Gre Scores Required By Schools

[ICECOLDECON]

Im always amused to see the minimum scores listed by top departments: Anyone seriously think a 710 Quant will get you into Penn? I would bet the people getting into good schools with with 750 and under quants have excellent math and econ grades from a very good school.

[ICECOLDECON]

Here are some of the stats to UMN for GRE scores over the last 10 years (as well as admission stats).

The Graduate School : University of Minnesota : Program Reports

[unitroot]

I don't know whether the exact score matters much once its above the cutoff score, but it is probably the case that 800 is the median score on the quantitative section among the admitted students in the top 15 programs or so.

I'll add to the stats links:

CU-Boulder: Department of Economics | University of Colorado at Boulder
Iowa: http://www.biz.uiowa.edu/phd/Fall07AdmResults.html

[ICECOLDECON]

Apparently a few people in the last 10 years have gotten into UMN with Quant <700, so who knows.

[ICECOLDECON]

Originally Posted by unitroot

I don't know whether the exact score matters much once its above the cutoff score, but it is probably the case that 800 is the median score on the quantitative section among the admitted students in the top 15 programs or so.

I'll add to the stats links:

CU-Boulder: Department of Economics | University of Colorado at Boulder
Iowa: http://www.biz.uiowa.edu/phd/Fall07AdmResults.html

I think that CU-Boulder gets better applicants than the department would otherwise merit, b/c of its location. I am aware that they are good with trade, but not everyone going there specializes in trade. Im sure alot of people would love to live in Boulder for their college/graduate school experience. Any thoughts on locational effects?

[unitroot]

On one hand, a good location should be very attractive to students _and_ faculty. On the other hand, I suspect the location effect is not as strong given that so many economics students are coming from abroad. For many of them, this is the first time they come into US and they generally have no idea what to expect from the location of most of American universities.

[ICECOLDECON]

My initial thought was that a mid ranked state school dept like Colorado would have less international students (because of a lower reputation), but I dont have data to support this claim.

[unitroot]

Actually, midranked and lower ranked universities seem to have at least as many if not more foreign students as higher ranked departments. It's not uncommon to have 20% or less American students in many of those departments. Some departments, like say probably Rice or USC sometimes have only foreign students on the job market. I don't know what should explain this, but the most common explanation I have heard is that many Americans, specially the good PhD-quality material students, roughly think that applying to those departments is not worth it because they have very good job opportunities as is (e.g. "either I go one of the top-25 departments which will hopefully will pay off very well OR get a good job now OR say go for a professional degree like JD or MBA"). At the same time, it may well be that a student coming from say India or China will afford a lifestyle as a US graduate student comparable to what they could have in the home country with a job, and get an advanced degree while at it.

[ICECOLDECON]

Interesting thoughts...like the allusion to opp costs

[africaecon]

I honestly believe that GRE is way OVERRATED. I think the adcoms know that GRE Q does not say how good is someone at Math. I don't know If I already said this but, when I was undergrad , of all my friends, the one who got 760 was actually the best at Math. I don't know how he managed to get 760, but he destroyed the subject test in math and went to a top 5 math Phd. How he got in, letter of recommendation from a Norbert Wiener Prize winner . I think it's the same in economics. If you get 760 or even 740 and Greg Mankiw recommends you and says you are the smartest of all his student he ever had, you will get in all top5 with fellowship for the rest of your life( i'm exaggerating a bit here). But you get the point...