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[cantabrigian]

since you're still in school, i highly recommend you talk to your advisers and the ec department about applying to grad school. they have more experience than any of us on the forum and will have a good idea about where you have a good chance of getting into, how to strengthen your profile, and where to apply.

i'm now a frequent reader of this forum, but I'm glad I didn't discover it till I already applied. otherwise, I would have gotten totally freaked out by all the strong profiles and would have never applied for a PhD at all.

[Golden Rule]

Originally Posted by cantabrigian

since you're still in school, i highly recommend you talk to your advisers and the ec department about applying to grad school. they have more experience than any of us on the forum and will have a good idea about where you have a good chance of getting into, how to strengthen your profile, and where to apply.

i'm now a frequent reader of this forum, but I'm glad I didn't discover it till I already applied. otherwise, I would have gotten totally freaked out by all the strong profiles and would have never applied for a PhD at all.

I think you should do what cantrabrigian said in terms of talking to advisors AND read this forum. In general, make best use of all the information you receive, and consider the source.

On the flip side, I think advisors may also be too kind and overestimate their students' admissions chances, and reading this forum is a good way to remind yourself what the competition is like for top 5-10 programs and keep your admissions chances in perspective.

[Cassin]

As long as you remain an econ/math concentrator, keep your GPA above 3.7, don't antagonize all of your professors, I don't think you're gonna have a problem getting into any top schools, including your alma mater.

A person in the middle of Harvard's large economics cohort (most popular major in the college) is by NO means a shoe-in to a top school. How many Harvard undergrads do you think got accepted into Princeton? Answer: two - one got NSF award and the other NSF HM this year.

It's true there is some self-selection - most people don't care about grad school and just want to make a lot of money after graduation on Wall street, so some well-qualified students don't apply. Since Harvard still has grade inflation (~50%? students getting A in some economics classes), 3.7 is not impressive in of itself.

If you can manage to get into a top US PhD, you can always leave with a master's if you don't like it...

I think this is a false option. If you leave with an MA from an American program, that will look like you failed out or couldn't handle it etc. It's a very mixed kind of signal. In that sense, it's much better to get a stand-alone Master's from some doctoral-stream program like Toronto, UBC or LSE (especially MRes). The downside is that "staying if you like it" will not lead to a degree that is comparable in the academic market to a top 10 American program. Nevertheless, after going to such a stand-alone master's program, you can hedge your bets by applying to US PhD programs in the fall. If you could've gotten in there after BA, surely you could still do that a few months after graduation as long as you don't do too badly in the last semester of undergrad.

The main downside of LSE is affordability - if you don't mind paying for your degree, then go for it.

There was another thread somewhere about the employability of those with masters, and really, the prospects aren't all that much better than those with BAs

I think LSE's Master's programs are very prestigious as far as the private sector goes, so that's not true. The problem of employment for most Master's students (including Toronto or UBC I mentioned above) is that they don't have a clear niche among "economics" research-y jobs: PhD's do the real work and BA's do RA grunt work for them. On the other hand, most LSE majors (if I am not mistaken) are well-suited for business-y jobs in London, UK or Manhattan, USA with the top investment banks or similar firms. You can probably get one of those jobs, however, on the strength of your Harvard brand if you do well (e.g. one of my friends was an Arts - Philosophy - major at Harvard and easily got a Goldman Sach's full-time job offer.. she had 4.0 GPA, though but I am not sure how important grades are in that case).

[cantabrigian]

What adcoms think of your GPA matters also depends on what classes you've been taking.

Originally Posted by Cassin

If you leave with an MA from an American program, that will look like you failed out or couldn't handle it etc. It's a very mixed kind of signal.

My academic advisors warned me about this, too. If you don't want to go for the PhD, you can also do amazing things with a law degree, an MBA, a policy degree, etc.

Originally Posted by Cassin

Since Harvard still has grade inflation (~50%? students getting A in some economics classes), 3.7 is not impressive in of itself.

Well, maybe A's and B's are pretty normal, but it's near impossible to get perfect grades, I think.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=348373
But unlike most recipients of the award, Schwartz has a perfect academic record. The last person to earn this distinction was Lisa’s older brother Kevin S. Schwartz ’01, who was the first undergraduate in nearly 20 years to achieve such perfection.

[ekonomiks]

Here are some thoughts:
- 3.7 might not be high due to grade inflation at Harvard. Okay. I meant whatever the threshold for magna cum laude is, you should have GPA above that.
- At some of the top schools, the numbers of job market candidates who did undergrad at Harvard are 0 (Chicago), 1 (MIT), 0 (Berkeley), 2 (Princeton), 1 (Stanford), 0 (UPenn), 1 (Yale), 0 (NYU). This could mean that Harvard graduates don't do very well in the admission process. Given that there are more than 20 Harvard College graduates doing PhD at Harvard, however, I'm inclined to think that they just prefer staying at Harvard.
- If you left Harvard PhD after two years with very good grades, everybody would believe that you left because you simply didn't want a PhD, not because you couldn't handle it. Even if it does look like you can't handle it (and I don't believe it does), it's still fine. I assume that you don't plan to get a research job, in which case your ability to do research doesn't matter much.

