This whole process is absurd.

[bluebucket]

I totally agree with Econ Slave. One of the biggest things I learned from this process is that Academia, like most of life, is all about who you know. Never underestimate the strength of weak ties. To all of you who are applying next year, I would spend a significant amount of time networking. I know adcoms say its a bad idea to contact faculty, but that is bs. As long as you don't make your true intentions obvious, contacting faculty can be extremely advantageous. And it's not hard to think of legitimate questions. I wouldn't blindly email profs you don't know, but if you meet someone at a conference, definitely follow up with an email. Its always good to have friends in high places.

[azzobrother]

I think a good economists will be a good economists; regardless of which institution he attended or was placed in (we assume that this institution has a reasonable amount of resources for someone to become a good economists) . The admission process may indeed be unmeritorious, but the world isn't. Praise and reverence will be rewarded where its due; the truth doesn't discriminate based on the school you attended. I think you may be better off concerning yourself about 'economics' and not its admission process. Einstein didn't become a good physicists because he worried about university admission processes.

[HopefulFutureEcon]

I totally agree with Econ Slave. One of the biggest things I learned from this process is that Academia, like most of life, is all about who you know. Never underestimate the strength of weak ties. To all of you who are applying next year, I would spend a significant amount of time networking. I know adcoms say its a bad idea to contact faculty, but that is bs. As long as you don't make your true intentions obvious, contacting faculty can be extremely advantageous. And it's not hard to think of legitimate questions. I wouldn't blindly email profs you don't know, but if you meet someone at a conference, definitely follow up with an email. Its always good to have friends in high places.

I wouldn't assume this applied to everyone, so please don't go running around contacting professors at big schools. If you went to an elite undergraduate (MIT, for example) perhaps this is ok. But if you were just some kid emailing a person at, say, Yale and you were from Texas Tech? That probably won't elicit a warm response. No offense to any Red Raiders.

[Gerter]

With respect to your claim about the futility and uselessness of economics, I would encourage you to review the history of bad economic policies, especially those implemented before the early modern era. Most of these bad policies made intuitive sense but produced poor results that were explained later by more formal inquiry.

I think you don't have to go over 200 years into the past to witness bad economic policies.

On an unrelated note/rant, I'd also add that to most people it's fairly obvious that economics as a profession is stuck in a rut and has been for a couple of decades. Not to say that all research done since the early 90's is "useless" but progress on large issues (this applies most specifically to macro) has been very limited recently and the worst thing is it's hard to see where improvement could come from as dissent is frowned upon in the circles that matter, to say the least. People currently doing PhDs will of course dispute this as that would mean getting bogged down in abstract DSGE models for 3-4 years would be a sunk cost but oh well. My favorite example of narrow mindedness is when someone questions the validity of something as arcane as micro foundations and gets laughed at by almost everyone in a so called top 10 department. According to the profession, a) The Current State of Affairs is The Law and b) progress in the field means taking The Current Model of X, adding a bell, and publishing it as Model of X with bell Y. Ok, rant over.

[kimbanator]

I don't think the OP's post is silly at all. I admit I've been having some second thoughts after researching econ grad school and exploring academia in general for the past year.

I guess what bothers me is that the top schools will draw the top mathematicians/programmers/whatever, but not necessarily the best economists. I realize this isn't an uncommon complaint (David Colander's book comes to mind), but I guess I didn't realize just how vapid lots of top economic research was until this past year. I mean, PhD-level math courses are great, but does that mean the applicant understands the world? The limits of models? The historical successes/failures of the profession? As one professor of mine put it, many young economists "hide behind the black box of math" in their papers because that's what they're good at, that's what apparently gets you published in top journals, but does it really say anything insightful about economics? IMHO, it's just sad to me that most of MIT and Harvard's class this year probably hasn't read The Wealth of Nations, The General Theory, etc.

[RaaR]

As I've been seeing results trickle out over the past few weeks, I've really been questioning why I'm interested in a field that's based on lots of hype and little substance.

Regarding the admissions process: to some degree it's unmeritorious, and as someone mentioned here earlier, the decision you make in high school regarding what college to attend can affect where you end up as a grad student. Additionally, someone mentioned how a great LOR can get you into a top school, and though they got one themselves, they realize that there are problems with that. I'm not saying econ is any less meritorious than other fields, but I feel that if you devote the last 3 years of your undergrad existance toward getting into a top 10 school, then not getting into one is wildly out of the ordinary. Amazingly, this is not the case in economics. I have to ask: Why in the world is this the case? Is there any good reason why it's harder to get into a top econ program than a top chemstry program? I don't get it. I just don't see the need for why we need the absolute best and brightest, and ONLY the absolute best and brightest to go into a field which in some people's eyes has yet to make any substantial contribution to human history. Most of the "astounding results" in behavioral economics, commonly regarded as a highly mathematical "cutting edge" subfield, are verifying what I could have told you off the top of my head if you'd asked me, and if it's not obvious, the result is usually useless from any kind of policy standpoint. Someone remind me why we need a limited number of Einsteins working on these critical issues.

