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At Harvard with linear algebra, calculus and probability, nothing else really.

My apologies to my classmates I forgot, include MIT and Northwestern in my post above, this obviously doesn't change anything. I think Harvard students have a significant advantage in applying to Harvard Econ, probably 6 of the people in my class are Harvard undergrads, one or two others had some other Harvard experience. I believe this is justified, I don't believe the committee is stupid and the process has very little randomness. I heard that around 10 Harvard undergrads go to grad econ each year so this is a high percentage sticking around. If someone has already been through the Harvard undergrad ciriculum and possibly even taken the first year graduate sequence, there is a lot less uncertainty about their future performance. There will almost never be an underqualified Harvard graduate econ applicant, they have already been through one gauntlet.

I'm at Harvard. My class has people from the following schools (the domestic students): Yale, Stanford, Berkeley, Harvard, UCLA, Williams, Dartmouth, Columbia So reputation matters, but there are a few schools in there with great undergrad reputations but without graduate Economics.

I would like to point out that this is illegal under the 13th ammedment of the United States Constitution. Its something otherwise known as slavery. They can have you sign a contract with a financial penalty but no one can legally force you to work for them. And also, don't you get to see the contract before you sign it? Any legally binding provision should be obvious.

Take the job, you can always cancel any employment contract. You just have to pay back the signing bonus.

I would also think it would be important if you are planning to eventually go into the private sector.

I don't make ethical arguments, unless you consider absolute consequentalism an ethical position. Countless times I said I would love it if the government could optimally implement policy and make the world better off. But they can't. This is in no way an ethical position, its nothing but consequentalism.

All I claim is that the average good that people pay money for probably makes them happier than most of the goods government provides. I long for the perfect policy the perfect government and the perfect bureaucrat. Unfortunately they don't exist, because we are all people and the best of intentions through government almost never meets with the best result. I only claimed that profit was the best signal, not a perfect signal. Better than government. So many good intentioned people have done so many bad things with this same logic. By a large margin, the average hour spent in private sector production is more valuable than the average hour spent in government or as an academic economist. People can be idiots and fail to optimize. However, government seems to do much worse. If the thing you care most about is helping people, you should most likely not be an economist. Other preferences would make the profession a reasonable choice.

I think there is a misconception about what actually contributes value to society rooted in the zero sum bias that all humans seem to have. We have this natural inclination that making a lot of money means that someone else is worse off. Its just not true. Except in a few cases, people are getting paid a lot of money when they are adding a lot of value to society. Economists can be successful regardless of whether their ideas change society. They are not paid their marginal contribution to society or anything close to it. They are successful based on whether other economists think their ideas are intelligent. If you like the free flowing lifestyle of an economist and want to set your own schedule but still want to add value to the world, start your own business. You can always match your skills to the business model and you will only be successful if you produce a product that makes people better off. This is the most accurate measure of productivity. A lot of people go to a PhD to become famous economists because they value pride over luxury.

Yale publishes its placements because its probably better of even with schools that are ranked higher. Only MIT and Harvard consistently place better than Yale. Princeton, Berkeley and Stanford often do worse, especially recently, but sometimes better.

One vote from me to be the most productive by creating value for others through the free market by earning the most money you possibly can (except don't be a lobbyist). I think economists have done more harm than good in the developing world and have contributed to the crony lifestyle of a lot of the elites in some countries. Create a product that people use and enjoy and are willing to buy. This is truly the best measure of whether you are adding value to people's lives. And if you have any liberal guilt about making money, give it up, it doesn't help you and it doesn't help anyone else. You making money doesn't subtract from the ability of anyone else to do the same thing. Research is not the best way to help people, you have to do it because you love it and its stimulating/interesting or because you have a giant ego.

Publish, IMHO

Simon and Blume has a lot of Linear Algebra and its specialized to what you need for economics. This is probably the most understandable Math for Ecomists text.

I've heard of certain soft quotas for male/female ratios and domestic/international but I don't think anyone is going to turn down an extremely qualified applicant to meet a quota. Its probably only a small factor.

I think someone said last year they got a scorecard with everything perfect except for one point missing in a single category. They got an honorable mention instead of a fellowship. The morale of the story, you have to be almost perfect in all the rating categories.

If you get 5-10, you will most likely get funding and tuition paid for. Yale is in the range and it is the most generous with funding. Stanford is also very generous. NYU funds everyone who attends. I think Berkeley gives the same package to everyone with funding and tuition. Upenn I think is less generous and I don't know about Northwestern. Once you get to the 10-20 range funding is probably harder to come by but still available. The bottomline is: you can tell your parents there is a really good chance (90%?) of them not owing a dime for grad school if you get in where you want.

Bump?

I am considering applying for the NSF fellowship again this year. I didn't get one last year but am attending a good program. I have heard of people applying while in Grad school and getting it, but I wanted to ask about LORs for the second application. Are the LORs expected to come from professors in the grad program even though students are only a few months in, or is it ok to reuse the same letters from undergrad? I believe the problem the first time (in addition to a tremendously competitive process) was my research proposal and description of interests, not the LORs. Does everyone who applies in Grad school apply in their first year or do some people wait an additional year?