[Golden Rule]

Originally Posted by Cassin

A person in the middle of Harvard's large economics cohort (most popular major in the college) is by NO means a shoe-in to a top school. How many Harvard undergrads do you think got accepted into Princeton? Answer: two - one got NSF award and the other NSF HM this year.

Is that just people who attended the visiting day? Though I agree with your point -- you have to be that good to get into a top five.

Since Harvard still has grade inflation (~50%? students getting A in some economics classes), 3.7 is not impressive in of itself.

While I agree a 3.7 at Harvard in and of itself is not impressive enough to mean much for Econ grad admissions, I don't know what your source is on the Harvard grades. Just about every course I took at Harvard where they revealed the distribution had a median and mode grade of B+. My guess is the cutoff for Phi Beta Kappa (top 10% in class) was around 3.8.

The "grade inflation" that got hyped from the Boston Globe was really honors inflation, as the school was giving 91% of its grads cum laudes since all you needed was a B average back in the day. They did of course cite some disciplines where 50% got A's in courses, but it was usually due to higher-level seminar type classes where it's tougher to do objective evaluation (maybe Ec tutorials fall into that category -- I wasn't actually an Ec major, so I don't know). Getting an A- or A in a 500 person Harvard core class where grading is somewhat arbitrary is not that easy. So I would guess the median GPA there is 3.4 or so given that 3.3 is the median in curved classes and then grades are inflated in smaller classes. (EDIT: I just did a quick search and the most detailed source I saw said 46% of all grades where A or A-, so this is consistent with what I said -- most larger classes you can trust that B+ is the median, and smaller classes suffer from inflation.)

Also, I wanted to say I read your comments before about MIT profs. making fun of Harvard classes or whatever -- I think it's really hard to make generalizations like that. MIT and Harvard both mock each other in different ways, and not all should be taken seriously.

On the other hand, most LSE majors (if I am not mistaken) are well-suited for business-y jobs in London, UK or Manhattan, USA with the top investment banks or similar firms.

OK, thanks for that info, I wasn't aware of that -- most people I know just used it as a stepping stone for more schooling, but the sample of people I know is obviously biased towards academia.

[Cassin]

Originally Posted by Golden Rule

Is that just people who attended the visiting day?

No, that's from the 59-admitted student excel sheet that we got compared with the NSF public results. It was the complete sample for this year :-). All "top 10" schools only have 1-3 students (mode:2) admitted. E.g. 1 from Chicago, 3 from Berkeley and Yale. 1 or 2 from the rest. This includes US citizens as well as foreigners who did undergrad in USA.

I don't know what your source is on the Harvard grades.

This one was based on a few anecdotal data points, true. One of them was posted on this forum. 55% got A and A- in Ed Glaeser's class (if my memory is correct). I concede that because quality of the student pool is so high,relatively higher averages may be warranted if grades are based on relative performance and an absolute interpretation is needed (median student at Harvard would be in top quarter at Michigan perhaps).

The logic behind my argument is that when a grad school outside Boston wants to choose people, and they have 10 people from Harvard applying, they are not going to admit all 10. They'll pick the top few (2-3) and then move on to pick the #1 student from some other Ivy school or a top public school like Minnesota. There are just too many excellent universities, incl. top foreign schools, so that after picking 1 or 2 from each, there isn't space to pick 5th Harvard undergraduate (because then you'd probably want 5th MIT undergraduate, 4th Stanford undergraduate etc and end up with >100 admitted students).

Another tidbit, an undergrad from Yale who got accepted into Princeton told me that not many people in their senior class applied to academia, relative to the class size -- many got top private sector jobs. Someone from Stanford undergrad had a similar story. This is related to the point about some qualified students just not applying, which would depress the # of admitted students from top schools.

MIT and Harvard both mock each other in different ways, and not all should be taken seriously

Maybe someone who took classes at both universities can confirm whether the course difficulty is equivalent or if MIT is harder in some way (either more material or bell-curving to a lower mean). My impressions are based on talking to a friend and reading some online forum - not a great sample(!).

most people I know just used it as a stepping stone for more schooling, but the sample of people I know is obviously biased towards academia.

They have relatively large classes, um, 90 people (I am not sure if that's for each Master's program or total)? Maybe someone right now at LSE can confirm/deny that most people go into private sector after getting LSE MSc. One of my professors said that quite a few people become "millionaires" after LSE when they go into hedge funds or private equity.

