Cornell, Anyone?

**mathy backpack** · 03-17-2009, 04:10 PM

Anybody leaning toward Cornell yet? I am seriously considering them, but I will need to visit a couple others before I know for sure.

Anyone know about a visit day (or past visit days, perhaps)? Eric Maroney said in an email that they are working on a day, but they are on spring break now. I do hope they hurry so we can make our travel plans!

**jqmyy** · 03-17-2009, 04:13 PM

Originally Posted by mathy backpack

Anybody leaning toward Cornell yet? I am seriously considering them, but I will need to visit a couple others before I know for sure.

Anyone know about a visit day (or past visit days, perhaps)? Eric Maroney said in an email that they are working on a day, but they are on spring break now. I do hope they hurry so we can make our travel plans!

I am thinking about cornell too, you would choose that over Chicago?
I am scared by their placement record and the location.
But the Sage fellowship is nice.

**mathy backpack** · 03-17-2009, 04:16 PM

Chicago is unfunded first year, and they eat their young.

The Sage Fellowship is very attractive, and I would be over the moon if I got to do behavioral with O'Donoghue (In my opinion he and Rabin are about as cool as it gets!)

**mathy backpack** · 03-17-2009, 04:28 PM

As far as location, my favorite things to do are all outdoorsy: hiking, fishing, biking, sailing, skiing...so Ithaca actually looks pretty attractive to me.

The placements are the only thing keeping me from signing up right now. I plan to just ask Prof Mitra to explain these placements, and perhaps talk about what they are doing to improve them.

**jqmyy** · 03-17-2009, 06:32 PM

Originally Posted by mathy backpack

As far as location, my favorite things to do are all outdoorsy: hiking, fishing, biking, sailing, skiing...so Ithaca actually looks pretty attractive to me.

The placements are the only thing keeping me from signing up right now. I plan to just ask Prof Mitra to explain these placements, and perhaps talk about what they are doing to improve them.

When are you visiting? I want to visit too. Eric did not reply to me

**rvalchev** · 03-17-2009, 06:37 PM

Originally Posted by mathy backpack

As far as location, my favorite things to do are all outdoorsy: hiking, fishing, biking, sailing, skiing...so Ithaca actually looks pretty attractive to me.

The placements are the only thing keeping me from signing up right now. I plan to just ask Prof Mitra to explain these placements, and perhaps talk about what they are doing to improve them.

+1 !!!

Those placements are just not TOP20 placements

Yet on paper they seem to be a solid TOP20 department.

It is the major issue I have with Cornell, and I am currently leaning more towards Duke and Wisconsin. But if somebody at Cornell can give me a convincing reason of why I should not be worried, what went wrong, and what has been changed, I might flip very quickly.

I was going back and forth over e-mail with Eric Maroney today, and he told me they are thinking of Monday March 30th as visit day. I can't make it, since I already bought my ticket to go visit Duke that day. But I think after Duke I'll swing by Ithaca and see what they have to say.

It is a tough choice for me, because I don't have very well defined interests. I have the vague feeling I want to do theory, but I don't have strong preferences over econometric, micro, macro, international or what have you theory.

But mathybackpack, why Cornell over Duke, seeing that you are accepted there too?

**mathy backpack** · 03-17-2009, 06:39 PM

Are they on Spring Break right now?

**rvalchev** · 03-17-2009, 06:44 PM

Yes, it is Cornell's spring break this week. They are not very responsive now, but that is to be expected given Spring break I guess.

**mathy backpack** · 03-17-2009, 06:48 PM

haha, I just canceled my Duke visit so that I could make a Northern roadtrip! I am thinking Cornell because of their strength in behavioral. They seem to be committed to the field, and have some excellent professors in that area.

As far as rankings, they seem similar (Duke and Cornell, perhaps Cornell a little better), so my professors have advised me to go with the one thats seems most promising for my interests.

I am still laboring over these decisions, however, and would love any other opinions or insight.

You have a Wisconsin Fellowship though, correct? That must be hard to pass up!

**rvalchev** · 03-17-2009, 07:02 PM

Originally Posted by mathy backpack

As far as rankings, they seem similar (Duke and Cornell, perhaps Cornell a little better), so my professors have advised me to go with the one thats seems most promising for my interests.

I am still laboring over these decisions, however, and would love any other opinions or insight.

You have a Wisconsin Fellowship though, correct? That must be hard to pass up!

Wisconsin is really popular on this forum, but not so much with my professors for some reason

At first I was very pumped about ditching Cornell and Duke and packing up for Wisconsin, but when I asked my professors for advice (without identifying my own leaning before hand) none of them actually picked Wisconsin as the top choice.

My undergrad profs are removed from the econ research world, and I wonder if the Duke/Cornell brandnames have skewed their perceptions. But I don't know. For example, if you look at Duke's placements, they are equivalent with Wisconsin's, which brings into question Wisconsin's supposed higher rank. And Duke has a better student-faculty ratio and faculty in more fields than Wisconsin (same true for Cornell). So all in all, after 2 weeks of pondering where to go I am back at square 1 with no idea