On average year, about 5 out of the top 10 departments or so will have a similar kind of record. Only few of the top 10 departments have numerous outstanding placements each year (possibly Harvard, Stanford, some others).Originally Posted by studentecon
Golden Rule, whats the take on Columbia? Not many students on the market? On the wiki list, I didn't see any get a flyout to a top ten so far.
Also, the structural change at Columbia you mention has been ongoing for several years now but results have not been forthcoming. I don't understand how it can take so long. Any ideas? I had imagined before it was partly due to the high opportunity cost of all those NYC/Wall Street jobs that had many not going on the job market...but now its not so clear to me.
unitroot, at least two of your statements just make it hard for me to believe you have been watching the market closely in the past few years. First, most people would agree that NYU is a top ten school that compares favorably with Yale, UPenn and (as long as we are not talking about micro theory) Northwestern. Second, unless you meant the GSB, it has been quite a while since Stanford's econ placements have been superb (around 2004 and before that).
Having said that, the longer I stick around grad school, the more I realize that success in the junior market is mostly about your job market paper (80%) and somewhat about the politics involved (the remaining 20%). At the end of the day, you control way more than just the mean of your future job market outcome by performing well - a task that should keep all of us very, very busy for the years to come.
Last edited by appliedtheorist; 01-15-2009 at 11:39 PM.
No, plenty of students on the market this year. But the previous two years worth of classes have been small.
Again, the wiki is not complete.On the wiki list, I didn't see any get a flyout to a top ten so far.
The big batch of Columbia hires came when the current 5th years were 2nd years, 6th years were 3rd years. The new hires didn't really take charge of the department and the graduate program until a year later. I wasn't expecting to see improvement in placements until this year.Also, the structural change at Columbia you mention has been ongoing for several years now but results have not been forthcoming. I don't understand how it can take so long. Any ideas?
So I've looked at those rumor boards before, and haven't been able to read them for more than a minute before turning elsewhere. The tone is intolerable and often plain nasty, whereas TestMagic is far more civil.
Why is this? I was thinking (1) TestMagic requires registration and consistent usernames, (2) TestMagic is moderated, (3) 4-5 years of grad school in economics turns job market candidates into a far more obnoxious group of people than grad school applicants, (4) The job market has an even smaller number of slots than graduate school slots, leading to less cooperation.
Just wondering.
I'd go for anonymity.
Last edited by Nalfien; 01-16-2009 at 01:04 AM. Reason: shut up! that's why!
Yale Class of 2012ish
LOL yes some threads are very nasty. TM rocks. Moderation keeps me in check at least...
gone for comps...
This is why I think deciding based on current placements is such a bad idea- job market placement (besides being a very noisy signal) is a severly lagging indicator. Even once a department decides to get its act together and commits to new faculty and a more nurturing program it will take a couple years to work out that kinks and get top students to commit to the project and only 6 years later will you get a number of candidates on the market who have gotten the full benefit of the change.
If you want to understand why programs are over/under achieving look at how their department was changing ~6 years ago. Woodford didn't show up at Columbia till around 2004 and they are still aggressively building the department (their senior hires last year for example). Give Columbia time.
NYU really starting to place people well? Stanford's placements looking a little lackluster? Well Tom Sargent circa 2002/3 might have sometime to tell you about the schools that you wouldn't see looking at job market outcomes for that year.
So all in all, these sort of placements can confirm changes (for example Northwestern has become a great place to go to school), but do a terrible job of predicting them (which is what prospective students should be interested in). It is easier to see where departments are going by talking to economists (they love gossiping about schools) and looking at senior hires.
Sure, I agree to some extent, but I also agree with asquare's point that you can feel more comfortable going to a school with a strong recent placement record. Sure, a school can hire a ton of faculty, but it's not necessarily going to solve all the school's problems.
In the context of Columbia on this board, I've tried to help students get inside the black box, and be honest about what's improved about the program over the past few years (more faculty in the prime of their careers, a strong set of macro field courses, more incentives for faculty involvement in student presentations) and what hasn't (the lack of student/dept. space, the GSAS requirement that students teach 2 semesters regardless of RAships or outside funding -- and since both are university-wide concerns, they're not easily fixed). And it's pretty clear in which fields the faculty is strongest. And then students can judge for themselves whether the strengths outway the detriments relative to other schools.
True. For instance, I would have chosen harsher words than "more obnoxious group of people" to describe that board's posters, if this board wasn't moderated.LOL yes some threads are very nasty. TM rocks. Moderation keeps me in check at least...
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