What are the odds of getting in?

[morcas87]

Hello everyone!

I am an international student from Latin America, double majoring in econ and math at a state university in California. The spring semester is coming up and I am interested in applying for grad school (Ph.D) in economics in the fall 2010. My grades are decent (3.7 GPA), I am currently working as a research assistant for one of my professors and I believe will have good letters of recommendation. I am done with my econ requirements, so I am taking a graduate level econ class (micro theory) and real analysis in the spring also. I haven't taken the GRE yet (hopefully this semester) but I am aiming for a 760 in the quantitative section. My fields of interest are microeconomics, behavioral economics, development economics and consumer theory.

My question is, what do you think my chances of getting into a... let's say, top-20 econ program in the US are?

Also, I am exploring the idea of getting my MA before going to a PhD program (in hopes of having a better chance of getting into a good program) and I was recommended to get a MA in mathematics instead of economics to get into a good econ Ph.D program, any thoughts about this possibility?

I appreciate any advice and comments you may have, thank you!

[donovanmcnair]

a) If you are not rushing to be a PhD, I think that the idea of having a MA in Math is great.

If you want to enter to a top program, you'll need a little more than 760 in GRE quant. Try to get at least to 770 since they use the GRE as a way to automatically reject people. It won't be use to compare you to another student but you'll be rejected if you have a score below the boundary fixed in that year.

c) The only people who can tell your chances to enter to a determined program are the faculty in your university (or the faculty in your target university if you know someone), specially, your recommenders, and other students from your school that have been in the process. They are the ones who know the history of placements of your institution and what relations have your people with the institutions you are targeting. If one of your referents know relatively well a professor in the other university, and your referent aproved that you are going there, you can be almost sure that you are in.