Graduate School Admission Results

Offered MA instead. econ-math double major + 2-yr. pre-doc

Rejected for PhD progran, offered MA without funding. Im declining the offer.

"The admission committee was impressed with your credentials. However, given the exceptional level of the competition this year, we are unable to offer you a place in the PhD program". Was offered MA instead.

Rejected for PhD progran, offered MA without funding. Will kindly decline.

"The admission committee was impressed with your credentials. However, given the exceptional level of the competition this year, we are unable to offer you a place in the PhD program". Was offered MA instead.

Admitted to MA without funding. Probably going to decline.

Dear Applicant, The admission committee was impressed with your credentials. However, given the exceptional level of the competition this year, we are unable to offer you a place in the PhD program.

bachelors in econ+math + 2 years of full-time RA experience

Top China undergraduate and Oxford Masters. Very top grades in all programs. Superb letters from respected professors but not well connected in the US. 2 years of part-time research experience. Sadly rejected. Hopefully, better results are coming. Congrats to those who got accepted!

Stanford was always a reach --- pretty but not elite undergrad GPA at a top 10 small liberal arts school, all As in math and econ classes but no grad coursework, two years of full time research experience and one solid pub. On to the next one!

One rec letter writer is a current Stanford post-doc, other two are top 0.5% economists on REPEC (and one used to be a faculty member at Stanford). I studied at a T10 undergrad, took grad applied math and computer science classes, and thought I had a great research fit with Stanford. Oh well. (I second what the blunt poster below said; my advisor basically told me they thought spots are prioritized for Stanford-connected predocs)

GPA is grad from an M.A. Econ program in U.S. 1st decision of this cycle.

Grad GPA 4.0 from a top 2 school. Reference letters from an econ Nobel laureate, a top econ prof, and a top math prof. Part-time RA and TA experience with big names. Seems more rejections are on the way.

This was a particularly tough year, and I don't blame the admission team for their decision. I had perfect GRE scores, a Master's from an Ivy league, 3 years research experience (mostly part-time though) and my recommenders were very famous tenured professors at a top 5 institution in the US (I could hardly get any better than that). In a normal year this may have been enough, but this year you need to have an absolutely impressive profile to get in. My sincere congratulations to all who made it! Well deserved.