jeffster

It's definitely worth applying. You don't say how much math you've actually had, but your more recent classes will make up a great deal for your past classes. My advice would be to find some mid-tier schools that have research interests that match your own, and write a great SOP about why you would be a good fit there. Emphasise your research experience. At the worst, if you get rejected you might try contacting them and finding out what they thought were your strengths and weaknesses, and improving for the next cycle. It's not unusual to try twice.

Why do you want to leave the program you're doing so well in? Are they not funding you? Are you sure your current professors would be happy to write LORs for you while you use their program as a stepping-stone to get into another one?

A shared desk in an office? Gee, that sounds nice! I go to school right in the center of a big, crowded city where every inch of space is at a premium. My entire department has one (1) small room for all the PhD students, and a handful of communal offices that you can check out a key for if you need it for office hours or something. So, good luck with what you've got!

There are a few other threads in the econ forum here where people ask for help figuring out what schools they should apply to based on their profile. Check those out for some more perspective.

The hardest part you'll run into is probably difficulty in relating to others in your cohort. It's not necessarily a trivial difficulty, either, since these are the people you'll probably want to study and collaborate with. That said, it's certainly something you can overcome; it just takes a bit of effort. Good luck!

It seems like this is pretty specific to your department. You should speak with an advisor. I don't see why they would look bad on your transcript though. If anything a self-driven study course could be quite a plus, where you show you can step up and self-motivate.

I second MsDarjeeling's advice. Your health is a private matter; what should count is that you're better now and can illustrate this with your increase in performance. But don't try to hide it, or avoid it; do it just like she posted.

As others have been pointing out, name recognition matters quite a bit. I did my undergrad at a school ranked in the low 30s in my field, and almost every one of my professors had attended top-10 or even top-5 programs for their PhDs. This seems less rigid outside of academia, if your goal is public or private sector. Employers seem far more likely to be happy with relatively good quality programs of only regional influence. Just an anecdote to illustrate, I have a friend from central Europe who did her undergrad at Brown. When we first met and I expressed my admiriation for going to such a fine school, she was *overjoyed* that someone finally recognized it. In her home country it basically carries no weight at all, because no one in the private sector has heard of it. This might be different if she was in academia.

Just keep practicing all the tricks the various prep books teach you. The GRE quant section is really about speed, and little else. I think most people with rudimentary math skills and a bit of practice before hand could ace this section... given time to work through everything. But you don't have that time; you have to identify all the shortcuts. If they don't come really naturally to you, the only way is through repetition and practice. So, good luck!

Most econ phd programs require you to pick fields from within their "program" so to speak. So, if econ+finance is your interest, you'll probably have around two finance courses, and the rest econ theory or a sub field. If finance is your only interest, you would probably be better off in a pure finanace PhD program. Otherwise, pull up some rankings and find a few schools in the 20-50 range and see if any of them have a econ PhD with a finance field that you like. Maybe run it by some of your LOR professors. Apply to a handful, some closer to 20 and some closer to 50, just to cover your bases. Good luck!

I'm not really a finance guy, but I can talk about it from a general econ perspective. Your undergrad GPA is a little low, but you covered a great selection of math courses and if you got all As in all them too, that will be a big standout. Having some grad econ is nice also. I'm assuming you have a masters? Have you done any research work? My initial reaction based solely on the little you wrote there is that you should maybe aim for schools ranked somewhere between the top 20 and top 50. You might toss out a hail mary for something higher than that, but without a perfect GRE quant score and a higher GPA it's a bit of a stretch. The GMAT shouldn't be particularly relevant for econ programs. Are you interested in academia, or in the public or private sectors? You should strongly consider that when looking into locations. For example, DC is great for the public sector, NY for the private, etc. Makes it (relatively) very easy to get internships at relevant locations, including some duruing the school year when people from other programs can't do it, and is potentially worth trading a few rankings off the school. Also if you're interested in approaching finance from the field of economics (rather than going straight finance), you will want to look for programs with a specific strength there. Try looking at faculty bios and research interests at a prospective program, for example.

