I'm currently a MS student and I'd like to apply to the PhD in Economics program at either my current school (ranked around 30) or 4-5 schools such as Cornell, Virginia, Rochester, etc. I'm interested in Econometrics or related areas in Computational Economics, etc. I'd be among the older candidates in the pool (almost mid-30s) and I have worked in banking/finance industry till now. I just took my GRE and scored low in the Verbal section (Q-169, V-157). Although I was scoring 170 in Quant in my mock tests, not sure what went wrong that day. My mock scores in verbal were around 157-160. Given that most schools talk only about the quantitative section, I'm guessing I shouldn't think of retaking the exam. Or do you think it's worth a shot for the schools I'm applying to? I'd actually prefer concentrating on my grades for this semester as previous grades (at another school) before this were quite poor. Till now in my current program, I have maintained a 3.9 GPA.
Because of my previous grades (and also my age) I don't want to apply to top 10-15 schools. However, given that I had been in the industry for long and not too sure how Adcoms think, do you think I should try for better? Or am I not even being realistic with these schools and should aim lower? My choice of schools are mostly those that have deadlines in January instead of December (I want to get more A grades to support my application and recommendations from my current program). Which is why I can't apply to USC, even though they may be pretty good at econometrics.
I have one more important question - Is it really bad to mention that I'm interested in working in the industry or in research (only research and not teaching) while writing my SOP? I have heard a lot of times that one would get rejected if one mentions moving to the industry. How true is that, specially at the schools I'm thinking of applying to? I can't think of a career in teaching and I just wouldn't be good at it.
I understand I'm asking a lot of different questions and you would be getting it a lot.....however, any help would be really appreciated. (please don't ask why I'm leaving the industry in the first place to get a PhD)
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accessnash
Hi,
I'm currently a MS student and I'd like to apply to the PhD in Economics program at either my current school (ranked around 30) or 4-5 schools such as Cornell, Virginia, Rochester, etc. I'm interested in Econometrics or related areas in Computational Economics, etc. I'd be among the older candidates in the pool (almost mid-30s) and I have worked in banking/finance industry till now. I just took my GRE and scored low in the Verbal section (Q-169, V-157). Although I was scoring 170 in Quant in my mock tests, not sure what went wrong that day. My mock scores in verbal were around 157-160. Given that most schools talk only about the quantitative section, I'm guessing I shouldn't think of retaking the exam. Or do you think it's worth a shot for the schools I'm applying to? I'd actually prefer concentrating on my grades for this semester as previous grades (at another school) before this were quite poor. Till now in my current program, I have maintained a 3.9 GPA.
Because of my previous grades (and also my age) I don't want to apply to top 10-15 schools. However, given that I had been in the industry for long and not too sure how Adcoms think, do you think I should try for better? Or am I not even being realistic with these schools and should aim lower? My choice of schools are mostly those that have deadlines in January instead of December (I want to get more A grades to support my application and recommendations from my current program). Which is why I can't apply to USC, even though they may be pretty good at econometrics.
I have one more important question - Is it really bad to mention that I'm interested in working in the industry or in research (only research and not teaching) while writing my SOP? I have heard a lot of times that one would get rejected if one mentions moving to the industry. How true is that, specially at the schools I'm thinking of applying to? I can't think of a career in teaching and I just wouldn't be good at it.
I understand I'm asking a lot of different questions and you would be getting it a lot.....however, any help would be really appreciated. (please don't ask why I'm leaving the industry in the first place to get a PhD)
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