TestMagic Forums - View Single Post - At what point does undergrad reputation hurt you?

abababba · 07-09-2008, 05:32 PM

My apologies to my classmates I forgot, include MIT and Northwestern in my post above, this obviously doesn't change anything.

I think Harvard students have a significant advantage in applying to Harvard Econ, probably 6 of the people in my class are Harvard undergrads, one or two others had some other Harvard experience. I believe this is justified, I don't believe the committee is stupid and the process has very little randomness. I heard that around 10 Harvard undergrads go to grad econ each year so this is a high percentage sticking around.

If someone has already been through the Harvard undergrad ciriculum and possibly even taken the first year graduate sequence, there is a lot less uncertainty about their future performance. There will almost never be an underqualified Harvard graduate econ applicant, they have already been through one gauntlet.

07-09-2008, 05:32 PM	#21 (permalink)
abababba Within my grasp! Join Date: Dec 2005 Posts: 204	My apologies to my classmates I forgot, include MIT and Northwestern in my post above, this obviously doesn't change anything. I think Harvard students have a significant advantage in applying to Harvard Econ, probably 6 of the people in my class are Harvard undergrads, one or two others had some other Harvard experience. I believe this is justified, I don't believe the committee is stupid and the process has very little randomness. I heard that around 10 Harvard undergrads go to grad econ each year so this is a high percentage sticking around. If someone has already been through the Harvard undergrad ciriculum and possibly even taken the first year graduate sequence, there is a lot less uncertainty about their future performance. There will almost never be an underqualified Harvard graduate econ applicant, they have already been through one gauntlet.