Like_it_is_Show_Biz

Here is my revealed preference. Like everyone here I'd love to be a professor at Princeton. But making 60k with good benefits teaching economics at a LAC or mid-level state school actually sounds pretty nice to me. And I am willing to go through five tough years of grad school even for this. I'm sure any business school folks reading this think I'm nuts.

I am surprised to see how many posts have been made on this thread. I may not have been clear in my earlier posts. In response to some thoughtful critiques from batmanisafatman I would like to make two points. (1) I feel, if you are not interested in Marxian economics, then Utah is not for you and is a waste of time. I assumed when I made my comment about it being a waste this would be clear, but I was wrong. If you are into Marxian economics, it is not a waste. (2) We all have limited time and can’t research every possible idea to the fullest extent before making a decision. This is the point I was making about having exposed myself to Marxian ideas. I am not an expert and never will be. If I gave the impression that I am some kind of expert on Marx I apologize. I am interested to learn about Marxian thought (like many other things) but have chosen not to spend my time pursuing this extensively. I simply find other schools of thought more satisfying and useful. batmanisafatman seems to think the core courses at Utah are “pretty generic” but he may have forgotten to check what is being taught in the courses before claiming this. Here is the description of the two semester required core course sequence on political economy (got it here). 7003 Political Economy and Critique I (3) A survey of the writings of Karl Marx and the foundations of Marxian economics. 7004 Political Economy and Critique II (3) Theories and issues in modern Marxian economics. I agree with batmanisafatman that misinformation is a problem and I did not want anyone to be misinformed about this. I also agree with batmanisafatman that the professors are likely to allow you to take your own direction with the thesis. They will also not try to "force" you to believe anything. However, own experience with my masters coursework has been that economics (especially macro) is far more ideological than we economists would like to believe and can be taught in starkly different ways, depending on the prof. Professorw will teach from their own perspecitve and it will be harder for you if you don't buy in to it. I really don't think my basic point is unfair: Utah is a waste of time if you are not interested in Marxian economics. My point has nothing to do with rankings.

UCLA was also kind enough to send me two rejection letters. At least we're getting our money's worth!

I thought now would be a good time to bring back this thread.

Do you believe God exists?: 1 To which Faith do you belong?: 1 Comments: I try to pray every day.

I was wondering if TMers believe in God. I will introduce a formatted question just in case that poster who does all the cool stats stuff ever want to look at this. I am really interested Here are the worlds 24 most popular religions/belief systems/whatever you want to call it. I got them from here and I broke out atheists and agnostics into separate groups. I know this classification is imperfect but let's just go with it. (1) Christianity (2) Islam (3) Atheist (4) Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic (5) Hinduism (6) Chinese traditional religion (7) Buddhism (8) primal-indigenous (9)African Traditional & Diasporic (10)Sikhism (11)Juche (12)Spiritism (13)Judaism (14)Baha'i (15)Jainism (16)Shinto (17)Cao Dai (18)Zoroastrianism (19)Tenrikyo (20)Neo-Paganism (21)Unitarian-Universalism (22)Rastafarianism (23)Scientology (24)None of these For the first question, please answer one of these: (1) Definitely (2) Maybe (3) Definitely not Heres the formatted response I think will work: Do you believe God exists?: i where i is an element of {1,2,3} To which Faith do you belong?: i where i is an element of {1,.....,24} Comments:

I agree completely. I have read The Comunist Manifesto myself. I even tried to read Das Kapital. But going to a program like Utah is far more than just exposing yourself to this view. I suspect it's hard to get through any program without at least pretending to agree with what is being taught. I actually have read lots about Marxism. I have a well developed and well informed opinion allready. I wouldn't want to have to spend 5 years argueing with the people who are supposed to eventually award me my degree. The other option would be to keep my mouth shut, which I don't want to do either.

As for Hunt's Book, History of Economic Thought: A Critical Perspective, It should really be titled History of Economic Thought: A Marxian Perspective. If this is your thing, then Utah is for you. If not, go anywhere else.

This is how they sell their program: "Utah is Different" "Do you feel that there should be more to Economics than second order conditions of constrained optima or intergenerational planning with infinite time horizons? Would you also like to examine economic theory from the perspective of the philosophy of science? Are you fascinated by the problems of the Third World, post-Keynesian macroeconomics, Marxian economics, ecological economics, the economics of gender, or Bayesian econometrics? " Given that they are likely to understate exactly how much of the program is heterodox, I think the statement tells you to expect Marxist ideas to be a big part of what you learn at Utah. If this is not what you want, you should not go there.

um, Yes.

"The Decisions Thread" from last year had a total of 384 posts and 100,000 views. This years version already has 1,800 posts and almost 160,000 views, and it's still February! Interesting. Of course there are many possible reasons for this.

Northwestern. Last year: one big round of rejections and then a big round of acceptances This year: ????? They are acting strange Another one in the dark here

I think economics was onto something interesting in an earlier post. FACT: So there are more applicants and fewer spots (at least fewer funded spots) overall FIRST ORDER EFFECT: Its quite hard to get in to a good program and applicants will be rejected from places they may have been admitted to in previous years. What is the second order effect? Could mid level programs actually be harder to get through since competition from other students may be stiffer? If there are fewer overall entering PhD students this year, does it actually make the job market better in 5 years? Here are two reasons why the answer to the last question might be no: (1) The quality of students is higher this year so the attrition rate for the entering class may be low. (2) Mid and lower ranked schools may take on a few more (unfunded) students because they have more qualified applicants than usual being rejected from top schools. It actually might end up being the case that, summing over all universities, there are more entering students this year than last year.

Any chance you have a link to this study?

This statement is true according to a friend of mine in the department. They are losing one of their best professors this year (Michael Carter), funding is being cut way back. Word is they have only 3 or 4 funded spots to offer new students. And on top of all that, they received twice as many applications this year as usual so its even harder to get in. This dept. has traditionally been one of the best in the country but sure seems on a downward glide path right now.

This is precisely what I am asking.

Whether a school has a bad placement or no placement, they have strong incentive to simply leave this graduate off of their official placement list. If a school did this it would be difficult for a prospective student to find out. I am just wondering if anyone here knows anything.

So recently I was checking out Vanderbilt's placement record. It's not bad for where they are usually ranked. Then it occurred to me that they might just leave off bad placements from this list. This year they have 8 graduating PhDs, more than is listed for any year since 2001. Is it possible they only awarded one PhD in 2007? My question is not only about Vanderbilt. In general has anyone heard of cases where bad PhD placements were left off these kind of lists?

Dear Yale, Please send me my rejection letter and put me out of my misery. Sincerely, Applicant who can no longer focus on current classes

Why is this thread not at the very top?

Some facts are sad but they are still facts. It is a fact that an inner-city, African American person is highly unlikely to be a competitive Econ PhD applicant at a top school. If I was on an adcom and the choice was between someone with this background and several suburban whites, I'd certainly want to give the black kid a chance. Depending on your definition, this does make me racist. But this is not really a comment about race in particular. I would expect that black kids from suburban homes would be much more likely to be competing for econ PhDs. I've also read that first and second generation African immigrants are actually much more likely than American born whites to earn graduate degrees.

I doubt AA has a large effect. But I can see it mattering at the margin. Let's say adcoms are considering a small pool of applicants to make the final couple of funding offers. Let's say this pool includes an applicant named DeAndre Jackson [made up name] from inner-city Baltimore. It's hard not to think this applicant will stand out.