A resume isn't a chronological list of everything you've done your whole life. As someone who has reviewed CVs for hiring purposes, wasting space on something that isn't particularly relevant (such as a year of studies at a school before you even started your current PhD) just so you don't have any "gaps" in the years listed strikes me as a terrible idea. Your resume space is extremely valuable, and the little bit of it that gets read needs to be directly relevant to your goals. If the employer wants to know all the jobs you've had and schools you've attended, I imagine they'll give you a supplemental form that asks that. So, if time spent at an institution that didn't result in a degree is a valuable piece of your experience and relevant to the position you're applying for, by all means list it. Otherwise, particularly if you just went on to another institution and completed the same degree later, my advice is to keep it off. Of course if they ask you about it in an interview you should not lie or decieve. It's just not a highlight, and therefore doesn't belong on your CV.

On a side note, sorry about your father; glad you were able to (apparently) turn at least a little bit of it into something constructive. Good luck.

I guess it might be especially challenging in my field, since the majority of people in it likely plan on going into the public or private sector, with very few expecting academia to be their primary career. Just how much effort do you put into learning to teach when you don't want to be a teacher? Couple that with little support from the department for their TAs, and, well, doesn't make for a great learning environment. This might also explain why no one likes taking undergraduate economics courses.

So when I started TAing last year, I was surprised at the level of training we got. Or to be more specific, the complete lack of training. Both semesters I taught smaller sections of huge undergrad econ intro lectures, where I was responsible for meeting with smaller groups twice a week, being their point of contact for all questions, and grading their work. They literally just tossed my colleagues and I into it with narry a word. I didn't really have a problem, since I've done some teaching and am naturally good at presenting in front of others, but many in my cohort had no experience and/or are the quiet, introverted types. But still, this type of "figure it out as you go" thing doesn't seem particularly fair to the undergrads. Is this standard practice? What kind of prep do people get in other departments?

Can't disagree with anything you're saying there. The concern that they might not be paying you because they don't particularly value you is definitely legit. Maybe that's offset by the fact that they MIGHT pay you? Anyway, they might also not be paying you because they literally don't have the money, but would otherwise love to. Maybe the OP has some feeling from talking with the department about their attitude and how much they seem to actually want them there? At the least try that thought experiment I mentioned, and then after you've "solved" it make a list of these "maybes" (potential funding, potential lack of respect, etc) and see if they add anything to it. Good luck regardless, sucks you got stuck in this situation.

You might want to check with people in your field specifically to see how this would be taken. Maybe some faculty at your MA institution? I'm not familiar with a system where a non-school can grant a PhD, but maybe it's not that unusual elsewhere. When I consulted with my undergrad faculty they largely told me not to go overseas if my goal was to work in the US, unless the foreign school had name recognition here in the States. But every factuly I talked with was in the econ department, so YMMV. I sort of thought a foreign degree might set me apart from the competition a bit, but they didn't seem to think so. Good luck!

I see what you're saying, but what I meant was to eliminate the extra stuff and consider only the options that are before you. Maybe what the school did is wrong, maybe it's not fair, etc. But none of that really matters to the decision. Eliminate the clutter and look at only the options that are on the table before you (go to US PhD program unfunded, or don't), not the options that are gone (US job, funded PhD), and not the options that are uncertain (potential funding). Even in the analogy you give, about accepting an unpaid job knowing your colleagues are doing the same work for pay, I think this holds true. You're not in a race with your colleagues, there's no finsih line and no winner. If in the end the benefits of that job outweigh the costs, you should take that job regardless of what your colleagues do. As a thought experiment, try chaning the order of information discovery. You're offered an unpaid position doing exactly what you want to do, gaining great experience you can leverage later. You weigh the pros and cons, and decide the benefits more than justify the expense of living off your savings for a bit. Once you arrive there, you discover another colleague of yours doing the same thing but for pay. Should this retroactively change your first decision? You might be justifably upset at the unequal treatment, but I really don't think it changes any part of your initial calculus that led you to take the job in the first place. At least, that's the way I would look at it.

