Hi Fuzzy,
Thanks a lot for your response. A few things-
"I only got a 169, I don't know what happened" bit. You do realize that's a good score, right?
Duke says almost all their Econ students get 170. And they're ranked 18th or so. So 169 might just be the average score at these schools. Not every school posts these stats.
Second, your GPA is also great, and again not something to worry about.
Yeah, I know my current GPA is good. However, at my previous degree, I had a horrible GPA (don't even ask). I will still have to explain that in my essay I guess, even though I'm managing As currently. I have directly applied to PhD programs earlier and just got rejected (which I think was for my poor grades). Hence I enrolled in the MS to make it better. And like I said earlier, considering the negatives of my profile, I may never make it to Chicago or Northwestern, even though they may be pretty good at Econometrics. USC, on the other hand, has a deadline of Dec 5th. Currently I have 2 PhD level courses which might help my profile, but my grades won't be out till Dec end probably. As for my more specific interests, it'd be in the area of applied time series, empirical options pricing, etc.I haven't decided on the exact research area, but these interests are related to what I was working on while I was in the industry.
And thanks for the advice on the academia vs industry option. From your response it seems like it's ok to say I'm keeping my options open instead of saying that I'm only interested in academia....that's fine by me too.