Econ_PhD_hopeful

You need to get a release from the school whose funded offer you accepted. Supposedly, the school would usually agree to give you a release, since they wouldn't want you to join their program if you would rather be somewhere else. There were several recent threads about this as well

Attending: University of Califonia, San Diego ($$) Other Offers: UCLA ($), Maryland ($$), UNC-CH($$), UIUC ($$), Arizona ($$), UVA ($$), USC ($$), UT Austin ($?), UC Davis ($), UC Irvine ($$), UC Riverside ($), UC Santa Cruz (no $) Comments: My dream school! Yay, time series!

Hi, I got funding from Maryland (off the waitlist) on April 8 but declined it on April 14. It was an $18K GAship. I hope one of you guys gets it!

far, did you get a fellowship offer from UCSD in addition to (or instead of the $8K TAship)? Sorry, I can't compare the two schools in terms of IO, game theory and environmental since these are fields I know for sure I'm not interested in.

@Hadiran: I didn't apply to finance PhD programs because they seemed somewhat less rigorous. Also coming from a liberal arts college, I have a bias towards the more 'pure' academic disciplines :) And my impression is that you can do plenty of good finance in the econ departments as well. @confusedgrad: Yes, I am leaning towards UCSD. Care to say anything to convince me otherwise? :)

I asked and it turns out that Econ PhD students can take classes at Anderson. If they want to take them during the first two years, they have to get approval, but after the second year they can take classes in any department they want. Also, Econ PhD students can do research with finance professors at Anderson, but their primary advisor has to be from the Economics dept. I don't think I'm interested in the kind of asset pricing research that Subrahmanyam is doing at Anderson - he seems to be more focused on behavioral finance and issues related to liquidity. Richard Roll seems to be the other UCLA Anderson guy active in asset pricing, but again it's a side of it I don't like. On the other hand, I find the papers of Timmermann from UCSD very, very interesting ..

Gecko, why do you think UCSD is stronger in asset pricing and continuous time finance? Some people are telling me that I should go to UCLA because of their good finance program at Anderson (the b-school) if I can take classes and work with professors there ... I really need some reassurance that UCSD is not a worse choice for finance

Could someone compare the overall strength of the Economics PhD programs at UCLA and UCSD? Does UCLA have a better overall reputation? I am confused because the 2 programs are ranked the same in US News but UCLA is ranked quite a bit higher in the EconPhD.net and NRC rankings. My areas of interest are time series/financial econometrics, asset pricing, continuous time finance and possibly computational macro. Just to sum up what I've gathered from rankings: UCSD is ranked #18 in financial economics while UCLA is #8; UCLA #6 in asset pricing vs UCSD #12 (EconPhD.net rankings) As for overall rankings, EconPhD.net ranks UCSD #21 while UCLA is #11. On the NRC rankings UCSD is #16 vs UCLA #11. However, they are ranked the same on US News. Does anyone know why UCLA is ranked higher overall than UCSD by some rankings? And what is the reason that UCSD went down from #10 in 2009 to #14 in 2010 in the US news rankings?

Fantiki, thanks for your response. Sorry my post sounded confusing, I was actually admitted to UCSD and UCLA Economics PhD, not to the business school. However, I was thinking that I might be able to take advantage of the interaction with the business school faculty. Could you compare the strength in finance of the Economics departments?

I have been admitted to the Economics PhD programs at UCSD and UCLA. I have almost made up my mind to go to UCSD, but today I started having second thoughts. My interests are in time series econometrics, continuous time finance and asset pricing. UCSD is clearly better at time series (including financial econometrics), but it seems to me that UCLA might be better at finance. Which school would you pick if you had my preferences and why? Even though I'll be doing my PhD at the econ dept, I was thinking of possibly doing research with some faculty from the business school or taking some classes there. I think that UCLA has a better business school with a very good finance department. I'm not sure if finance at UCSD and Rady School of Management is as good. However, I'm not sure if comparing the strength of the business schools is the proper way to look at this. Just to sum up what I've gathered from rankings: UCSD is ranked #18 in financial economics while UCLA is #8; UCLA #6 in asset pricing vs UCSD #12 (EconPhD.net rankings) As for overall rankings, EconPhD.net ranks UCSD #21 while UCLA is #11. On the NRC rankings UCSD is #16 vs UCLA #11. However, they are ranked the same on US News. Does anyone know why UCLA is ranked higher overall than UCSD by some rankings? And what is the reason that UCSD went down from #10 in 2009 to #14 in 2010 in the US news rankings? Any thoughts/comments would be greatly appreciated! This has probably been discussed in previous threads, but I couldn't find any comparisons regarding the Economics departments' strength in finance

I just noticed that on the US news rankings site there is a counter counting down the time until the new best grad school rankings come out. It seems that there will be new rankings coming out on April 14. Will the current rankings for econ phd and econ sub-disciplines be updated as well? The only thing I could find about the new rankings is that there will be a new methodology used for ranking part time law and MBA programs, but nothing for social sciences.

When you say most people leave the program voluntarily, why does that usually happen? Is it because they don't like it and decide the PhD coursework isn't what they expected, or because they think they wouldn't be able to handle it?

I thought UNC-Chapel Hill is a better department overall than Arizona State. It is also ranked higher on US News. I really like UNC because it is very good in econometrics/time series, and its Statistics department is ranked #3 in the US after Stanford and Berkeley. I think that's pretty amazing, but I don't know if it would matter to you since you don't mention an interest in econometrics. Also, UNC is close to Duke and NCSU and there are a number of events and conferences going on between the 3 schools in the so called research triangle area.

Golden Rule, Guest Who or anyone else currently at UCSD, could you tell me about the attrition rate and if many people fail prelims the first time? Does anybody lose their financial support if they failed their prelims the first time around?

btopper and 2010app9357, do you know where you'll be going in the fall? Did you get a better offer from a school higher ranked than UCSD?