How important is being a Teaching Assistant for PhD admissions?

[danyjtan]

Sorry if this has been dealt with already, I searched the forums and only found 1 thread talking abt the relative importance of admission criteria and where teaching experience fits in. (And didn't find much information other than Cornell does ask abt undergrad TA-ship experience)

Would you guys say that teaching assistant-ship falls under the category of "good to have but not super-crucial" or "useful occasionally but otherwise unimportant"?. It also seems to depend on whether the schools you apply to need teaching assistants desperately or not.

I'm asking because I'm tentatively considering TA-ing for a professor in an applied regression (Stata/Intro to Applied Metrics) course next semester, but am wondering if the time is better spent on making sure I do well in Econometrics and Probability Theory, and writing up my thesis. If people think it falls under the latter category mentioned above, then I'll probably withdraw from the TA-ship.

Thoughts? I'm hoping this thread could be useful for others as well.

[scienceofsleep200]

My impression is that TAing falls into the latter category. IMO TAing is only useful if you have NOT done the course as a student. TAing a course you haven't done allows you to learn the material and says to the adcoms that you are certainly capable of getting an A in that subject. For me that was the case with Public Economics, Advanced Macro, Linear Algebra I and II, Calculus I and II. The fact that I TAed applied regression, econometrics and a few other courses I had gotten As in probably didn't do much for my admissions.

[_nanashi]

I would imagine it only carries weight on the margins. It sends a signal you probably can be used as cheap labor, and not much else.

Okay I'm being facetious, but i do thing its marginal. Many schools do not allow undergraduates to hold T.A. ship, so its one of those things that I think adcoms would weight on the fringe. Its not something they are explicitly looking at/for.

[Elliephant]

IMO TAing is only useful if you have NOT done the course as a student. TAing a course you haven't done allows you to learn the material and says to the adcoms that you are certainly capable of getting an A in that subject.

Well put. The usual assumption is that anyone who speaks English and has done well in a course can TA it, so if you've already demonstrated the former two, taking on the latter is a waste of time. A notable exception is Cornell, which explicitly asks for evidence of teaching ability in its application. Generally speaking, though, I haven't heard of TAships being a make-or-break attribute except in cases where it was already a very close call. The only use I can think of for them is to increase your chances of scoring a TAship once you're in the PhD (in places where it is arranged prof-by-prof rather than on a department-wide basis, but I think this is quite rare) by demonstrating that you know how to handle a classroom.

[Pedxs]

I think that TA experience is only important at university with a large undergraduate population (e.g. Minnesota, Wisconsin). At those places they need you to teach. While at schools with smaller undergraduate program (e.g. Harvard, MIT) you can probably get through only doing research.

[OneArmedEcon]

It probably doesn't have a material impact on the admission decision, but it could play a small role with respect to first-year funding that is tied to a TAship. I believe that Pedxs is correct that such a dynamic is more likely to be the case at a larger public university rather than a private.

[Norsker]

Do you have three solid letters? A TAship will give you an opportunity to get a more detailed letter, albeit without much commentary on your research ability.

[danyjtan]

I know three professors that will be happy to write recommendations for me - whether they'll write good ones remains to be seen; and unfortunately none of them are big names.

Anyway I declined the TA-ship today.

I guess the main way a TA-ship could be useful is if you're applying for a RA job or something econ-job related for pre-academia prep. Maybe.