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The MAN 2009:
PROFILE:
Type of Undergrad: Bachelors at an unranked non-PhD state school
Undergrad GPA: 3.4
Type of Grad: none
Grad GPA: n/a
GRE: 800 Q, 560 V, 4.0 AWA
Math Courses: Calc 1 and 2
Econ Courses: All the prerequisites, Environ. Econ, Econometrics 1 and 2, Law and Econ, Telecom Econ, and a bunch of others
Other Courses: Computer Programming in C++, Physics
Letters of Recommendation: Three letters from instructors at unranked state school
Research Experience: None
Teaching Experience: Some tutoring experience
Research Interests: Public econ, environ. econ, tech. econ
SOP: Pretty standard SOP talking about why I want to pursue econ grad school, details on why I am a good candidate, and details on why I like the particular school.
Other:
RESULTS:
Acceptances: NIU, U. of Delaware, UNM, Colorado State, Nevada-Reno, IUPUI, and Illinois State
Waitlists: none
Rejections: USF and Oregon
Pending: none
What would you have done differently? I would have taken more math classes as an undergrad. I'm planning on going for a masters and picking up some missing math classes before applying to PhD programs.

wind up bird 2009:
PROFILE:
Type of Undergrad: Large Public University, Top 50 Econ
Undergrad GPA: 3.82
Type of Grad: Masters in Statistics at same school
Grad GPA: 3.75
GRE: 800Q, 700V, 5.5AWA
Math Courses: Calc Sequence, Linear Algebra, Intro to Abstract Math (Baby proofs), Cryptology (Baby Number Theory), Real Analysis I & II, Algebra I, Lots of probability and stats.
Econ Courses: Intro, Intermediate sequences, Econometrics, Public econ, Game Theory, Asymmetric Info, Economic Anthropology, Economic History (graduate), Empirical Methods (graduate), Math camp
Other Courses: Sociology of Sexuality
Letters of Recommendation: 1 Berkeley, 1 UCSD, 1 Stanford. All apparently pretty strong.
Research Experience: 2+ Years of RAing, summer research internship at Fed, crappy honors thesis and undergrad presentations
Teaching Experience: Tutoring for intermdiate micror, TA-ing for stats (only made it to my Cornell application)
Research Interests: Micro theory, decision theory, game theory, mech. design, experimental, economic history, social choice, public economics, etc etc. Short answer is "not macro"
SOP: It was kind of bad, I'm not going to lie. Mostly I tried to demonstrate how I have been gearing myself up for research. Then the last paragraph was tailored for each school; I dropped names at all of them.
RESULTS:
Acceptances: Caltech($$$), Northwestern(WL$), UCSD(No$), BU($$$), University of Illinois - Urbana Champaign($$), UNC-Chapel Hill (?$), Boston College($$), UW-Seatte(WL$)
Waitlists: None! Awesome.
Rejections: Berkeley, Stanford, Harvard, MIT, Chicago, UCLA, Cornell
What would you have done differently? Besides working harder in school? Probably nothing. I have an acceptance with funding at my dream school and have some other ego-boosting admits as well.
Comments: Italos is right, letter of recommendation is everything
Might as well document some of my weird admissions cycle happenings as well:
- Boston College sends me an email saying I am not being offered admission because I will get into "superior" schools.
- UW-Seattle pulls the same thing
- Northwestern rejects me, then admits me a week and a half later. Looks like my one top 10 admit really did involve a clerical error.
Attending: Caltech!