I would first suggest a couple of websites that I think have very good discussions of passive investment. www.diehards.org www.morningstar.com (all sorts of good forums) These are both excellent websites with forums that have a focus on low cost, tax efficient, broad diversification investing (Although there is a lot of debate and disagreement about the specifics). If you want the best simple advice, look and Vanguard total stock market (in ETF form the US total stock market has the ticker VTI and the new international version is ticker VEU). These are the cheapest most diversified way to invest in either US or international stocks. After this you can branch out into small caps, value, REITs, emerging markets etc. based on your risk tolerance. There are a lot of differences between ETFs and index mutual funds. However, you are right in that they achieve the same goal, broad based diversified, cheap, tax efficient stock investments (industry specific ETFs make this less the case). There are often ETF and mutual fund versions of the same index. The fees for ETFs are generally lower than similar mutual funds (often less than half) ETFs are traded on exchanges and you pay a brokerage fee every time you trade an ETF (Unless you have free trades, if you are interested in free trades look up zecco.com). You can find a lot of quality mutual funds where buying and selling is free. If you are investing in small amounts on a regular basis, mutual funds are generally considered better for this reason. If you can get free trades, this reason goes away of course. You also have to account for the bid asked spread in purchasing ETFs which adds another hidden cost, although this most likely amounts to a few basis points and is a small cost for a long term investor. ETFs are in some ways considered more liquid because you can trade them at any time and at any point during the day. Mutual funds can only be traded at the end of the day and often have restrictions on the frequency of trades. There are often minimums for certain mutual funds. The minimum at Vanguard is 3K for most mutual funds. Other companies have similar minimums. However, brokerages also have minimum amounts you must fund your account with before buying ETFs. There was a good paper by James Poterba from MIT that compared the performance of S&P mutual funds and ETFs and found that mutual funds won even after the higher fees. I think this paper should still be on his website. However, he was comparing ETFs and mutual funds from two different companies, so this problem should be avoided now that Vanguard has both ETFs and mutual funds (He was comparing Vanguard S&P to another ETF and Vanguard did better, however, now Vanguard ETFs outperform Vanguard mutual funds). And now we move to the 800 pound gorilla. The reason ETFs might be replacing mutual funds in the future is tax efficiency. When investors sell shares in index mutual funds, it can cause a fund company to sell the underlying stock. This can cause capital gains that are passed on to investors that are holding the fund. These capital gains are distributed to investors at the end of the year, meaning they loose tax deferral and have to pay taxes sooner on their investment (clearly not a good thing). An ETF gets around this by having an option for redemptions in kind. Someone can exchange shares of an ETF for the underlying stock (only in enormous chunks). The company that runs the ETF has the option of unloading the highest cost basis shares of stock in order to minimize capital gains (ie: those stocks that would be subject to the highest taxes if sold). ETFs should also be more tax effiicent for this same reason when funds have high turnover in the underlying index that causes either the fund or the ETF to change in the composition of stocks held over time. When they have to sell shares of stock A to replace them with stock B because the index has changed, they will hopefully be selling a lower cost basis share. That does remind me of one other difference, that is ETFs can trade at a premium or discount relative to the fundamental value of the underlying stock while mutual funds trade at net asset value. However, the redemption in kind mentioned above keeps ETFs from getting too far from net asset value (unlike CEFs which don't have redemption in kind).

I will be going to Harvard but did not attend the visitation day either. The math camp is only two weeks and starts in early September but the final dates have not been determined yet. I was impressed with how close housing is to the department. On the map I looked at, it was about 1000 feet, which should only be a couple of minutes walk. Also, there is a really nice gym right next to the department. I will send you my email my priviate message. The email list is a good idea.

Total applications down 100 at MIT, don't know what this means.

I just assumed that tuition was only for first two years when you are taking classes. This could be wrong, which is why I am asking. I think I am considering it a two year calculation and assuming I will TA or RA after that. I can't ask the school directly about funding yet because I am still on their funding waitlist and do not want to communicate that I am willing to come without funding. I also do have a bit of savings from a year of work. A bit meaning I could probably survive for one of the years without going further in debt.

Do you have to pay tuition in years 3-5 (I assume not but just wanted to check)? Also, do you have to start paying back deferred loans in years 3-5 because you are a thesis writer instead of a student. Is it possible to have the best of both worlds and be a thesis writer while still deferring loan payback?

I am seriously considering going to a school without funding. Without anyone telling me how stupid I am, I would like to ask some details about logistics for this sort of thing and have a few questions. Does anyone know of any good websites discussing going to gradschool without funding and/or taking on large amounts of student loans? In order to get the government loans with lower interest rates that I have been reading about, is there a deadline to fill out the paperwork? Has it already passed? What is the best way to minimize costs? What if I don't have a long credit history or a person to gaurantee? Is it just a question of price, or is it a genuine possibility that I will not be able to find loans above the government amount? Are there any private companies that insure student loans?

Check out Harvard and MIT.