If PhD Micro is with the econ PhDs and taught at that level you'd get crushed without any formal math.

Good point but would also then get crushed in MA

I'm doing a Ph.D in Industrial Engineering (coming from a B.A. in Physics), and we had to take Masters level micro in the econ department. The IE kids in the class, almost without exception, were a lot more comfortable than the econ kids simply because the whole course is basically applied calculus and optimization. In econ they give all these things fancy names, like Hicksian demand, and in undergrad you usually just memorize the definitions. But one you start to understand the math behind them things start to make a lot more intuitive sense. My main point here is that if you have a good calculus background you'd probably be fine in a MS micro class.

I can't personally speak to what the Ph.D version would be like, but I imagine it would be a lot more proof/theory based. If you're really considering a Ph.D I would recommend trying out some proof based math courses. Definitely real analysis and maybe something like probability/measure theory. That will give you a much better idea of what Ph.D level curriculum actually entails. These classes are somewhat abstract when you're used to math involving numbers and calculations, and it took me a while to make the shift, but once you get your brain working in the right way the concepts aren't necessary too difficult and dare I say may even be a little interesting.

I'm sure that's true, but I give it low odds of success, and it's almost surely not worth the money you invest in it. MBAs are cash cows for these schools. If you're gonna take these courses, get into an Econ PhD program, get funding, and quit after a masters (or not).

YMMV, of course, and a reasonably intelligent person with a great work ethic who sets his/her mind to something will probably achieve it.

Damn, one of my professors seems to be AFK or something because he hasn't responded to my email about submitting the last ~5 LOR's. There is one LOR that was due on Dec 1st (now Dec 17) and I don't think he has submitted that yet. I will try to get in contact with him again this weekend but I don't know if he is really busy with finals (he teaches a large undergraduate biochemistry class at my school but he was my PI for 1.5 yrs). I asked in an earlier post how badly having a few days late LOR would make my application (peter said it wouldn't make that much of a difference), does it significantly lower my chances if one of them is 2 weeks late? I think the rest of my application and LOR's are pretty strong so hopefully they might not penalize me too much for a late LOR.

Thank god he submitted the first 5 LOR's to the schools that had early December deadlines.

ffs, use a dossier service like Interfolio if your school doesn't have a letter service. Asking each prof to send in numerous different letters is annoying at best and rude at worst. Also, it is so much easier than having to worry about whether or not they sent them in, etc.

I don't know about how other schools do this, but every single school I applied to had an online recommendation form that was completely separate from my application. The only thing I had control over for the rec was putting the professors name and email address.

Dossier offices will upload the letter for you. You just put the name of the recommender and the email address of the dossier service in the email address form. You can ask your letter service directly how to handle this, but this is pretty standard.

i know that at least two of my recommenders had slightly different things to say depending on which school i was applying to based on faculty they know there, so i'm still not sure this dossier thing would have been better for me than the online systems that every app i completed had

Well you should obviously make your recommenders aware of where you're applying so they can customize their letters if they see fit.

Yeah, I don't see much value in the service you're describing. All of my professors are happy to change their tex file a bit each year and upload on the website. After writing the initial letter, I doubt they spend more than 15 minutes a year to update.

Don't think is the standard route. Most professors know what they are getting into when they agree to write an LOR so I doubt they consider it annoying or rude. At this point it's too late because all I need are the last 5 LOR's from this last professor and I will have everything submitted.

As a writer of letters, I want to control where they go.

You never really have that much control once the letters are out there no matter how you send them. I just uploaded a letter to an HR site for an academic position in support of a grad student who is about to defend. The student just informed me, out of curtesy, that the letter was in fact available for him to see through the HR site. The HR people apparently just had no idea the letter was suppose to be confidential. It doesn't really bother me but it just goes to show that you really have no control over the lettes once they're sent no matter how confidential they're suppose to be.

If I have a student who is applying to 2-4 places, it's not a big deal. But if a student is applying to 10-12 PhD programs, which I recommend, I insist that they use the university reference letter service. I know where they're applying to and if I feel it's appropriate, I email someone at that university. I actually think this is far superior than a specialized letter anyway. It takes some effort to do and shows that you really support the student. It also highlights the student's application more since not every one does that. At least, it does for me. I know I just got an email in support of a student who has applied to our PhD program. It was from one of the student's recommenders. It was simply to add to the student's file about how great their term paper was (which had not been turned in at the time of the letter being written). It definitely made a difference. Of course, the student is going to end up at a much better university, but still I think that is more effective than a specialized letter that the committee might not even realize is specialized.

My two cents.

Also, using a letter service is beneficial as much as anything so as not to have to deal with flaky faculty who may or may not actually get around to submitting the letter. I know when I was on the job market I had one prof whom I worked with who just couldn't be counted on to get the letters in. But I absolutely had to have a letter from him. It was much easier to just pay the reference letter service $6 to send out my dossier to the schools rather than have them do it individually. Of course, applying to jobs is an entirely different matter, but the principle still holds.

this is massively superior. in an official letter, if you talk about why the person would be such a great grad student for one person to take on and that person isn't on the admissions committee that year and/or doesn't need a grad student, you are risking offending the people who are making the decision and/or looking for grad students to the detriment of the person you are writing in support of.

one of my letter writers did a whole lot of reaching out on my behalf. when i talked to him at the start of the whole thing, he said he was making minor changes to the official letters, but then doing the wholesale changes in the emails he was sending on his own that aren't a part of my official application.

Got first invite today to Cornell biochemistry graduate program. Interview is March 1-4. Do they usually accept a high percentage of people they invite to these interviews?

congrats!

i can't speak to that since our department doesn't do interviews, but it's not cheap to fly people out there for visits so my guess would be that the cut for getting an interview would be far greater than the cut from interview to acceptance.

Thanks Peter, you've helped me out a lot in the process and I owe you! haha. I hope I get an interview at UW too.

Congratulations and good luck. We don't do interviews in history, but I'd have to think that your chances are very good. Just be prepared but relaxed. Think of it as a conversation. And don't drink (more than one) while you are there.

Meh, if they take you out, I think it's fine. Don't get hammered though. If you know how to drink, you should be ok. Basically just go with the flow. Don't make an ass of yourself. The interview, ime, is to make sure you are not a total freak and a very weird dude. Mileage may vary by department, of course.

Well, that's basically what I was saying. Have a drink if everyone is drinking. Maybe even two if you can handle it, but don't make an ass of yourself.

I just didn't want some students and faculty taking him out to dinner with wine or whatever and having him sit there awkwardly declining a glass remembering advice from this thread

Not to jinx you or anything, but in my program (industrial engineering) if you are invited out for the visitation weekend you are almost definitely going to offered a position. I was told that the only reason we don't give the offer before the invite is because it takes a while to process some paperwork and they don't want to delay the visitation until its all finished.

There's always a lot of confusion during the prospective visitation in our department because the visiting students are treating it like an interview while the currently students are acting like they are already accepted and trying to convince everyone to come.

Either way, you're in good shape. If you go out to dinner/a bar don't be afraid to have a drink, part of the visit is about seeing how well you get along with the other grad students and I know I'm always interested to see which of the prospectives are the super awkward types and which are a little more social. Obviously don't get super drunk and make a fool of yourself but if all the current students having a drink there's no reason you shouldn't join.

Thanks for the tips and advice everyone.