Mankins 2009:
PROFILE:
Type of Undergrad: Very large US public university
Undergrad GPA: 4.0
GRE: 800Q, 600V, 4.5AWA
Math Courses: Calc I-III, Mathematical Structures, Differential Equations, Linear Algebra, Probability, Advanced Calculus I, and Intermediate Real Analysis I (all A or A+). Topology and Mathematical Statistics (Spring 2009).
Econ Courses: The usual, plus Econometrics , Advanced Honors Micro (uncertainty), Advanced Honors Macro (taught by Nobel Laureate). All A or A+, except Econometrics where I got an A-. Game Theory (Spring 2009).
Letters of Recommendation: One from a Nobel Laureate (not sure how solid it was). One from a well-known economist in micro theory and information (probably knows me better than any of my other professors). One from my Advanced Calc professor.
Teaching Experience: N/A
Research Experience: Some preliminary work on an undergraduate thesis (never finished), Econometrics paper co-authored with two other students
Research Interests: micro theory, advertising, economics of information, behavioral/neuro/experimental, IO, development
SOP: Standard
Concerns: Very little research experience, no graduate courses
Applying to: Yale, Duke, Stanford, MIT, Northwestern, Chicago, Illinois Urbana, Berkeley, Texas, Minnesota, Arizona State, Carnegie Mellon, and Duke Decision Sciences
RESULTS:
Attending: Minnesota ($$)
Acceptances, declined: Carnegie Mellon ($$$), U Texas at Austin ($), U Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ($$), Arizona State ($$)
Rejections: MIT, Berkeley, Yale, Stanford, U Penn, U Chicago, Northwestern (on the waiting list, briefly), Duke Economics, Duke Decision Sciences
What would you have done differently? There's not much more I could have realistically done. Maybe I could have gone to more office hours and talked to professors more outside of class. I think I may have had better results if I had taken PhD Micro, but I don't know where I would have fit that into my schedule. I transferred schools and switched majors halfway through my junior year, and it took 5 years to finish my Bachelor's degree because of it. I hadn't finished Calc I until the summer of 2007, so I had to catch up quickly on the math required for graduate economics. Considering what a tough year it was, things could have turned out much worse.

mathy backpack 2009:
PROFILE:
Type of Undergrad: Large Public University, BA Economics
Undergrad GPA: 3.75 Overall, 3.9 Econ, 4.0 Math
Type of Grad: MA Economics (1/2 of credits were math though)
Grad GPA: 4.0
GRE: 800Q, 690V, 5.0AWA
Math Courses: Calc I, Calc II, Vector Calc, Linear Algebra, Logic, Probability/Statistics (multivar calc), Real Analysis, Linear Algebra(grad), Probability Theory(grad)...All A's Taking: Statistical Theory(grad)
Econ Courses (grad): Micro(MA), Macro(MA), Econometrics(MA), Labor(MA), Public Finance(MA), GameTheory(MA), Optimization I(PhD)...All A's Taking: Adv Macro(PhD), Optimization II(PhD)
Econ Courses (undergrad-level): Intermed. Micro & Macro, plus 12 other Junior/Senior semester courses for the major...All A's in these, but with a spicy little B and a C in intro Micro and Macro(101 and 102) as a Freshman
Other: English Minor, Drum & Bass show on student radio
Letters of Recommendation: Different combos of 5 Econ profs from master's program
Research Interests: Micro Theory, Game Theory, Behavioral, Micro-ish Development
SOP: Spent way too much time, 1 1/2 pages, standard I'm sure
Concerns: Picked a great year to apply!?!
Other: Despite the random attacks of anxiety, I am pretty excited. Trying to prepare myself to not take the rejections too personally. I have faith that I will end up exactly where I am supposed to be.
Applying to: The usual suspects...Princeton, Yale, Berkeley, Chicago, Northwestern, NYU, Columbia, Cornell, Brown, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota, Penn, WUSTL, Duke, Carnegie Mellon.... hopefully enough!
Fingers: crossed
Good Luck to everyone.

aril 2009:
Institution: UIUC
Program: Economics, PhD
Decision: Admitted with fellowship for 3 semesters and TAship afterwards
Notification date: 3/19
Notified through: I emailed the secretary, formal mail posted out.
Institution: Wisconsin-Madison
Program: Economics, PhD
Decision: Admitted, no first year funding
Notification date: 3/13
Notified through: email
Comment: Hard to choose.

