Would I be a viable candidate for a Ph.D in economics?

Graduate School
1

<p>Undergrad: Hofstra University
B.A in Economics
B.A in Philosophy
minor in Political Science </p>

<p>GPA: 3.25 </p>

<p>GRE: Verbal 580, Quantitative 620, Analytic 610 = Cumulative 1810 </p>

<p>miscellaneous: Fluent in Russian, co-founder and treasurer of Chess Club.</p>

<p>Reach: University of Texas (Austin) </p>

<p>Applying to: CUNY Baruch and Rutgers</p>

2

<p>What are your undergrad math courses like? How did you do in calc/econ/stats/econometrics, etc?</p>

3

<p>You usually have to pass a qualifying exam to declare a PhD. What that entails depends on the school. I don’t see any reason why you can’t at least get a masters. That’s a step along the way to a PhD anyway. Good luck!</p>

4

<p>The Analytical Writing section of the GRE is no longer scored on a scale of 200-800 and hasn’t been for some time now, so I’m betting that your GRE scores are too old to be considered for admissions. GRE scores have to be less than 5 years old to be reported by ETS to schools. But even with that said, your quantitative GRE score is a bit low for economics programs; they tend to be quant heavy programs and like to see GRE scores of 700+ on the old exam (on the new exam, something like 85th-90th+ percentile).</p>

<p>Your GPA is also low. What is your economics major GPA? What are your grades like in your quantitative classes?</p>

<p>Also, you didn’t include the more important parts - who will be writing your letters of recommendation, and what do they have to say about you? What kind of economics research have you been involved in during your undergrad years? Do you have an excellent writing sample or work sample that you would be able to show universities? What kind of research do you want to do, and are there people in those departments that do the research you want to do? How good of a fit are you for the departments? Those things are far more important than your GRE and GPA.</p>

<p>In general, no one can “chance” you for PhD admissions in any field. Asking if you are a viable candidate is a different question - we can answer that, but we don’t really have enough information to do so. Based on just your GPA and GRE scores, it would appear that you are a below-average candidate for PhD programs in economics and you may want to apply to some MA programs as well, if a PhD is your end goal. But I also don’t know much about the competitiveness of the programs to which you plan to apply.</p>