semischolastic

I'll be around as well...

I was responding to these assertions, not your revised strawman you've posted below. I think we can agree, from the facts, that your assertions were not true. As for your revised assertions, below... Of course, the "majority of my classmates" didn't place as well as I did, but that's a ridiculous standard. If the standard for a useful MA program is that "most of their students go on to top 10 programs", then there are no useful MA programs. My roommate. Don't ask me why. In general, such a person would go to Duke because they want to be better prepared, or they want a chance at a better program than the ones they otherwise would end up at. See above.

Facts: I went to Duke for the MA program. I was admitted into Duke, Chicago, and Berkeley, among other places. I have friends from the program at both Wisconsin and UCLA, as well as JHU and Maryland. While it is not required that you take any classes in the first year sequence to fulfill the requirements for the MA degree, you can (and are encouraged to) take as many of them as you'd like, (and you should take as many as you can if you're aiming for a top 10). It is not the case that people admitted to the MA program are those who couldn't have been admitted to the PhD program. The above facts are the source of my statement, which I stand by, that you haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about.

You don't have any idea what you're talking about.

No, it's due to David Cutler (on leave), and Lawrence Summers (Obama leave/administration). Who are the other public guys at Harvard?

What's Alan Auerbach, chopped liver?

It seems unlikely. I think most people here would be shocked if Ted Miguel left.

I agree strongly with macrotime. Definitely do not study over the summer, or you risk burnout. I'm learning the hard way.

I'm that Berkeley kid, I suppose. I'm here procrastinating from midterms. In answer to questions: I don't know who posted the rant about Duke's MA program being a just a moneymaker, but they were wrong. Duke's MA program is the best pre-PhD econ prep program in the country. You should definitely go there, unless you get into LSE. How much their program will actually help you get into PhD programs depends on what your profile looks like without Duke, and more crucially, what you do once you get there. The program is very flexible, and allows you to take classes from the math and stats department, as well as the PhD econ program to fulfill your degree departments. If you intend to apply to top 10 programs, I suggest shoring up weaknesses in your profile, and challenging yourself by taking at least one of the 1st-year PhD sequences. It will NOT do to just take the bare minimum classes. Back to work, or else I'm not going to be in the program much longer...

I never miss a chance to plug the Duke MA program: Duke University: Master's in Economics

If you really believe that this score is unrepresentative of your skill in math, and you think you can do better, you should try again. If you want a little more practice with the adaptive test, Kaplan offers an online course that has adaptive tests, but it is fairly expensive.

Whether you should go to get an MA in economics depends heavily upon what you intend to do after school. If your ultimate goal is to go into academia, an econ MA will not suffice. If, on the other hand, you want to go to the private sector, then an econ MA might be a good option. I would also strongly disagree that you need to go abroad to get an econ MA that prepares you for graduate school. That may be true in general, but Duke's MA econ program is an excellent option for someone preparing for grad school. They have a lot of flexibility there, allowing you to take MA and PhD level classes in math, stats, and econ, so you can really fortify some of the weaknesses of your application, if a PhD is your goal. If the MA degree is your terminal degree, then Duke's program is still a good choice, but others might be better, depending on what you're interested in learning and accomplishing.

I agree with my colleague savingtheplanet. If you're going to take an additional class, then it seems pretty obvious that PhD Micro should be that class. You already have a very strong profile, so I would also urge you not to underestimate your chances in the admissions process. I really don't think your low verbal score will matter all that much. If it is evident that you can read and understand conversational and technical english, it won't be a barrier at all.

I would start by reading papers from Journal of Economic Perspectives and Journal of Economic Literature, as these are comparatively easier to digest.

Is this confirmed? If so, it totally makes my day... no, my week! :tup:

I second The Making of an Economist, Redux, and The Road to Serfdom. I would also recommend Krugman's The Accidental Theorist, from back when he was at least making a pretense at writing economics instead of writing politics. Then, obviously Friedman's Capitalism and Freedom. Naked Economics is a good book to give people if you want them to have some idea what your life is about. My reading plan for the summer, however, contains no economics: The Autobiography of Malcolm X Jacques Ellul - The Meaning of the City Fyodor Dostoyevsky - The Brothers Karamazov William Faulkner - Absalom, Absalom! Richard Wright - Native Son

You don't become an influential economist by getting a good placement. You get a good placement by becoming an influential economist. I would argue that a lot of the reason why Harvard/MIT have such amazing placement records is that they get to split the very best students each year.

It is true that you don't need to go to MIT/Harvard to have a good academic career, but I don't think using the REStud tour participants is good evidence for that. These are the best of the best, and for them, it really wouldn't matter a whole lot where they went at all. (For instance: Fong went to Stanford largely because her family is from the area, Nekipelov went to Duke because he applied to only 2 schools - he didn't want to pay application fees). But for the rest of us who aren't geniuses, going to a school like that matters.

Schmitt-Grohe and Uribe confirmed: Duke -> Columbia.

The impression I get from my reading is that the freshwater/salt water ideological battles in macro are largely over now, but perhaps I'm mistaken. Macro isn't my field, really.

Type of Undergrad: Small-Medium state school, no econ grad program. Undergrad GPA: 3.7 (Economics, Information Systems double major) Type of Grad: Currently enrolled in a MA Econ. program, top 15 school. Grad GPA: 3.5-ish with a semester to go. GRE: 770Q, 760V, 6.0 AW Math Courses: Undergrad: Calculus, Linear Alg., Set Theory. Grad:Taking Real Analysis at the time of admissions. Did not have perfect grades in these. Taking math econ probably helped make up for it. Econ Courses: Undergrad: Micro/Macro/Metrics/Electives Grad: Stats, Game Theory, Adv. Micro, PhD Micro (this was probably crucial), Macro, Research Seminar, Econometrics, Math Econ. Letters of Recommendation: 2 from grad instructors, one of whom I did research for. The other has a reputation for writing strong letters. 3rd is from the dept chair in undergrad. Research Experience: RA at the Fed for a year, two papers (one completed, one working). The working paper is relatively sophisticated. Teaching Experience: Tutoring while an undergrad, TA for graduate Urban Econ. Research Interests: Applied Micro, Public, Urban SOP: Specialized for each school, naturally. Talked about my past experience, explained my transcript, talked about dissertation topics, faculty I wanted to work with. Admits: Chicago($$), Berkeley($$), Duke($$), Davis($) Rejections: Brown Ambiguous: UI Chicago (I withdrew my application), Syracuse (never heard back) Attending: Berkeley :grad: Done differently: It's hard to say. Some things are obvious in retrospect (I should have gone ahead and applied to Harvard and MIT, just for peace of mind; shouldn't have wasted money on Syracuse and UIC; more math). Others aren't so clear (I probably would have done physics and philosophy as an undergrad and just taken a couple of more advanced econ classes, but maybe that would have hurt my chances? And would I still have gotten the Econ MA?) Most of that is useless navel-gazing, I think. I was fortunate to have been admitted into the schools which accepted me, and I couldn't be happier with the way things have gone. Onwards and upwards!

I'm going to talk it over with my girlfriend this weekend.

What I have heard is that going to a lower ranked MA program is not very useful in terms of ultimate graduate school admissions, especially for American (and probably Canadian) students. This is because it isn't any better of a signal of your preparation for a PhD program than undergrad is. But I don't know anything about McGill and McMaster in particular.

That might because it is Rudin, rather than Rubin. :) Amazon.com: Principles of Mathematical Analysis, Third Edition: Walter Rudin: Books

well..