I also find it ridiculous that contrary to the natural sciences, economists are evaluated more on the basis of where they are professors than their actual contributions (though you may argue that these things are causally correlated, I think the average undergrad interested in grad econ would more likely remember where someone is a professor than what the conclusion of their most famous paper is). Seriously, why are people so concerned about placements? I have yet to see a thread on econjobrumors.com about interesting disserations or notable publications, but I've seen tons on placement records. What's the point of being a professor at Harvard if you don't do anything interesting? To impress people, including yourself? Probably.

Basically, what I'm saying is that econ is like the country club of academia. Please someone argue with my angry vent

I'm following this forum without participating much, but this time I have to say - great post! (and I say that as an econ. PhD student who's happy with economics, despite its absurdity). Despite it being an admissions forum, research should be stressed around here as well. This is eventually what is done in academia; whether it be at Harvard, or any other 1500th ranked department.

[eigenman]

I think you don't have to go over 200 years into the past to witness bad economic policies.

The failed economic policies of the 20th century were not the result of flawed intuition but rather the consequence of errant technical reasoning (Communism, poor monetary policies, etc). My point was that studying economics and trying to justify rigorously what seems "obvious" has value, thus I cited earlier catastrophes.

On an unrelated note/rant, I'd also add that to most people it's fairly obvious that economics as a profession is stuck in a rut and has been for a couple of decades.

I had an interesting conversation with a former top 20 econometrician about this a few months ago. He agreed with you - not so encouraging. On the other hand I am sufficiently ignorant of economics that I am likely to continue learning novel things for a considerable amount of time in grad school and beyond, so I am more concerned about the profession in its entirety than I am about the utility I derive from participating in it.

[icebear]

I don't think the OP's post is silly at all. I admit I've been having some second thoughts after researching econ grad school and exploring academia in general for the past year.

I guess what bothers me is that the top schools will draw the top mathematicians/programmers/whatever, but necessarily not the best economists. I realize this isn't an uncommon complaint (David Colander's book comes to mind), but I guess I didn't realize just how vapid lots of top economic research was until this past year.

Despite my strong, long-running interest in the field, and desire to attend a competitive program, I have to agree - sometimes to the point that I wonder if I would prefer work in similar but less academic career (e.g. policy advocacy, consulting) to a greater extent (especially considering some comments and stories on the kind of workaholic nature it takes to become a truly top researcher). Several of my LORs that attended such programs voice similar thoughts at times.

I don't think there's anything wrong with a frank assessment of the shortcomings of the field, either in how it finds and creates new talent or the type of work it produces. Or, for that matter, a frank reassessment of your personal goals from time to time, and which goals/paths will make you happiest (which, of course, maybe have a very weak correlation with academic fame, top 10 programs, etc, for some people). We are all after progress, after all.

[Gerter]

The failed economic policies of the 20th century were not the result of flawed intuition but rather the consequence of errant technical reasoning (Communism, poor monetary policies, etc). My point was that studying economics and trying to justify rigorously what seems "obvious" has value, thus I cited earlier catastrophes.

Well, the EMH, rational expectations and other rigorously "proven" theories of economics and finance contributed quite a lot to the current mess. At the same time, established ideas from Stiglitz and others (i.e. asymmetric information, principal agent issues, etc.) have proven pivotal but due to the insistence of hammering out max E[u(c)] s.t. w=k+w*l-c type problems things have become very monotonous.

I had an interesting conversation with a former top 20 econometrician about this a few months ago. He agreed with you - not so encouraging. On the other hand I am sufficiently ignorant of economics that I am likely to continue learning novel things for a considerable amount of time in grad school and beyond, so I am more concerned about the profession in its entirety than I am about the utility I derive from participating in it.

The trouble is though, you won't be learning much about the history of economic ideas or the benefits of diverse approaches during grad school. You'll learn methodology, like setting up a Bellman, and then you'll be expected to write a paper using that methodology. And be careful not to stray too far from the exact method you learned in the first year. Just sufficiently enough that your paper has a "novel" twist so it can be published at your school's journal of choice. Oh how bitter I sound.

[eigenman]

Well, the EMH, rational expectations and other rigorously "proven" theories of economics and finance contributed quite a lot to the current mess.

Are you sure? How do you know?

In any case.... science is an iterative process.

The trouble is though, you won't be learning much about the history of economic ideas or the benefits of diverse approaches during grad school. You'll learn methodology, like setting up a Bellman, and then you'll be expected to write a paper using that methodology. And be careful not to stray too far from the exact method you learned in the first year. Just sufficiently enough that your paper has a "novel" twist so it can be published at your school's journal of choice. Oh how bitter I sound.

I think it is difficult to refute an argument unless you understand it. Which isn't to say I'm trying to upend anyone's argument. /shrug