Karthik Tadepalli
Economics PhD student at UC Berkeley
As an undergraduate, I collected a lot of good advice from smart people on applying to PhDs in economics, which I’m compiling here for anyone else who was in my position.
“So I’m thinking about grad school in economics…”
- The big picture: Susan Athey, Chris Blattman, Jesse Shapiro, John List, Andrew Johnston, Al Roth, Alex Eble
Research Advice
- General compilations - Esther Duflo, David Weil, Steve Pischke, Paul Niehaus, Matt Lowe, Don Davis
Undergrad course advice
- Any math course ever - Dexter Chua’s unbelievable notes and exercises
- Real analysis -
- Exercises, exercises and more exercises: A Problem Book in Real Analysis, Dexter Chua (part 2), MIT OCW exams and psets
- Notes - Dexter Chua (part 2), MIT OCW
- Grad micro
Predoctoral research opportunities
- About them -
- How to find them
- Many of these links might expire with time - most recent iterations should be searchable on the internet
- Econ RA Listings, NBER job board, non-NBER job board - general aggregators of RA opportunities
- Opportunity Insights, SIEPR, JPAL, EPIC - specific RA positions
- How to get them -
- How to use them -
- What makes a good RAship recommendation?
- Professor’s guide to being an RA
- What PhD programs want from your research experience
- Bonus: undergraduate research -
- Fed undergrad internship
- Standing out as an undergrad RA
- “How to use them” advice still applies
Letters of recommendation
- Standing out as an undergrad RA
- Will it be a great letter?
- How to ask for a letter
- Recommendation sample
NSF GRFP
- Application
- 2021 Solicitation and FAQ
- Compiled advice: Alex Lang, Mallory Ladd, Claire Bowen
- NSF proposal advice
- NSF winners: 1, 2, 3
Linkception
More people have made these link compilations, so - Andrew Johnston, Masayuki Kudamatsu, Alex Eble, Jennifer Doleac, Charlotte Ostergaard, Raul Pacheco-Vega (again)
Albert Alex Zevelev links resources to study material.