Hello everyone! I am presently searching for PhD programs in Mathematics and Economics. I am currently Matriculating in a Masters program for economics at the prestigious Waseda University in a Tokyo, Japan. At present I am facing a dilemma. Due to a variety of factors, I have not been performing as well as I could have in the program. For starters, I need to work long hours per week just to be able to afford room and board, transportation, and food. I have been diagnosed at a young age with Asperger’s Syndrome, and at present have clinical depression, and taking courses that were taught in Japanese, I only have intermediate ability, but I wanted to challenge myself. The combination of these factors, plus more that I am not comfortable presenting on this forum post, have resulted in me accruing a total of 4-5 failing grades. The rest of my coursework are all High passing grades. What should do if I want to apply to graduate schools for the above fields of math and economics. (I considered physics which was my minor in undergraduate, but no guarantees). If it helps, I would ideally like to return to University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign, University of Chicago, Waseda University, Harvard, MIT, or UCLA. I am currently unsure about everyone of these schools except for UIUC (admission-wise) any advice would be appreciated.
You do realize that MIT, U Chicago and Harvard are among the most selective Math and Econ PhD programs in the US?
“a total of 4-5 failing grades…” is not what the typical Masters transcript for successful applicants to these programs looks like.
Yes, I do realize this, but my assumption was simply that the extraneous circumstances would in some way explain these grades. Moreover, my high GRE, near perfect, and my 3.8 undergraduate might make up for some deficiencies. In addition, Japanese universities use a weird grading system wherein a certain percentage of the class gets an A, a slightly bigger percentage gets a B etc. this poses a problem for GPA concerns as well. Like, the Failing grades resulted from the above constraints, but also the fact that even if I get an A or a B that would put me in a lower bracket, the failing grade category. This was the case for one of the classes that has a failing grade associated with it.
I know a fair number of kids who’ve applied to top level econ Phd programs like MIT, Harvard, Stanford and Princeton over the last few years. Those who have succeeded had applications with these common elements:
Very, very strong undergrad performance in rigorous math intensive econ. Departmental Honors and awards, senior thesis prizes, Phi Beta Kappa, Cum Laude (or higher). High level summer research internships (FED, Big name investment or commercial banks, quant hedge funds, etc.) and commonly 2 years working experience in similar positions after completing undergrad. Very strong LORs from Profs (preferably Profs whose work is known and respected at the Phd programs the students are applying to) and from their employment was very important.
Published research (when combined with a LOR from co-author) also helps.
GRE scores were all pretty good, but less important. Top econ isn’t like top law school where the only thing that matters is LSAT or GRE and GPA.
None of the kids I saw getting accepted to top econ programs had significant issues to explain, or needed to hope that programs would overlook or make allowances for special circumstances. That seems to be a common factor at top programs. They have so many highly qualified applicants that they don’t need to make any allowances to fill their programs.
The main advantage of top programs is if you are aiming for a tenure track academic career at a big name University, or a prestige government or international research post (Fed, IMF, etc.).
There are somewhere are around 150 Econ Phd programs in the US.
If you want to be a “working” economist in the corporate sector, or enter into academia at a less rarefied level, you have a much broader range of schools to choose from.
Whatever your Econ Phd -and eventual career - goals, applying to more than 6 schools would probably be a very good idea, particularly if you are hoping for a fully funded position.
You can use outside circumstances to explain your performance, sure, but they don’t give you a free pass. An explanation for outside circumstances doesn’t mean that the program completely ignores your low grades; it just means that they take them into consideration with everything else in your profile to make a decision about whether or not you will perform well in their program.
Sometimes, students have temporary circumstances that impact their grade a bit but indicate that they would’ve performed at a higher standard if those circumstances were not there. That could be a death in the family, or a newly diagnosed illness that they had not yet gotten under control - something that is both temporary and resolved (or likely to be resolved before beginning the program). It also helps to show evidence of what your performance could be without the circumstances - so something like an upward trend in grades once the issue was resolved.
But your ‘extraneous’ circumstances don’t inspire any such confidence, necessarily. Working long hours is what PhD students DO. using that as an explanation is unlikely to go over well, because that would be essentially telling the program you are perhaps unable to work hard and achieve at a high level at the same time. And students with Asperger’s syndrome and/or clinical depression perform well in graduate programs all the time, so simply having those conditions doesn’t necessarily function as a good explanation for low grades - you’ll be competing with students who have those and still managed to get better grades.
The Japanese ability thing just makes you sound like you’re unable to assess your own skill level and choose something that is challenging but realistic. Taking a master’s degree taught in a language you are not adequately fluent in doesn’t sound like a great academic decision - that may be the lens through which professors assessing your application look.
The Japanese grading system is not “weird.” That’s called grading on a curve, and lots of American universities use this system as well. The department in which I taught used a very similar system.