Graduate Studies - Economics
This document is originally written by Md Abdur Rahim, Economics (University of Winnipeg).
Year of Publication: 2019
©PBSCU Any unauthorized use of this article, including copying or editing is prohibited. If you want to use the article, you need to take permission from us: pbscuadm@gmail.com or from the author and you must mention the author's name and the group's name in all cases.
General Admission Guidelines for M.A. in Economics:
1. Statement of Purpose: Statement of purpose is one of the important documents in your application package. How to write a good SOP? Please follow the group document.
Hints: Write each and every achievements and extra curriculum activities in your whole life beside the academic success story. Write why you are interested in economics graduate program. For example, motivational story.
2. Letter of References: Two to three depending on the universities you are applying for.
Hints: good networking and good CGPA in your undergrad studies will help a lot. Take LOR from those professors where your subject CGPA is in best. If you have a research experience, include your research supervisor recommendation (one) because he/she can write more than your course teachers (personal opinion)
3. IELTS: Most universities Band score 6.5 to 7. Each band not less than 6.5. To be safe try to achieve 7 in each band score.
4. GRE: Higher rank universities require GRE. It will boost your change of getting full funding. Try to get 310 and above. At least 305 for Canadian high rank universities (Check university website for Verbal and Quant requirements)
5. CGPA: varies University to universities. Most of them require CGPA 3.7 out of 4 scale. Some universities require lower CGPA. Higher the CGPA higher the chance of getting funding and admission in Canadian universities besides your IELTS and GRE score.
6. Funding: Most of the Canadian universities offer funding for graduate students in economics. if you have good admission package they will provide funding / scholarship in the form of internal and external funding. For internal funding you don’t need to apply separately. Admission committee will decide how much funding you will get. For external funding you have to apply separately. Check program website for funding opportunities.
Note: For economics admission and funding you don’t need to manage research supervisor before your admission except university of Lethbridge and MUN (as far as I know). MUN takes interviews through skype.
7. Admission deadline: Most of the universities admission deadline is January 1st. There are some other universities deadline is February 15.
8. General Advise: Prepare yourself one year before the admission. For example you want to get admission in fall 2019 you have to start preparation in fall (August) 2018.Make an excel sheet for universities you want to apply. Make a column for each criterion to track you. For example, name of the universities, website, program website, application deadline , general admission criterion, international admission criterion, IELTS , GRE, internal funding, External funding, LOR, SOP, application deadline , Contacts information , Graduate program coordinator contacts etc. Do not, do not, do not wait for last minute application submission, and try to submit your application as soon as possible if you have all required documents. Start writing your SOP way before the application deadline. Try not to write SOP in one sitting. Go with trial and error methods using your words choice and sentence structure. No grammatical mistake is allowed. Review your SOP from the group mentors.
Note: Please ignore the grammatical errors. The writing is from my personal experiences and from university source. If you find exact information contradicting with my one please edit the doc with source.
Some useful discussions in the group:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/BSAAC/permalink/1614065785298652
https://www.facebook.com/groups/BSAAC/permalink/1443156675722898
https://www.facebook.com/groups/BSAAC/permalink/1341503355888231
https://www.facebook.com/groups/BSAAC/permalink/1307101655995068