TestMagic Forums - View Single Post - Fun with Econ: Would Steven Levitt get into MIT today?

Bryster · 2006 March 15th, 04:42 AM

Ross

The article that you're referring to in JPE was published while Levitt was in grad school at MIT..

His undergraduate thesis at Harvard for which he won the award for best undergraduate thesis was on thoroughbred breeding.

Also, regarding Levitt's math background when he began at MIT,

'Levitt had taken exactly one math course as an undergraduate and had forgotten even that. During his first graduate class, he asked the student next to him about a formula on the board: Is there any difference between the derivative sign that's straight up-and-down and the curly one? "You are in so much trouble," he was told.'

All of this information is taken directly from Stephen Dubner's 2003 New York Times Magazine article on Levitt, which burgeoned into Freakonomics.

2006 March 15th, 04:42 AM	#20 (permalink)
Bryster Eager! Join Date: Sep 2005 Posts: 49	Ross The article that you're referring to in JPE was published while Levitt was in grad school at MIT.. His undergraduate thesis at Harvard for which he won the award for best undergraduate thesis was on thoroughbred breeding. Also, regarding Levitt's math background when he began at MIT, 'Levitt had taken exactly one math course as an undergraduate and had forgotten even that. During his first graduate class, he asked the student next to him about a formula on the board: Is there any difference between the derivative sign that's straight up-and-down and the curly one? "You are in so much trouble," he was told.' All of this information is taken directly from Stephen Dubner's 2003 New York Times Magazine article on Levitt, which burgeoned into Freakonomics.