taka_sukunami

Hi Tatonnement, Thanks a lot for all your comments. Really instructive. Was just wondering, any change on your perspectives regarding how the top 20 schools are faring since you last posted? I'm applying for Fall 2008 and would very much appreciate it if you shared your thoughts. Thanks and hope to hear from you soon. :)

For me it's the atmosphere. Can't get more specific than that. I know Harvard has some amazing people. It is Harvard after all. Understand why most people want to go there. Just not for me. :)

Couldn't help but smile when I saw your comment on Harvard. :) No offense to those at H, but I'm also not interested. In fact, it's the only school in the top 10 I will be giving a miss. MIT and Chicago are obviously tops, but given my interest in micro theory, Princeton also ranks quite highly on my list. What is Stanford really good at nowadays? You mentioned it had the narrowest spread of fields. Certainly it seems most people at TM would rank it lower than the four schools I had mentioned. P.S. Thanks for such detailed replies. Really informative.

So far we haven't touched Harvard, MIT, Chicago, Princeton and Stanford. Your thoughts on those schools? What do you think would be their strongest and weakest fields at the moment?

That's one long list - perhaps I should have phrased my question the other way around, i.e. which schools have special strengths that routinely get them good placements. Aside from Penn, Rochester, Minnesota, Penn State that is.

Aside from Columbia, what other schools in the top 20 do you think tend to be 'lukewarm' in all fields? (Sorry if this is unrelated to the original thread, just curious is all).

Not really familiar with the econ/math program at Agnes Scott, but it seems to be a good school overall. Letters from econ profs that publish or have connections are what's useful, but then again given your double major getting a recommendation from a math prof might not be a bad idea if it's a really strong one and he/she knows you well. I would agree with most of the posters and say just go for it, but also apply to places outside the top 20 which are strong in the fields that you're interested in just because the whole process can be quite random. All the best :)

UCSD sets the following minimum GRE scores: 740Q, 460V, 4.0A. http://econ.ucsd.edu/gradprog/gradappinfo.htm Perhaps that was what you were referring to? :)

Two things I believe would help us evaluate your chances better: your current institution and who will be writing your letters of recommendation. As it stands you have a pretty good profile and your application would be competitive at most schools. But if you are aiming for the top, strong LORs and a good undergrad/grad institution (on top of the GRE, GPA and advanced courses that you already have) are key. Hope that helps.

Yup, on top of which I believe they send the math majors econ text books before the semester officially starts...

Agree. I don't have the exact article now, but remember reading somewhere that economics is the fastest growing major so demand for econ PhDs should only go up from here.

I don't think you should rule out the top 10 altogether. Like Olm said, your profile's pretty good and there are no glaring deficiencies. Depending on your area of interest, I would say apply to 1-2 schools in the top 10. The one thing I want to ask is this: why choose 2 math profs as references? Given your excellent math GPA I don't think there are any doubts as far as your math skills are concerned. Getting recommendations from published economists might be more useful. Just my two cents, feel free to ignore. :)

Do you (or other TM folks out there) think it actually works in practice, i.e. giving everyone the list so they can network? Given that only 20 or so matriculated from the 60+ admits and the fact that Yale is an amazing school, I can only infer that most of the top schools are fighting for the same students (that is what we would expect anyways). If that is so, do people actually hook up/keep in contact even after they choose to go to different places? That would be a pretty powerful network if they did.

Just wondering P=NP, when do they hand out such lists? During the flyouts? And was it only Yale and Princeton? Any idea as to why they give them out in the first place? Sorry about the barrage of questions, just really curious to know...thanks in advance!:)

Thanks for the link, octavio. Interesting how the numbers reported in that paper differ somewhat from what P=NP had given. The samples obviously are very different, but interesting nonetheless.