Tag Archives: Advice: Development

A friend asked this on Twitter, and it got me thinking about our approach. To a lot of people, unless it’s a resort, taking kids abroad sounds challenging, expensive, and anything but rejuvenating. We’ve found the opposite. Our foreign trips are easier, cheaper, and more more rewarding and replenishing than our US holidays. Gradually, over regular trips to Latin America, a few Western Europe visits, as well as Canada and Vietnam, we’ve figured out some things that work for us. On the chance...

I’ve read a lot of personal statements for PhD applications. I sat on admissions at UChicago, Columbia, and Yale, mostly in economics, political science, and public policy. Here’s the advice I’ve given my own students and research assistants to craft their statements. I give it because, sadly, I don’t find most statements helpful. This means they are not helping you, the applicant. As with all my advice posts, it’s important that students outside elite colleges get this information, so here...