PNP

Two years ago, we were sent Princeton's past placements - so I'm sure the secretary will send them to you soon. Otherwise PM me, and I can give you the placements up to 05/06.

Hi everyone, sorry I'm a bit late to the party :P First of all, congrats on all your great admits! I know it's a big decision, but don't get too stressed about it. Way back when...(feeling a tad old here) one of my profs said that you'll get the same education anywhere in the top 10, what makes the difference is your own ability, so trust in that and don't worry about whether you made the best choice. I'd like to respond to econphd_yale2009's comments. While I can't say much about the first year class, other than that the ones I've met are very impressive - but not in a competitive way, they're just very well-read. I've sat in class (this was metrics) where the first year students started quoting theorems/books I'd never even heard of! I can see how one can interpret a strong drive as competitiveness, but I disagree that they "compete with each other more than trying to help each other" from what I've seen. I'm not sure what "professors treat graduate students like college undergrads" means. Whenever I've talked to profs about my ideas, I've never been received with less than a lot of encouragement, ideas and sources for further reading. In fact, they always make me more excited about my idea than before. Yes, sometimes exams are a little too straightforward or obtuse, but I think that's to be expected. I know Nalfien already said this, but I want to reiterate that our (Nalfien, commodore and my) class definitely does not compete with each other. Whenever someone got material that was useful, it got disseminated through the class pretty quickly. I don't know what the upper years were like in first year, but many of them collaborate on research now - I see them helping each other with proofs, etc all the time. econphd_yale2009, I'm sorry you felt you had a bad experience here, but I wish you all the best whatever you decide to do. To any potential students, I'm happy to answer your questions (here or by PM). If you're coming to the visit weekend, I'll see you then!

They'll be around for a semester (with funding, to finish a masters) - I think one will apply to Business schools (where there's no macro), one will get a job, and I don't know what the third will do. I thought I heard that the one who left w/o retaking the comps was going to become an urban planner or designer, or something like that? I hope this doesn't put people off coming to Yale. While I think the bar was raised this year, I felt the passing standard in the first set of comps was reasonable [i don't know about the second take]. And hopefully ours will be the last year to have so many casualties; what made the exams harder was that they had more 'novel' and fewer 'standard' questions, you need to be in the right mindset to answer those kinds of questions, and we were totally surprised. Still, it'll be hard saying goodbye :(. Luckily, all 5 TMers from our class are staying - if that doesn't show a positive correlation between posting here and passing comps...

School: Yale Required prelims: Macro and Micro When taken: First attempt: Mid-May, following first year Retakes: Late August, before second year Score required to pass: 60% on both, but this sometimes gets lowered. You can pass them one at a time. Link to old prelims: ERIC M BECKER | COMPREHENSIVE EXAMINATIONS Field exams: Two oral exams are required at the end of second year (or beginning of third). These can be taken any number of times, and one of the fields must have an empirical component. Also, there's a metrics paper due in the middle of third year.

umm :whistle:, not as much as I would've liked to; a pro of living in a town with few clothing/shoe stores is curbing one's shopping addiction. [seriously, I don't think I spent more than 1000 on clothes/shoes]

For 10 months (including a month of math camp), I've spent around 20,000. That includes 9250 in rent, 1000-2000 in furnishings and 2000 for the airfare home. If I had a roommate, rent would have probably been around 6000-6500. I'm not sure how prices in New Haven compare, I would guess they're on the low side.

Yes, I'm at Yale. My main reason was that I thought Princeton would be 'boring', but now that I think about it, I don't really utilize what New Haven has to offer - I spend most of my time at home, at the dept or at someone (from the dept) else's place. [i'm not sure what the non-waitlisted people are getting this year at Princeton, I guess 28k from other people's posts]

Hehe, [banana] is exactly what we'll be doing at 1:01pm on May 22 [end of our last comp]. p.s. notice all the dancing bananas synchronize p.p.s. Yes, I am really bored :P

Israelecon, I don't agree that the people who went to flyouts shouldn't consider the non-academic information they learned. I think you can tell a lot just by being there, and if people liked New Haven during the flyouts, my bet is that they'll like living here. But for people who can't make the flyouts, it's difficult to tell whether they'd like it here. The majority of people seem to like New Haven, but then again, the majority of people don't go to grad school. You know, I've never met anyone in the department who wasn't happy (because of reasons other than: 'this problem set is hard', 'I can't get this code to work', etc.), so if unhappy students exist, they certainly won't be around to drag down your mood [banana]

We get two attempts at the comps - micro and macro (and you only retake the one you failed, cf, say, Chicago where you have to retake all 3 [i think]). Great!!!! I'll see you both (Asianecon and Econphilomath) in the :new: semester

Hey Elogiombra, great meeting you yesterday [dance] Wow, even if you don't come here, the department should bring you back next year to recruit for us! Of course, people shouldn't decide on the basis of which department had the best open day. But I can promise you that the department (Pam, especially) really does everything to make our lives as easy and fun as possible. Just keep in mind when you go to other open days: if the department doesn't make an effort at the open day, how will they treat you once you're in the program? The attrition is pretty low at Yale, usually one or two leave at the end of first year due to failing comps. But in that situation, they still give you another semester of funding to complete the requirements for a masters. After that, there is no "forced" attrition, you can take the oral exams as many times as you like, revise your metrics paper as many times as you like, etc... Btw, Antonio Banderas? [and sorry I didn't get a chance to meet Asianecon and Econphilomath, hope you had a good time]

Hiya *waves*. See you all at the happy hour/party :)

I don't know for sure, but my friend (from the same country) was waitlisted - she got 24k while I got 27k.

Last year, everyone got 24k (from the graduate school), and the non-waitlists got an extra 3k (I think it was called a supplementary award from the department).

Haha, Nalfien, you remembered :tup: [He has a huge apartment, and I made him promise that if he left for any reason, I could have first dibs] I think one point that got lost in my rant is that I'm definitely in the minority here (amongst Yalies) in my opinion about New Haven. The majority really like living here, and I can see that some people would, but my preferences just happen to differ. As an example, I wouldn't want to live in NYC, even if housing was the same price as New Haven. There's just too much noise, traffic and rude people. But everyone else seems to love New York, and many would probably live there if housing wasn't so expensive. What I really want to stress is that if you aren't going to visit the various cities, don't rely on other people's accounts [not even mine - I'm weird, remember]. I suggest that you choose based purely on the academic side of things (and in some cases, stipends).