Nausica 2009:
Institution: UIUC
Program: Economics Ph.D.
Decision: Accepted
Funding: 5 year TA, 17K
Notification date: 3/20
Notified through: Email
Comments: Seems hopeless at first......
_ _ _ _ SIG _ _ _ _
Admitted: UC Davis econ(no$), LSU Finance
Rejected: Plenty
Waitlisted: Iowa Finance
Pending: Purdue, UVA, U Washington-Seatle

EcoBd 2009:
PROFILE:
Type of Undergrad/Grad: BSS and MSS in Economics in a South Asian University.
Undergrad/Grad GPA: 3.7/4.0 in Undergrad and 4.0/4.0 in Grad
GRE: 790Q, 380V, 3.5AWA
TOEFL: 106 (29R, 29L, 23S, 25W)
Courses: Lots of econ courses. PhD level micro and econometrics. Calculus, probability theory, linear algebra, real analysis etc.
Letters of Recommendation: 3 economics professor from my University. 1 got his PhD from Harvard and taught me Microeconomics. Another did her PhD from MIT and taught me Econometrics. The last one got his PhD from Manchester and taught me International Economics. I am sure that they all gave me excellent recommendations.
Research Experience: Currently working in a research institute in my home country. I also have 2 RA positions in two different organizations previously.
Teaching Experience: None
Research Interests: Econometrics
SOP: Traditional. Emphasized my interests in economics.
RESULTS:
Attending: Texas A & M University
Acceptances: TAMU ($$), FSU (no $), OSU AEDE: (no$: informally)
Rejections: UCSD, UIUC, UNC, UF, Vanderbilt, IUB,
No word: USC
What would you have done differently? I think I should really do well on GRE verbal and AWA. And I should be more focused on my SOP.

DreamFactory 2009:
PROFILE:
Type of Undergrad: BBA (minor Econ), International applicant, not top but one of the best schools in my country.
Undergrad GPA: 3.83/4.00 after rescale, summa cum laude (within 2% of the graduates, but the transcripts doesn't offer the rank anymore)
Type of Grad: Same school, MA econ - major:Economic theory (expected aug. 2009)
Grad GPA: 4.0/4.0 after rescale
GRE: 800Q, 670V, 4.0AWA
Math/Stat Courses:
Calculus I (B+),II (A), Intro to Probability (A+), Differential Equations I (B+), Linear Algebra I (Aced all exams, A+), II (A+), Analysis I (A+), II(A+), Topology I (A+), Stochastic Processes (A+), grad Real Analysis I (A)
Econ Courses: undergraduate - Principles I (A+),II (A), Biz Econ (A), Monetary (A), Financial (B+), Micro (A+), Macro (A), Metrics (B+)/ graduate - Micro I (A+) II (A), Macro I (A), II (A+), Metrics I (A+), Financial Economics (A), Micro Seminar (A+), Public Sector Economics II (A+)
Other Courses: Bunch in biz. especially in finance (mostly A's or A+'s in finance)
Letters of Recommendation: 2 econ (both micro), 2 biz (both finance), 1 math (analysis 1,2, topology 1), all very strong but not so famous
Research Experience: RA for 2 semesters (participated in a project), 1 working paper, conference participation etc.
Teaching Experience: grad Micro I (MWG) - 2 semesters
Research Interests: Behavioral Finance/Economics/Experimental, Market Microstructure, various topics in Micro Theory......actually almost everything in Finance and Economics since most of them are interesting (I'll choose them after I get to know more)
SOP: no idea how it look like to the adcoms.
Other: External fellowship.(5 years of tuition+health+18k)
RESULTS:
Acceptances/Attending: U of Chicago (Econ, very late admission!)
Waitlists: none
Rejections: 4 econ (actually I was rejected from Chicago econ in March) - Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Columbia
17 finance - Booth, Kellogg, Wharton, Stanford GSB, Sloan, Stern, Haas, Fuqua, Tepper, Simon, Anderson, UIUC, OSU, UMinn-TC, Eli Broad, Wisc-Madison, Johnson
Pending: LSE MSc Finance and Economics (Applied after all those dings)
What would you have done differently?
I would've concentrated more on my SOPs. Should've had different major in my undergrad (changing major is not allowed in my alma mater, and Biz major had toooooooo many required courses back then). Also, I should have gone for exchange student in the U.S. when young...get some LORs from famous faculties there...BUT I DON'T CARE ex-post, I got into one of my favorite school!