Current Ph.D. students: Grades as a Ph.D. student:

[EconMist]

Hi all,

 

Obviously, this question is to those who are current Ph.D. students or who know a little something about it. The question is:

 

What is the role of your grades in your first year graduate courses? How does it affect your success in the program (i.e. in terms of how faculty views you, your knowledge of the subject matter, and eventually in the job market)? And what are faculty's expectations anyways?

 

~EconMist!

[asquare]

Ah, a moment for the first equation of graduate school: B=PhD :D

 

Grades matter a very, very little bit. When you are on the job market, no one will ask to see your grades or care what they were. Your job market paper matters far more than anything else. Grades in first year classes do not predict success in research. They don't even predict success on prelim/qualifying exams all that well.

 

They few places where grades can matter:

1) You have to maintain a minimum GPA to be in good standing (keep your funding, stay in grad school, etc.). This is not usually a binding constraint.

2) They may affect your eligiblity for funding from the department, or your likelihood of receiving outside funding. There are some fellowships or internal funding decisions that might consider your grades.

3) They may affect faculty members' perceptions of you when it comes time to choose advisors or to rank students for the job market. However, grades are very unlikely to be the deciding factor if you do well with your research and get to know members of the faculty so they have a way to judge you beyond your performance in first year micro!

4) Grades provide limited information about how well you are meeting the department's expectations, and how you compare to other students. If you are consistently getting very low grades, this may tell you that you need a different study plan to pass prelims.

 

The important thing to get out of first year courses is a good enough understanding of micro, macro, and metrics to pass the prelims and apply the principles to your field classes and your own research. For some people, this is highly correlated with good grades, but for many others, it is not. Sometimes it takes a while for things to "click." Some people understand the concepts but aren't good at demonstrating them on tests. But first year is about tools. And you demonstrate your mastery of those tools by applying them to research, not by getting good grades in your first year.

 

So overall, grades matter much less in graduate school than as an undergrad. There's nothing left to apply for where the GPA counts ;) Also, grades tend to be fairly inflated. At U-Mich, getting below a B- in a course means you have to repeat it (unless it's micro or macro, in which case passing the prelim is sufficient). So grades are compressed into an A+ to B- range.

[commodore]

from the first day at Yale...

 

"Grades don't matter." -- Don Andrews, metrics

"Grades don't matter." -- Eduardo Engel, macro

"Grades really aren't important." -- Truman Bewley, micro

 

That about sums it up, I think.

[zsla]

If you are in Chicago, it really matters *a lot* especially in the first year.

[oavdn17]

obviously grades matter in terms of keeping your funding, but for the most part they don't matter!!! Come core exam time, it doesn't matter if you got straight A's!! As im going through my first semester, im trying to focus on learning for my core exams and not a particular grade in a class.

[EconMist]

Thank you all for your inputs. Of course, I wasn't referring to grades that are so low that you'd lose your funding. I am only talking about grades that you'd normally freak out about (especially in a course that has anything to do with economics).

That said, given the above assumption, what I have learnt from this discussion is that I should keep my eyes on the forest (i.e. the prelims)!!!

[Jhai]

Having just started, I don't have any personal experience regarding grades (other than that our grades on problem sets either don't count or are strictly P/F). However, I have talked to a couple of the second-years at Georgetown. According to them, of the 19 people in the class, 3 or so students wanted to take comps, but were not allowed due to too low grades.

 

At our program you're required to maintain a B+ average. Additionally, there isn't a comp in metrics, but you must get at least a B+ in all metrics courses to continue. So grades are slightly binding here, but not extensively so.

[Nalfien]

from the first day at Yale...

 

"Grades don't matter." -- Don Andrews, metrics

"Grades don't matter." -- Eduardo Engel, macro

"Grades really aren't important." -- Truman Bewley, micro

 

That about sums it up, I think.