[Eggbeater]

Originally Posted by Golden Rule

You mean well, and I know Harvard has a deserved reputation for taking its own, but going to Harvard and getting a 3.7+ GPA alone is not enough to get into Harvard or any top school. Add a good senior thesis and good grades in a couple grad classes, and developing good relationships with professors, and then maybe you have a point.

Eggbeater -- what's your ultimate goal here? Why do you know want a masters in Econ? There was another thread somewhere about the employability of those with masters, and really, the prospects aren't all that much better than those with BAs. If you really like research, get a PhD.

Hey all, thanks for your replies. To be honest, I am not completely sure of my ultimate goal. I am debating between the public and private sectors - but will probably not pursue a career in academia (or if I do, it would be much later). The main reason why I want to pursue a masters at LSE? For fun; I really enjoy economics and would like to study economics at a graduate level regardless of what career I end up at. Perhaps I'm I'm a bit young and naive, we'll see if this changes in the next 2 years. I am also not sure that I am dedicated enough to spend half a decade for a phd.

[brotherbear]

Eggbeater, I was/still am in a similar position as you. Spending another half a decade in academia after undergrad was/still is rather unattractive to me. This, though, was not the only reason I had against going for my Ph.D. When it comes down to it, I simply did not want to be a professor or a researcher. At one point, I thought I might, but that's just not the case anymore. I think it is difficult for someone in your position (that is, as a sophomore) to really know how they feel about research if for no other reason than you probably haven't done any. Wait until you're a senior and you turn in a thesis of publishable (or nearly so) quality. You could then make a more informed decision as to how you feel about conducting research in economics. With a Ph.D. in economics, you are gearing yourself toward becoming a researcher of some type, so if that's not what you want for yourself, then I wouldn't pursue that course of study. For precisely this reason, I turned down a top 10 acceptance for an economics PhD here in the states, and am taking a place in the LSE's Master's in Econometrics and Mathematical Economics course.

Without much argument, that particular degree is the strongest master's program in economics anywhere in the world. After extensively corresponding with Danny Quah about employment options after graduation, I learned that most people from this course do very well in the private sector. Similarly, if you're interested in finance, the MSc. Finance and Economics course is a very good one, and geared specifically toward preparing people for careers outside of academia.

Moreover, from personal experience, I know that the LSE degree is VERY well respected. I haven't yet matriculated, and it is already opening doors for me. I got an internship, for instance, with Lazard in London for this coming summer. As an American coming from somewhere other than Harvard, Yale, or Princeton, this is extremely difficult to do (look at the places Lazard recruits). I am almost certain that I would not have even been granted an interview without the LSE name tagged on to my resume.

In any case, the point is that people (business people, in particular) respect the degree. To be fair, though, people also respect the Harvard degree, so I don't think you really need an advanced degree to be competitive in the business world. If you are, however, truly interested in learning more about economics and money isn't really an issue (which, since you go to Harvard, this is likely the case), I'd definitely consider going to the LSE. For one thing, your resume will certainly grow stronger because of it. For another, it affords you the chance to find out if you'd like to continue in academia. Finally, you could fairly easily pay off your debt from attending the LSE with the combination of salary & bonus you will receive after graduating with your master's.

It's up to you, but I think it's a good choice.

[Golden Rule]

Originally Posted by Cassin

No, that's from the 59-admitted student excel sheet that we got compared with the NSF public results.

Wow, didn't realize schools gave out that kind of detailed info.

They'll pick the top few (2-3) and then move on to pick the #1 student from some other Ivy school or a top public school like Minnesota.

I think that makes some sense, though I would hope they're not quota-obsessed. I mean, there are some ways to compare students across schools. It's kind of funny because I worked 3 years in between, I didn't think of myself as competing with those who were freshman when I was a senior, but you have a point.

Maybe someone who took classes at both universities can confirm whether the course difficulty is equivalent or if MIT is harder in some way

One thing that helps MIT undergrad is that all their students have to go through math in their first-year core, so all the econ courses can use multivariable calc, and you just don't have that with all the Harvard undergrad courses. Some Harvard classes have that prerequisite, some don't. Of the four econ classes I took at Harvard beyond the standard micro/macro, two were quality, one was poorly taught, and one was a total gut. After that last class I never took another undergrad econ class there again -- I wish I had taken grad courses sooner. It's somewhat a function of what you pointed out in another thread -- because econ is so popular for non-academics, it doesn't prepare you as well for academia if you're not careful with your course selection.

So I would agree that MIT would prepare you better on average if you just took undergrad courses, but I think it's possible to pick your courses well with an eye for academia and do as well for yourself at Harvard.

Maybe someone right now at LSE can confirm/deny that most people go into private sector after getting LSE MSc.

Right, but I have friends from undergrad who have gone on to work for hedge funds right out of school. Possibly the marginal benefit of an LSE MSc isn't as great for that sector when you've already gone to an Ivy (whether that's fair or not).