Profile Evaluation: from Psych to Econ, am i crazy?

[pepegna90]

Hi everybody!

 

I'll post my profile here so you can tell me if I'm crazy/stupid or not. I studied undergrad Psychology in Italy and right now I'm taking a MSc in I/O Psychology, but I'm in Germany for an exchange year. I have grown found of Behavioural Economics and I'd like to do a Phd. However, to this moment I have little math background, if we exclude Statistics.I didn't take GRE or Toefl yet (although the latter won't be a problem).

 

Here some facts

 

Undergrad GPA (University of Turin): 3.75 (converted from Italian grades; Italian GPA 28.5, Degree Summa cum Laude)

 

Possible relevant classes: Statistics I ( B +), Statistics II (B-), Social Psychology (A+)

 

Grad GPA (University of Jena): 3.8 (converted from German grades; German GPA 1.7)

 

Possible relevant grad classes: Advanced Psychological Statistics (A-) Will take/taking but not graded yet: Advanced Psychological Statistics II; Topics in Behavioral Economics; Money and Financial Markets; Project work in Social psychology (basically research work)

 

Relevant facts: I have been admitted in a scolarship program in Turin which would require me to attend several extra classes next year, so I was obviously thinking Math (Analysis and some other stuff). However, I would not be completing these courses up to July 14. Are they relevant, since I intend to apply this fall for fall 14?

 

Relevant (?) facts : I have a Bachelor's Degree in Piano (Italian grade 9.5/10, which could be sth like 3.9).

 

Research experience: Developmental Psychology (internship/RA in Psych department) and Social Psychology (experimental Bachelor's Thesis) during undergrad; Psychological Statistics (experimental group work) and Social Psychology (idem) durnig MSc.

 

LOR: My Bachelor's thesis advisor is gonna be available; here in Jena I found a senior faculty in Psychological Statistics; for the third one I was thinking about my professor of Behavioural Econ her, although he has little international profile.

 

I was browsing for programs, and, besides Chicago GSB, Harvard etc I was impressed with INSEAD Decision Sciences PhD and Rady's (UCSD) B-school program. Any suggestions? Am I aiming to high?

 

Thanks anybody for the attention and your tips !

 

Tante care cose (many sweet things)

Edited July 16, 2013 by pepegna90

[zapster]

Behavioral Economics is a very natural overlap b/w Psych and Eco, so a perfectly justified move - but note that there are various routes you can take to study the same basic area from different perspectives and with different implications for your future.

 

Apart from Eco programs, you could also study decision making (and I am excluding OR programs with decision analysis) under some of the foll. programs with different niche areas. 

 

1. Psych /Cognitive type programs: e.g. CMU (Behavioral Decision Research), Caltech (BNS program), UCI (CogPsych), Rochester (Brain & Cog Sci program), UCSD (CogPsych)

2. Business programs: e.g. Rady (BE focus), INSEAD (Decision Sciences), UCLA-Anderson (Strategy track has some Behavioral focus), Duke Fuqua (Dec Sciences), MIT Sloan (Focus on collective intelligence / group decision making),  

[pepegna90]

don't you see my lack of mathematical knowledge as a major hurdle?

 

will some of the B-school committee believe me when I say I'm gonna be acquiring useful mahematical knowledge next year, provided that they consider me fit despite my limited math knowledge?

[zapster]

1. Highlight your Stats courses - these are pretty important. 

2. Address the issues head-on by stating that you would be enrolling for XXXX Maths courses that you expect to complete by July14. Even if this is discounted a bit by any adcom,it shows you are aware of the requirements and they should take you seriously if the rest of your app is great

3. Ensure you max the GRE quant section as far as possible - a weak GRE quant will make it difficult for them to accept your math potential

4. If possible, take the GRE Math subject test - scoring highly here will be a big +ve, but this could be a double edged sword (in case of a poor score), so only do this if you are comfortable with studying the content.

5. Talk about any self-studies you may have done in math (if applicable).

6. Talk about any projects / papers / etc. you have worked on that may have had some element of quantitative skills / stats required.

[pepegna90]

cool thx! do you think I have a shot at the above-mentioned programs if I get a very good GRE quant?

 

I don't know if I'm gonna take the GRE math - seems like a LOT  of work in a short time I need to sort everything else out, but I'll look into it.

