StatsG0d

First of all, congrats. I'm from NW Indiana, and I've been to South Bend several times. I would say Notre Dame has a pretty diverse student population for a Catholic school. South Bend itself is over one-quarter black and over 10% hispanic. NW Indiana is not like the rest of Indiana--we're more open minded than the rest of the state. Also, be sure to check out Cambodian Thai. By far the best Thai food I've ever had, and I've been to Chicago and DC Thai restaurants. I've never lived there, so I can't really help you here. I wouldn't say South Bend is the safest place in the world, but you would feel very safe anywhere around campus.

Shouldn't they pay for your flight to visit?

Or maybe a surprise acceptance coming your way! Good luck. At least one of us should get in.

Looks like Michigan rejections are rolling out. Unfortunately, I found this out the hard way haha.

Is Mathematical Economics basically micro theory with calculus applications? If so, then yes you should definitely take that if you want to go to graduate school. If it's an elective beyond intermediate micro/macro theory, then it's definitely not necessary. I work at the IMF, and I have seen several colleagues get into top-10 econ PhD programs without such a class. The adcoms care more about your grades in multivariate, linear algebra, and real analysis. I guess ceteris paribus the more quantitative class looks better to adcoms, but I seriously doubt you'll ever be in the situation where you would be rejected for not taking it and taking international trade instead. I also don't think that taking the international trade class will help you much in your job. I took international economics, and it certainly doesn't help me at all in my job.

I don't think anyone has heard back from Iowa State yet, so it's probably worth waiting for. I would be very surprised if OSU would not grant you an extension pending acceptance to a program, so it may be worth asking to see if that is possible. I doubt you would have to wait longer than a week or two in order to hear back from Iowa State.

Here's a ranking of economics/econometrics departments in Europe. No rankings for finance, but I imagine finance rankings are highly correlated with economics / operations research.

I was pretty skeptical about that myself. I imagine it was some sort of typo. That's a little unfortunate, but I guess I was not really interested in biostats anyway. A more interesting metric (and one that is hard to find anywhere) would be the proportion of graduates who received academic positions out of the subset that were looking for them. Do more students just choose to go to industry rather than work in academic positions?

I emailed A&M to find out their placements. They replied back with a list of their 2014 placements, which I'll list below (academic placements in green). -Senior Specialist with LG-CNS in Seoul, Korea -AVP Risk Modeler at JP Morgan Chase in Columbus, OH -Associate Analyst at Quantum Reservoir Impact in Katy, TX -Post Doc at Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium -Associate Professor at Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN -Senior Analyst at AIG in New York, NY -Post Doc at University of Mannheim in Mannheim, Germany -ITS Intern Grad with Anadarko Petroleum Corporation in Conroe, TX -Post Doc with Duke University in Durham, NC -Research Scientist with Eli Lilly and Company in Indianapolis, IN -AVP Corporate Investment Analyst with Bank of America in Charlotte, NC -Assistant Professor at Purdue University -Statistician at Ceva Biomune in Lenexa, KS

I can't believe I didn't find that. Thanks a lot.

Thanks for the response. I always thought PSU's department was about as large as Purdue and A&M. I guess I will have to seriously consider PSU. Anyone else's responses would be appreciated!

Does anyone know where the two above schools place their graduates. More specifically, if they place well in academia? I found it interesting that, despite its lower ranking, Purdue lists its graduate placements, while PSU and A&M do not. I guess I can find out this information on visits, but since I am working and not in school, I have to be more selective about which schools I decide to visit since I have to take time off.

I'm still waiting for my result too. Judging by last year's acceptances and rejections, they really space out their decisions. Trying not to get too anxious about it, but it's kind of my first choice.

Only 5! Plus they came in waves over the last two years. Don't fret yet. I'm still waiting as well.

In case it's of any interest, I just had my phone call with the PSU professor today. It was pretty casual--he just asked about what got me interested in statistics, and then went on to talk a lot about the program. He pointed out one of the biggest strengths of PSU's department is the large diversity of research interests among the faculty. He also commented on its friendly, casual atmosphere. First year students all get funded through TA, but there are many opportunities for second year students, including joining one of the many research centers housed at PSU. A current PhD student is supposed to reach out with me in the coming days. Pretty impressed at the way they sell their university.

