don't really advocate making the GRE more challenging.)

[nontrad dreams]

Admittedly as someone who did not do terribly well not the quant portion of the GRE (81st perc.), I would also say that challenging or not, the timed nature of the GRE is a totally arbitrary component of the test that has nothing to do with real quantitative skills, but really has to do woth how your internal "thinking clock" operates. At the very least, it has nothing to do with your ability to do thoughtful and relevant economics work. I will be testing the importance of GRE quant vs. a lot of other parts of an application in the next couple of weeks anyway.

[catapultz]

I think part of the problem is that the GRE quant isn't very challenging/doesn't cover more advanced topics and so many applicants have perfect or near-perfect quant. Therefore a top GRE score doesn't go as far as it otherwise would in helping candidates from lower-ranked scores show how prepared they are. (Despite that, I think more than enough time and money is spent by applicants on test preparation as is, so I don't really advocate making the GRE more challenging.)

 

How much of a role do you think past batches of students from the same institution as yours, play? Suppose you applied to a school where not too many grad students from your institute have studied before, do departments trash your application in that case? I'm especially curious if you're an international student...

[Econhead]

How much of a role do you think past batches of students from the same institution as yours, play? Suppose you applied to a school where not too many grad students from your institute have studied before, do departments trash your application in that case? I'm especially curious if you're an international student...

 

This can be important, especially if you do not have a LoR from a well-known professor/a professor that has written a letter to an admit of that program. History implies future potential. If they have not admitted a student from a particular location, they may be willing to take a chance. If, however, past students admitted from your institution have historically performed worse in their program than other students, they may be extraordinarily cautious.

 

Although I know applying to UG programs is not the same as graduate programs: The highschool that I attended was the only public school in the state that Harvard routinely admitted students from. Past performance by prior admits indicated that they should continue admitting students from this school. I don't see why this would be any different from the perspective of an adcom with respect to graduate programs.

[catapultz]

This can be important, especially if you do not have a LoR from a well-known professor/a professor that has written a letter to an admit of that program. History implies future potential. If they have not admitted a student from a particular location, they may be willing to take a chance. If, however, past students admitted from your institution have historically performed worse in their program than other students, they may be extraordinarily cautious.

 

Although I know applying to UG programs is not the same as graduate programs: The highschool that I attended was the only public school in the state that Harvard routinely admitted students from. Past performance by prior admits indicated that they should continue admitting students from this school. I don't see why this would be any different from the perspective of an adcom with respect to graduate programs.

 

 

Okay, that sounds about right. I wonder if that still holds if its a relatively newer program, and they're consciously looking to build a diverse student base; would adcoms be equally stringent as they are in the more established programs, which has a history/no history of admitting students from certain schools/countries? Its also a little worrying when you apply to schools where people from your institutes have not applied before, because the adcom probably isnt as well informed about the grading scale/ grading criteria.