Advantages of Domestic Applicants

**anonecon** · 08-01-2012, 06:44 PM

You are both ignoring that the applicant pool may be fundamentally different for each. For example, I'd bet dimes to dollars that more internationals are applying with masters degrees.

**Humanomics** · 08-01-2012, 07:27 PM

Originally Posted by anonecon

You are both ignoring that the applicant pool may be fundamentally different for each. For example, I'd bet dimes to dollars that more internationals are applying with masters degrees.

And if that MA conferred an advantage for internationals, we would see offers biased toward internationals, not 10% in the other direction. We have bad data and are all speculating. General consensus is it doesn't pay to compare yourself, or fret about US undergrads if you're an international, no?

**anonecon** · 08-01-2012, 08:37 PM

The point is that internationals are likely "disadvantaged" in terms of the minimum requirements to signal quality. Though, I agree. I don't lose any sleep over the international applicants.

**ryans** · 08-01-2012, 11:11 PM

Realistically I think the pool is split into 4 distinct groups: Domestic (undergraduate), Domestic (Masters-rare), Foreign (undergraduate-rare), Foreign (Masters).

I wasn't trying to stir up and empathy for internationals, just trying to get a better handle on the admissions process. To be honest, there has to be a bit of a preference to educate domestic applicants, especially if they are going to be the professors of tomorrow (secondary to research potential obviously), and get better placements (thus justifying their bias in making the program look better).

**anonecon** · 08-01-2012, 11:16 PM

Domestics are also: more likely to stay here and more likely to be able to communicate and sell their research (better English),

**Humanomics** · 08-01-2012, 11:46 PM

I would venture it's more than just raw English ability. I meet lots of people who speak English perfectly well and can't argue themselves out of a sandbox, much less offer compelling ideas for which there is some rhetorical demand to an audience of researchers.

Putatively removed as we are supposed to be from such concerns, understanding natively the socio-cultural landscape of Western thought and getting to it's "frontier" or "cutting edge" as we always hear mentors talking about requires native taste and style. Those are things one doesn't learn with grammar drills. I will not discount the ability of people from any culture to move somewhere else and pick up that subtle topology extremely quickly. I know lots of people who travel and can make friends, home, and a difference anywhere. The frequency of such personalities may be fewer in a pool of international applicants that might have been attracted to economics because of the technical tools involved over the social, human questions the science is ultimately concerned with.

Or there's just unabashed institutional racism in economics.

**ryans** · 08-01-2012, 11:55 PM

Originally Posted by Humanomics

Or there's just unabashed institutional racism in economics.

I prefer xenophobia. "Xenophobia in 21st Century Graduate Studies" makes a fine sounding paper.

**Humanomics** · 08-02-2012, 12:06 AM

Originally Posted by ryans

I prefer xenophobia. "Xenophobia in 21st Century Graduate Studies" makes a fine sounding paper.

Ha. I sent a mailer to a few interested lefties I kick it with, an Economist article that was championing how productivity measures were increasing in China, and which filled out the aggregates with anecdotes about Chinese-native invention. I said, "Nobody was sure if China could pull off the innovation trick [because most of their growth has come from technology spillover -- a widely agreed opinion], but looks like they are." One of my boys got back to me flaming about how there was unconscious, institutional racism embedded in my comment because I had implied that the Chinese weren't innovative people, culturally or whatever. You can imagine who won that argument.

My roommate is stark white. His parents were Mennonite missionaries in Indonesia -- when they moved the family to the States when he was about 7, he didn't know what a light-switch was, or how to speak English. Learning a culture is difficult. The academy is a culture. Hats off to internationals, period.

**kipfilet** · 08-03-2012, 03:20 AM

At my university (top10, bottom half), internationals tend to comprise 70%-90% of the cohort. This happens in virtually every cohort (mine is an extreme case: out of 19 people, only 3 were Americans). In other programs, from what I know and have seen, I would say that 60% is a pretty good approximation of the average.

I believe the OP raises an extremely valid point: domestic and international profiles are extremely difficult to compare. Even within internationals, it is difficult to compare an European with an Asian, for example. South Americans tend to be very similar to Europeans in terms of background/profile/experience, hence these two groups ought to be pooled when making comparisons.

I don't know about East Asia, but virtually every European/South American/Indian who gets into a top10 program must have a Masters degree. This also applies to UK applicants, even those coming from OXbridge/LSE. The reason is that in Europe (including the UK), due to the Bologna Process, all undergraduate degrees are 3-year bachelor degrees. US universities almost always have an explicit requirement stating that the applicant must have had 4 years of university education before applying to the PhD. I have Oxford and LSE-trained colleagues who did have to go through a masters before applying.

The situation is very different with Australians, due to their Honours system (which also existed in the UK prior to the Bologna reforms): if you are a good student, you can choose to go through an additional year in your undergrad, which is very similar to an European masters. In the end, you have had 4 years of university education and a training which is comparable to that of most European applicants. Hence Australians tend not to have done a masters before coming to the PhD - they are 'saved' by the persistence of the former British higher education system. I believe this does not apply to India, though.

In South America, even though undergraduate degrees tend to be longer (4-5 years), most people tend to go through a masters nevertheless. In the end, training is, once again, similar to that of European applicants (or, in some cases, possibly better - I'm thinking of universities such as Torcuato di Tella in Argentina or the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, which offer masters programs on par with the best European ones).

**chateauheart** · 08-03-2012, 03:30 PM

kipfilet, that's a great post. I'd like to raise one point though: There must be a reason that foreign applicants generally take a master's before applying to the US, but lack of time in training is definitely not it. Having known people who have gone through these universities, I'd say that most 3-year undergrads in foreign countries have had a much better preparation in both math and economics relative to the average U.S. undergraduate. If there's something lacking in their application, it'd be research experience, not academics. And yet a master's degree is for the most part an academic degree. Thus, there is likely some other reason for taking a master's degree. This is evident in the fact that most foreign applicants - regardless of whether they're from 5-year undergrads (some Latin Americans), 4-year undergrads (Chinese, Japanese) or 3-year undergrads - take a master's degree.

I'd guess that the most important factor is signalling - being in a spot where you can be compared with a peer group of students for those that come from rather obscure (to American adcoms) places.