Fun with Econ: Would Steven Levitt get into MIT today?

[Emperor]

crslr,

hehe. I don't mind if you don't believe me. But it is true.

[mrtoad]

A better question: Would A. Tucker get into Princeton today?

http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~osborn...ial/TUCKER.HTM

[PseudoRandomThoughts]

This is a 'counterfactual conditional', an 'unsolved' problem in philosophy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsolve..._in_philosophy

[asianecon]

hmm...just a speculation: what if ad coms nowadays are dominated by junior faculty that needs to publish a lot to get tenure and what if they dont really care about the research potential of the student but only his/her potential as a research assistant? this makes sense: you don't want a co-author but you want a brilliant kid who can solve your problems and prove your propositions/theorems. can the trend of wanting more math from applicants be due to this shift of the preference of ad coms and their private benefits?

i dont really buy the idea that more advanced level math is needed to get published. maybe if you're doing mathematical economics or macro (e.g. nonlinear dynamics and chaos) or econometric theory, you'll need it. but just look at the level of math in AER, QJE, JPE, IJIO, etc..rarely does it go beyond the calculus series (my supervisor even "scolded" me for writing too mathematically when preparing for a submission into one of these journals (actually 2)...he told me to reserve that for JET)

or maybe it's just that econ phd has become so popular and you need a quick and easy instrument to screen applicants. definitely it's hard to read writing samples from applicants (as practiced in Europe) if you have tons of them. hence math ability may be an an imperfect but workable instrument to predict research potential (some of you might be familiar with the belief that if you were good in math as a kid, people tend to think that u are "smarter")

so now on the Leveitt issue. if explanation 1 (first paragraph) is true, then Levitt won't be accepted. if explanation 2 (2nd paragraph) is true, then coming from Harvard and all, he has a big chance especially due to the proximity of Harvard to MIT since he won't need to attract ad coms with math...heck i dont think he even has to mail his apps to the grad school (his application will be personally handed in by professor X to professor Y who happens to chair the ad com at MIT...)

sorry for the long post!

[crslr]

Originally Posted by PseudoRandomThoughts

This is a 'counterfactual conditional', an 'unsolved' problem in philosophy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsolve..._in_philosophy

Not really. I know someone who got into Harvard despite being dead. Not all universities forbid applications on behalf of dead people. But given this handicap, they have to compensate with excellent LORs and demonstrated research ability. Which Tucker has. (Sorry Emperor, coudn't resist ...)

[asianecon]

"Not all universities forbid applications on behalf of dead people. But given this handicap, they have to compensate with excellent LORs (Fun with Econ: Would Steven Levitt get into MIT today?) and demonstrated research ability."

it's illegal for them to deny an applicant solely based on being handicapped...maybe that's why...haha

[asianecon]

"Not all universities forbid applications on behalf of dead people. But given this handicap, they have to compensate with excellent LORs (Fun with Econ: Would Steven Levitt get into MIT today?) and demonstrated research ability."

it's illegal for them to deny an applicant solely based on being handicapped...maybe that's why...haha


sorry for the double post...server is screwing up...

[Emperor]

Originally Posted by crslr

Not really. I know someone who got into Harvard despite being dead. Not all universities forbid applications on behalf of dead people. But given this handicap, they have to compensate with excellent LORs and demonstrated research ability. Which Tucker has. (Sorry Emperor, coudn't resist ...)

It’s not very sporting when you prove my point so effortlessly! Despite all the proofs you have written in your career, you are still struggling with elementary logic. The dead person analogy is obviously irrelevant.

(Sorry mon ami, I could not resist either. )

Good luck to everyone.

[Econ2006]

Originally Posted by asianecon

hmm...just a speculation: what if ad coms nowadays are dominated by junior faculty that needs to publish a lot to get tenure and what if they dont really care about the research potential of the student but only his/her potential as a research assistant? this makes sense: you don't want a co-author but you want a brilliant kid who can solve your problems and prove your propositions/theorems. can the trend of wanting more math from applicants be due to this shift of the preference of ad coms and their private benefits?

I think you may have a point here. Though I think if adcoms are dominated by junior faculty, they are that much closer to the grad school experience, and are still focused on the level of math they needed/used to succeed. I would guess that if ad coms were made up of mostly senior faculty, math ability beyond a certain level (say, analysis), wouldn't be as highly prized (and research ability might be more valued), especially when evaluating applicants who don't intend to do theoretical work.

[cheekyrusski]

Originally Posted by Bryster

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.

Dubner may well 'exaggerate the truth' in order to create the right image for Levitt - after all, it enhances the prestige of a person if he went from being a mathematical ignoramus to a Bates Medal winner.

I agree with 'economistsdoitwithmodels' - there is a lot to be said for mathematics done in other courses. Levitt was an 'insider' from the beginning by studying at Harvard and his formal maths background mattered much less.

I would like to believe that today's adcoms would equally carefully look at the maths implicit in other courses (perhaps only possible if these guys know the course being taught - another advantage for 'insiders'). However, despite a few brave souls in this forum asserting that maths is not all-important today, I have yet to be convinced otherwise. There are just too many people that I know that have interesting backgrounds as well as clear display of research potential and yet they have been consistently overlooked by schools.