moving econ and cs into their own forums, couple more points

[ml2316]

1. posts related to each of these topics (econ, cs) individually outnumber the posts for mba, law, mfa, college, and high school admissions forums combined.
2. while the admission process is similar for econ and cs, in terms of the discussion which primarily takes place in the graduate admissions forum, there is very little overlap in useful information. for example, most of the discussion revolves around topics like the reputation of a given dept/school, the research specialties of a given dept/school, the acceptance rates of a given school, general career questions/advice for the given subject, etc. Such discussion topics basically never apply generally to both cs and econ or any two subjects.

i realize this might reduce overall page hits, however, and if that would make this site unable to support itself, then please ignore (i love this site).

[snappythecrab]

I'll second that motion, at least for an econ forum. In fact, I think it has the potential to increase user participation and/or posting. A new or potential user may get turned off my going into the grad admissions forum, which is essentially dominated by econ posts. There are many worthwhile posts from other subjects that simply get sent to the bottom of the stack so to speak because of the number of econ posts.

Its a slippery slope I realize, but perhaps worthy of consideration nonetheless.

[elhuevon]

Originally Posted by snappythecrab

I'll second that motion, at least for an econ forum. In fact, I think it has the potential to increase user participation and/or posting. A new or potential user may get turned off my going into the grad admissions forum, which is essentially dominated by econ posts. There are many worthwhile posts from other subjects that simply get sent to the bottom of the stack so to speak because of the number of econ posts.

Its a slippery slope I realize, but perhaps worthy of consideration nonetheless.

Since this is already the best econ admissions forum, I would guess that TM has more traffic to pick up by giving econ it's own forum (like business PhD) than keeping it all in graduate admissions. Certain people do google searches now for graduate admissions econ, but don't necessarily get sent straight here b/c of the poor labels.

[Erin]

Just to make sure that you folks saw--we do have an Econ PhD forum now. Enjoy.

[Hermione]

Somehow I dont like the fragmentation of graduate forum. When I was applying I got many useful suggestions from people like JKRIS and notacolour who are actually econ people (am a bio major, btw). Had there been a separate Econ forum then, I am sure they wouldnt have even seen my thread. But since many people want it that way let it be like that. But I would like to suggest one minor modification in only organizing all these forums.

Instead of having them like this --->

Admissions Results
Graduate Admissions
PhD in Business
PhD in Economics
Computer Science Admissions
Law School Admissions
MBA Admissions
Medical School Admissions
MFA Admissions
College Admissions
UC Admissions
High School Admissions
Sub-Forums: SSAT, HSPT, ISEE
Financial Aid,

we can have it like --->

Admissions Results
Graduate Admissions
Subforums: Business, Economics, Computer Science, Literature, Life sciences, Physics/Chemistry/Mathematics (infact the respecitve AGRE subforums could be merged with each of these subforums. That makes much more sense that having it along with the GRE forum)
Law School Admissions
MBA Admissions
Medical School Admissions
MFA Admissions
College Admissions
UC Admissions
High School Admissions
Sub-Forums: SSAT, HSPT, ISEE
Financial Aid

Some of you might think that this would separate people much more, but then my point is that they will still see the parent forum apart from looking at their specific subforum. The main forum could be used for general queries and the subforums for field specific doubts (like what electives to choose, which school is strong in which area, etc)