Okay, so the closer you are the Canada the more hockey will be popular, as a rule of thumb. A lot of the original teams (Boston, Detroit, Chicago, etc) are huge draws in their area. Note however that Americans pay exactly zero attention to the Hockey Worlds that most of Europe loves. I doubt most Americans even know it goes on, especially since it (for some stupid reason) over laps with the Stanley Cup playoffs. After that it's NFL, MLB and NBA. Those are pretty much going to be popular everywhere. And lastely, don't underestimate college sports. For some reason we love that stuff here. Baseball and hockey not so much, but college football and basketball are huge. Probably bigger than their pro counterparts. Come March Madness all you will hear about is college basketball, and everyone you know will be filling out brackets and joining betting pools. You didn't mention what town you were going to be in, but as someone else pointed out, the sport(s) that dominate vary by region too. Hope you find something domestic you enjoy!

If you think of it once the semseter is underway, let us know how you like it for school purposes! I'm hoping my laptop holds on another year, but if it croaks I might be looking for something less expensive myself.

I think any major city will have sports bars that specialize in foreign sports. I lived in Prague for a few years and had no problem finding several bars that show all the American sports on satellite TV. Likewise, in the US find a good Mexican bar and it will certainly have international soccer/football on. Just do some hunting around, and I bet you can find almost anything you want. If you're in a big enough town, that is!

I'm coming from econ, not poli sci, but in my department almost everyone changes their sub-fields around as they progress. It could be completely different in your department, but it's definitely not a given.

A few things to think about: Is there another faculty member (department, HR, or other) you trust well enough to bring into the loop? Even if you choose not to make a confrontation with him, this other person might be able to offer you far better advice than we can, given our limited knowledge of the situation. Your school might even have something formalized for this. Especially if you do decide to try to navigate this minefield in order to pursue the thesis publishing: make sure any future meetings with him are done in a public place and not in his office, where he's both alone with you and appears to feel comfortable breaking the professional relationship with you. Lest you not feel reassured by everyone else telling you it's not your fault; it's not your fault. EVEN IF you were afraid you somehow led him on, and EVEN IF he waited until after you graduated to start harrassing you, he STILL saved this thesis publishing hook as a way to keep influence over you. Everything he's doing is wrong and unethical. Is there someone else you could talk to about getting your thesis published? If that's the primary concern holding you back from reporting all of this officially, maybe you can allievate some of that concern by pursuing another avenue. It might also open the door to my first suggestion of finding someone else to talk to about all of this. If you do decide to confront him informally about it, with the hopes that he stops his behavior and you can resume working with him, make sure you have lots of documentation to cover yourself first. There's no telling how he would react, and you would in effect be doing him a huge favor by not reporting his behavior. Also ask yourself if you would really feel comfortable working with him, even after he stops harrassing you. I don't know enough about your situation to actually advocate for any of these, I'm just throwing them out there in case they're helpful. Good luck, I'm sorry you got stuck going through this.

Definitely make your plan on the worse case - that is, no funding will be pending. Clear the table and ask yourself, if you had to pay for all of your time in this program, would it be worth it? I would even suggest you clear the table of whether it's "normal" or not, since once you have that PhD on your CV your level of funding won't really matter. In fact, in order to get the emotion out of it, pretend they never offered you any money at all. Pretend you never had a work visa that you've since given up. Instead just pretend you wanted to come to the US for school, you could get a student visa, and this program admitted you on the basis that you pay for it all. What would your decision be then? If your decision would be to come, then all the other stuff shouldn't really change that.

I also find your decision to pass on a funded PhD surprising, when a PhD is your goal. Unless the gap in prestige and/or fit between these two schools is truly enormous, maybe. Have you done any research into whether the MA program is a reliable feeder to the PhD program at this more prestigous school? It's not unusual for an MA program to be designed as terminal. Did you apply to the PhD program at this school, and not get accepted? You might try contacting the department directly and posing the question to them. Otherwise it seems like a pretty big gamble, given the little we know about your situation. Especially since the PhD programs offer to defer you for a year is pretty generous, and seems to indicate they really want you there. As far as the ethics of playing a delaying game with the first school for a backup place, I think you have some incling that it's not particularly on the up-and-up, or you wouldn't have come here to ask about it.