 

That is the only reason why I'm still sane :)

 

What's better is that in macro the professor periodically starts a section by saying: "if you don't understand any of this it's not a big deal"

 

let's hope I'm still smiling come comps :tup:

[commodore]

That is the only reason why I'm still sane :)

 

What's better is that in macro the professor periodically starts a section by saying: "if you don't understand any of this it's not a big deal"

 

let's hope I'm still smiling come comps :tup:

 

Still hanging out at 28 Hillhouse at this hour, Nalfien?

[PNP]

Yeah, go home Nalfien or your sanity could be in doubt (especially with micro at 8:30 tomorrow).

 

My impression at Yale is that grades matter much less than passing the comps, i.e. it's easier to satisfy the minimum GPA requirement than to pass both comps. There's also a prize for doing well in the comps, I don't think there is one for getting good grades - and we love incentives!

Plus, other than core courses, the coursework is pretty low (for one of my courses the only assessment is an 8 page term paper) - so they award A's pretty much for showing up.

[Bayern]

so, the grades do not matter at all for the job market either? I had the impression that universities look at the transcript of the job applicants...

[DismalScientist]

I think universities may look at your transcripts, but it's the size of the weight they put on your grades that makes grades of little consequence.

[blacktulip]

Guys Just one question - what if we have low grades or fail for something? Are we out of the program or d we get a chance to make it up?

[HowDoIUserName]

Guys Just one question - what if we have low grades or fail for something? Are we out of the program or d we get a chance to make it up?

 

Your program should have a written policy somewhere that they explained to you orientation. A typical requirement might be something like maintain an overall 3.0 GPA with at least a B- in your core courses. If you are in serious danger of failing after your midterms, the program director will likely try to reach out to you. What happens then will vary. If you really seem to be poorly suited, they may advise you to move to a master's track, but at least at this point in the year, they will try to see if they can get you back on track.

 

I don't wish to overgeneralize or disincentivize you, but a thing to remember is that in general, your professors very much do not wish to fail you. See the quotes on page 1 for evidence. Plus, kicking people out is a real pain in the butt for the program director.

 

Most people teaching first year courses are doing so voluntarily, and would prefer to see you succeed. They want to pass you, and want you to make it easy for them to do so by demonstrating that you care and are putting in work. Help them help you, basically.

[NBZ]

Your program should have a written policy somewhere that they explained to you orientation. A typical requirement might be something like maintain an overall 3.0 GPA with at least a B- in your core courses.

 

This obviously will vary across schools, but although my school has the same official requirement (B- in core courses), there have been cases where the student gets a C+ in a core course, passes the quals and the department turns a blind eye to the GPA requirement. If you fail the quals, on the other hand, there is almost no coming back.

[Kaysa]

so, the grades do not matter at all for the job market either? I had the impression that universities look at the transcript of the job applicants...

 

Everyone needs to remember that academics value their time a lot, and what little time they have, tends to go to research. Knowing this, and that most employers receive over 100 applications per year, it is not unrealistic to imagine that most search committee members never look at your transcripts. Heck, most committee members never look at your C.V. or even read your entire job market paper. I've met people who literally picked candidates at random because the "opportunity cost was too high".

[pandora]

It matters for you to proceed in the program. The rest, nobody cares. If you have ideas and good job-market papers that matters, and if you can present them brightly. Finally what really matters is if academia knows you, how and by whom.

[Mathew952]

Think about it like this: What you do as an *economist* is very, very different from what you do on an exam. When people evaluate whether someone is "good" at economics, they rarely say "I wonder if he could use recursive methods to solve 3-4 finite horizon optimization problems in 75 minutes, " or "I wonder if he can prove rigorously that if a production function satisfies the flimity flim flam theorem on page 99 of MWG, this implies the profit function will exhibit properties 1a through 1d !" You learn the skills, and they throw some exams at you to make sure you keep grinding. But the actual averages on the exams tend to be low, and the curves generous- usually, a grade less than a B is the professor indicating that she thinks you really need to retake the course. Otherwise, you get a B.