I have heard people say that letters of recommendation can make or break PhD applications, especially once the admissions committee has narrowed down the pool and they are selecting from student who all have great GPAs and GRE scores. The typical advice I hear is that the best letters are from economics professors who are well known in the field. My problem is that I am a math major and not an economics major–the professors who know me well and could write me great letters of rec are math professors. Will this be a disadvantage for me in the admissions process? Any tips, suggestions, or experiences with this?
Yes. That doesn’t mean that you won’t get in, but it will be a disadvantage. The program wants to hear about your potential to succeed in the field of economics. While economics includes a lot of math in it, it’s actually a social science that requires an understanding of a fair amount of theory and the usage of a different set of research methods and approaches.
Have you ever taken any economics courses? If not, are you a rising senior who is applying to economics PhD programs this year? If not, you still have time to take economics courses and develop relationships with professors.
If you haven’t taken any courses in economics, and you are a rising senor…are you even competitive for PhD programs in economics? That’s not my field, but my educated guess would be that you’d be at a disadvantage there, too. Again, economics uses a lot of math, but it’s not only math. For example, Stanford’s PhD program in economics says they “require some exposure to and success in economics courses”, and Harvard’s says “at a minimum, we expect some economics courses beyond the principles level” and say they prefer students who have experience doing economics research. MIT says “it is not essential that the bachelor’s degree be in economics, but some preparation in undergraduate economics, especially in economic theory, is a necessity”. And the University of Chicago has a helpful perspective on this:
https://economics.uchicago.edu/content/graduate-admissions
The professors who are going to be most qualified to comment on a student’s potential to successfully complete the PhD and embark on a career in economics research are going to be economics professors. (And of course, having one letter from a math professor would assist in proving you could master the quantitative analytical methods, but quite frankly, a major in math will do that by itself.)
A combo of math and Econ letters would work. What econ course or courses might you take your his fall? Get to know your econ prof early in the semester and ask for a letter.