[zapster]

It is almost completely impossible to predict PhD admissions, but nothing you have mentioned rules you out for these programs. An excellent GRE quant score would be a hygiene factor. Excellent LORs and the right research fit (SOP) would probably be the critical aspects for your application. Good mathematical prowess is often also used as a proxy for strong analytical abilities - perhaps this can be indirectly addressed by asking your LOR writers to talk about your analytical skills. You might want to conduct a bit more research on the type of programs you want to apply to so as to ensure your research interests match that of the department. Try writing to potential POIs well in advance, this helps a lot and gives you a much better insight of what specific departments are engaged in / looking for (as compared to what is available on their websites). If you get all these aspects right, you definitely stand a great chance in all of the above programs.

 

Best of Luck !

[pepegna90]

What do you think of Marketing? I'm actually thinking I'd be better off applying to Marketing PhDs in most cases because DecSc mostly do things I'm not really interested in as opposed to study of JDM and general Behavioral Econ, e.g. Duke (Fuqua)

[jeffster]

Your lack of math is definitely a hurdle, but not an impossible one to overcome.  Most econ departments require you to do the core econ work first, then focus on fields second.  My school doesn't do behavioral econ, but the format still seems to be pretty standard.  So, expect to have to take your basic PhD econ courses, which means math.  Take this with a grain of salt though, since I suppose it's possible the behavioral-focused econ programs are on a completely different math schedule than the rest of the field, but I doubt it.

 

You didn't mention your level of calculus that I saw, but you simply must have at least covered multi-variable calc (usually calc 3 in the US system).  If you've got that covered, you probably meet the math minimum for lower- and some mid-tier programs.  Less than that is not viable.  That said, having diff eq (calc 4) is hugely beneficial.  After that, having analysis is important but not as crucial outside of top-rated programs.  Anything you do beyond calc 4 and analysis 1 is just icing on the cake.  That is to say, may make you look better than other applicaints the committee is selecting from, but probably isn't strictly necessary for consideration (or even most of your coursework).

 

Good luck!

[zapster]

Marketing is an option as well....but again, you need to select the programs carefully - some programs are quite strong on behavioral and JDM coverage, but remember that Mkt programs are going to be very applied and narrow compared to a BehEco or CogPsych program. You could IMHO move from a BehEco / CogPsych PhD to a Mkt program faculty but not vice versa. So you need to be sure that your applied interests lie in marketing (even though there are a fair number of theoretical papers produced by MKT depts).

 

If Mkt per se is not what you are interested in, I would not recommend looking at those programs for doing your PhD simply because they have a high JDM orientation. Look at publications from the departments in detail.

 

Also, I forgot to mention Indiana amongst the good CogPsych programs covering this area above.

[pepegna90]

@jeffster you're in a "traditional" econ PhD right? well my problem is not doing coursework that implies math - I will take math classes next year and I'm confident I can add sth by myself - as much as it is convincing an adcom that I'm capable of it. I'd be glad to hear your take on this particular matter - maybe some of your acquaintances/fellow PhD students have a poor math background 

 

@zapster I started browsing, here what I liked: Chicago Booth (of course), Duke Fuqua, Rady, INSEAD, Warwick Bschool (UK), of course Yale, Harvard, Stanford, MIT Sloan. Carnegie Mellon Behavioral Decision Research PhD would be ideal for my perspective and routinely accepts students from Psychology (although I don't know the math requirements, I suspect they are not nearly as high as requested in Econ programs). I should probably research more programs similar to CMU BDR.

These programs, however, are highly ranked and very selective, so I am waiting for suggestions of lower ranked school which could constitute a viable plan B (or plan C).

 

Thanks again everybody, speaking with somebody which went through (kind of ) the same stuff is really helpful!

Edited July 22, 2013 by pepegna90

[jeffster]

@jeffster you're in a "traditional" econ PhD right? well my problem is not doing coursework that implies math - I will take math classes next year and I'm confident I can add sth by myself - as much as it is convincing an adcom that I'm capable of it. I'd be glad to hear your take on this particular matter - maybe some of your acquaintances/fellow PhD students have a poor math background 

 

I think it's hard to signal your math skills to a committee beyond the traditional way of taking the actual classes.  It is possible, however, especially if you have at least taken most of the requirements traditionally.  For example, I took up to calc 3 at my US institution, but I took a single class (that didn't have an obvious name describing the content) that was a combination of calc 4 and analysis at a European institution, so I used a bit of my letter to outline my math strengths.  My school isn't as math-focused as some, however.  I know on a few apps they actually had a supplemental page that wanted you to list all of your math classes and all of your marks in them.  I don't even think it asked about your econ classes.