Answers about Yale...(Econ that is)

[floplo]

Hi,

first congratulations to everybody around here for the success of their applications (and if you haven't heard anything, don't worry your time will come too).

So, since there are a few people here which have offers from Yale for the Econ PhD, and I have already a little bit of experience in the program (well, almost two years by now), i am happy to answer any questions.

Also if you are not an Econ person, but still want to know about Yale / New Haven, no problem, this is a non-discriminatory thread...

If you want ask anything confidential, no problem, sent me a message.
(regarding confidentiality, they have circulated the admit list with names and e-mail adresses internally, so I might use e-mail directly to answer you )

Also Yale operates a waiting list for the first time in years, I have no idea when and how they will make offers to persons on the list, but I will not report anything from this list back to the department (so don't worry about asking stupid questions )

so if you want to know anything,....start posting

[cliff23]

Hi Floplo. First let me thank you for all the assistance and goodwill you've been lending throughout the entire process - it sure helps a lot

It looks like (saving the unlikely possibility of good news from MIT) I will be choosing between Yale and Harvard. Y gives me more money, but H has more macro people and higher ranking. Still, I might wind up choosing Yale for the following reasons:

Yale's webpage makes a big deal out of their emphasis on collegiality and a cooperative environment amongst the students. It says people are encouraged to work together, and not to compete, and to be friends, in contradistinction to a place like Chicago. I think, bearing in mind the stress of the phd program, that I will need that.

Also, one of my advisors warned me against Harvard because they tend to focus all attention on the superstars, and the rest of the graduate students are left to languish. Yale, on the other hand, has a reputation for nurturing every single student into the best s/he can be (similar to MIT). I need this, I believe, coming straight from undergrad. People who have masters degrees will be running circles around me until I can catch up, and I don't know if I would make it into the front half or the back half of the class at Harvard.

I was just wondering if you could comment on the Yale side of these issues - are the reputations well deserved? Thanks a ton

[cliff23]

ps, how's the weather in New Haven?
and I also want to reiterate how TM dominates all the other message boards. I took a look at XOXO today and was shocked at how vulgar, petty, prejudiced, bigoted, egotistic and generally philistine everyone was.

[Dingus]

Floplo,

That is such a generous gesture!

So, !!



Cheers!
Dingus



PS: Got to have gif-animations enabled to see that.

[800needed]

Originally Posted by cliff23

Yale's webpage makes a big deal out of their emphasis on collegiality and a cooperative environment amongst the students. It says people are encouraged to work together, and not to compete, and to be friends, in contradistinction to a place like Chicago. I think, bearing in mind the stress of the phd program, that I will need that.

Also, one of my advisors warned me against Harvard because they tend to focus all attention on the superstars, and the rest of the graduate students are left to languish. Yale, on the other hand, has a reputation for nurturing every single student into the best s/he can be (similar to MIT).

These are very interesting little facts... I had always heard, and therefore beleived, that both schools paid attention to all of their students. I am very curious to see what the response of floplo will be.

[floplo]

Originally Posted by cliff23

ps, how's the weather in New Haven?
and I also want to reiterate how TM dominates all the other message boards. I took a look at XOXO today and was shocked at how vulgar, petty, prejudiced, bigoted, egotistic and generally philistine everyone was.

The easy things first,...

well today's weather is sunshine and blue sky
otherwise I don't know where you are from, but i guess it is similar to weather in New England between NY and Boston (aehmm, wow, pretty non-descriptive statement till now), ok so snow (quite a bit) during the winter, hot summer (somewhat humid, not too bad), Autumn quite nice with some traces of foliage.

the XOXO board....I don't know whether you ever visited the Princetonreview board before it changed the format (last year I think) and before TM existed. The Grad school discussion was quite civilised, the Law school part however.... and XOXO is basically the legitimate successor of that part

[floplo]

Originally Posted by cliff23

Yale's webpage makes a big deal out of their emphasis on collegiality and a cooperative environment amongst the students. It says people are encouraged to work together, and not to compete, and to be friends, in contradistinction to a place like Chicago. I think, bearing in mind the stress of the phd program, that I will need that.

Also, one of my advisors warned me against Harvard because they tend to focus all attention on the superstars, and the rest of the graduate students are left to languish. Yale, on the other hand, has a reputation for nurturing every single student into the best s/he can be (similar to MIT). I need this, I believe, coming straight from undergrad. People who have masters degrees will be running circles around me until I can catch up, and I don't know if I would make it into the front half or the back half of the class at Harvard.

I was just wondering if you could comment on the Yale side of these issues - are the reputations well deserved? Thanks a ton

ok, since I have no idea about H's programm, I won't say anything about (except that I have heard the same rumor.....well they didn't admit me, so please consider me somewhat biased )

But yeah, what the website says is pretty consistent with what I have experienced here till now. It started from Math Camp, where Yale focusses more on people getting to know each other and New Haven than on Math. For example in my year the prof doing it really pushed us to do our homework in groups, and even animated the TA to have a pizza party at her place for the whole group, because he feared we weren't cooperating enough....
With Professors they are really helpful, open und accessible (for example for RA jobs during the summer), and I have never seen any indication for a preferential superstar treatment....(well, I am no superstar :o , but still feel that I receive a lot of support from the dept) and the secret weapon of our dept is the grad registrar, she is like a mother to all the grad students, whatever problem you have, she helps fixing it....

Also the atmosphere between students is very cooperative, for example during the study period for the comps (the exams at the end of the first year) everybody worked with everybody else in study groups, and everybody shared material, notes, etc very generously and people were always willing to answer questions....(and in the end we lost only one classmate to the comps, so the department is surely not out there to fail people)

I hope this gives a first impression, but to be honest, describing it on the internet goes only so far, I would really recommend that you visit both places before you make a decision, so hope to see you on the admit weekend

[Dingus]

Originally Posted by floplo

...and the secret weapon of our dept is the grad registrar, she is like a mother to all the grad students, whatever problem you have, she helps fixing it....

Deal with this question right at the very end.

Does she make chocolate chip and oatmeal raisin cookies and more importantly, pass them around?

[floplo]

Originally Posted by Dingus

Deal with the question right at the very end.

Does she make chocolate chip and oatmeal raisin cookies and more importantly, pass them around?

well, no (at least to the passing around part , ), (but the occassional apple pie baked by junior faculty...) but we have lunch-seminars with dept-sponsored lunch, usually including cookies..... so she doesn't need too

[Dingus]

That's certainly a very strong point in favour of Yale!




PS: Take a special note of this, cliff.