I think Columbia got a huge boost when they hired David Blei, who's one of the most famous in the field. Unfortunately, I cannot really comment on the other two.

I would take a less pessimistic view than that provided above. I don't think that the job market for statistics PhDs is really all that saturated. If anything, there's a shortage (with the big data explosion and what have you). Yes--there is a large opportunity cost. But this cost diminishes depending on where you will be. For example, I calculated that living in one rural college town, adjusted for cost of living, I would only be taking a $7,000/year pay cut. It's not insignificant, but it's not massive either. I think it also depends heavily on your goals. Do you want to do research? Then get a PhD. Do you want to sit at a computer and run regressions all day? Then it's probably not necessary.

Below is from Boston College's finance and economics programs (finance first). I highlighted when courses had the same name. You were right, no macro (obviously) for finance, but they are very similar in my opinion. But perhaps "almost identical" was a stretch. YEAR 1, FALL Microeconomic Theory I Management of Financial Institutions Mathematics for Economists Statistics YEAR 1, SPRING Microeconomic Theory II Econometrics PhD Seminar in Corporate Finance Theory PhD Seminar in Asset Pricing Theory ECON7720 Mathematics for Economists This course consists of two modules: one on linear algebra and the other on economic dynamics. The linear algebra portion of the course covers fundamental material in vector spaces, metric spaces, linear equations and matrices, determinants, and linear algebra. This basic material finds application in numerous economics courses, including macro theory, micro theory, and econometrics, and will be assumed in the theoretical econometrics sequence. The economic dynamics portion of the course covers differential equations, difference equations, and various topics in dynamic optimization. ECON7740 Microeconomic Theory I This course covers basic consumer and producer theory and expected utility maximization. Also covered are special topics in consumer theory such as welfare change measures and revealed preference theory. ECON7741 Microeconomic Theory II This course comprises three modules. The first treats pure and applied aspects of general equilibrium theory. The second is an introduction to non-cooperative game theory. The third covers topics in information economics. ECON7750 Macroeconomic Theory I The first half of the course presents Keynesian and classical models, rational expectations and its implications for aggregate supply, and economic policy. The second half covers the Solow growth model, infinite horizon and overlapping generation models, the new growth theory, real business cycle theory, and traditional Keynesian theories of fluctuations. ECON7751 Macroeconomic Theory II This course is divided into three sections. Part I covers consumption and asset pricing. Part II introduces business-cycle theory with flexible prices. Part III covers monetary models, including business-cycle theory with nominal rigidities and the role of monetary policy. ECON7770 Statistics The first part of this course deals with topics in probability theory, including random variables, expectation, conditional distributions, and limit theorems. The second part covers topics in statistics, including maximum likelihood estimation, method of moments, hypothesis testing, and large sample inference. ECON7772 Econometric Methods This course provides an understanding of econometric theory that underlies common econometric models. The focus is on regression models and their many extensions. Topics include finite and asymptotic properties of estimators, consistency and limiting distributions, specification issues, heteroskedasticity, autocorrelation, endogeneity and simultaneity, and nonlinear model estimators including maximum likelihood and generalized method of moments.

This is really useful. Thanks a lot!

I wouldn't worry yet. They really seem to be going one-by-one with these admissions. There have been very few results posted. Hang in there!

Same here. I've been trying to think of some good questions to ask.

Congrats! Mine was unofficial too. Email from a professor. Kind of cool that they do that actually. A lot more personal than "Congratulations! You have been admitted to XYZ."

At the time there were some personal issues preventing me from those particular schools (that are no longer relevant--go figure haha). I also didn't think that I would be that competitive at top-10 programs, but it seems that I slightly underestimated my potential. I agree Yale's program isn't that great, but it would have been pretty cool to get into an Ivy League school. I guess I still have Columbia!

Looks like Yale came out today. No good news for me haha. Brand name universities...

Thanks a lot! Good luck to you