Xindol

I'm thinking of joining a Ph.D. program in economics, and I'm perplexed about what is more important 'to the admissions committee' and most importantly to the success in the program, per se, at a regular institution such as UC Irvine, UC Riverside, or Boston College, U of Virginia, U of Washington, or maybe U Penn, Columbia, Berkeley as one of the top programs. By looking at their requirements, they usually prefer a mathematics sequence like the following: 3 semesters of calculus, linear algebra, real analysis, probability/statistics. I've emailed one of the department heads at UC Irvine and he/she told me that I should at least 'try to take intermediate macro/micro'. Sure, I could take only one of them, but is it important? Are the mathematics more important than taking these econ courses? And is differential equations applicable?