I am an international student double majoring in Economics and Data Science, currently about to commence my senior year at Marist College and planning on applying to a PhD in Economics. I want to conduct research in Behavioral Economics, Microeconomics and the intersections of such disciplines with branches of Data Science like Deep Learning and AI. Some of the programs I am most interested in are Stanford, UC San Diego, UC Berkeley, MIT and Caltech. Could you guys provide me some guidance and advice on what are the most important qualities that admissions committees at top school look for in undergraduates? Also, since I have a full year left I still have to write my capping projects and honors thesis, which means I have good opportunities to distinguish myself. Any advice on what should I do to distinguish myself from the rest of students? I often embark in extracurricular projects like doing my own research while taking classes or writing blogs in Medium, are these extracurricular activities helpful in the application or should I dedicate 100% of my time and effort to getting 4.0 the last two semesters? Any opinions and advice on the topic will be greatly appreciated :)
