convoluted

Dude, what you said has been most disrespectful and baseless. Columbia's placement is one of the best this year with a couple of their students getting top 10 and top 20 school jobs, so I don't know what you based your comment from. If anything, they just didn't impress their prospective students during their open house. But if you choose to determine whether a school matches your "big" ambition based on that, I can only infer how "big" you are actually thinking. I'm sure there are current Columbia students or people who are going there this fall on this board. Your comment is a direct insult to them and I find it extremely distasteful. To roadvirrus, I just wish to clarify (in case you misunderstood me) that my comments were only against william and nothing against you. It's a pity that Columbia did not impress you enough to attract you but you have indeed other very good options in NWU and Princeton. I hope you will make what will ultimately be the best choice for yourself. To molamiu, I hope you are not going to base your decision on william's comment. Someone mentioned in another thread about Columbia's "rise to fame" in the recent years due to their aggressive hiring some years back and it's only now that they see the fruits of it. It can be true, it can be false... but I'm personally very impressed by Columbia's job market candidate this year (I happen to be at 3 job market seminars of their candidates) and based on these 3 data points, I will think that supervising there is not too bad. If you have an offer there but cannot make the open house, you can always email the grad secretary there and ask if they can patch you to a student rep to answer some of your queries if you have any. Or you can also randomly email someone from their student directory. I believe their grad students' emails are all on their website and maybe, their field as well. My personal experience is grad students are usually pretty willing to share their experiences on these things.

UCL has one of the strongest microeconometrics group in the world (Blundell, Chesher, Robin, etc) and econometrics there is really only microeconometrics. If you are concerned about this field, then UCL probably strictly dominate a lot dept in the world, not just the list you gave.

If you are really sure you want to do IO, you probably should not leave out Northwestern (which I see you have gained admission as well). That place is second to none in IO. Otherwise, I'm under the impression that at the job market, students from MIT tend to stand out a lot more compared to any other school (no matter what the field is). In any case, given your admission results, you probably have got great academic advisors whose words are definitely going to mean a lot more than anything you can get here. Finally, congratulations on your amazing admits!!

For what it's worth, most departments have only just reopened after the winter break. Most faculty members have only just returned from the AEA and many are still handling the administrative issues associated with the start of each semester. Even the most efficient department will not be able to meet until at least another one to two weeks, and most are unlikely to do so. Many are more concerned about lobbying for their graduate placement or hiring process than handling admissions now. There's no point in worrying about it. Just relax guys. You are unlikely to hear anything before another month or so. If you really must, just check out the result thread of last year and see when the decisions were out. 90% of the schools are fairly consistent with their timeline. Yale is usually one of the earliest announcers but even then, it's usually in the second week of Feb. Majority of the decisions only comes out in March. Good luck!

I agree it's a NO as well. The truth is, there have been people admitted to every tier of school with a score as low as 760Q (for the old format). We will never know how each adcom handles the GRE score or what is the threshold for auto-rejection (if the threshold does exist). But then, I will retake it if I can help it. If not for anything else, if I believe I have a good enough profile but ended up being rejected by my dream school, I wouldn't want to be pondering or regretting for the rest of my life if it was really the case that my GRE score had landed my application into the auto-rejection pile right from the start.

I agree with most of the things you said. You have obviously done your homework on these things... so good luck for your application and hopefully you will achieve what you set out for!:) Just a few things to add: Other than Saint-Paul, Toulouse had Hellwig and a couple of decent marcoeconomist as well, and Tirole does quite a bit of marco these days too. But then, you won't be interacting much with these people if you are just a master student. (Saint-Paul will be teaching marco though.) The Oxford MPhil is quite a "crazy" program in terms of admission. I know of people accepted by Harvard phd but rejected by their MPhil. They seem to favour undergraduates with degrees from the top UK schools. And I don't think their program is better than the one offered by UCL. UCL in my opinion, is a better dept than Oxford but it's really small and has a somewhat narrow focus. From personal experience, I won't say LSE EME is the most rigorous master in the world, but then, it's just personal experience with their students. It is still a very rigorous program though, and I believe is the most highly regarded program among all. Its dept is easily top 15 or even top 10 in the world so there are very few schools that you should snub its phd for if you are given the chance to do it there. Also, don't take for granted that you will get into the UPF phd after their master. From what I heard, the way they "kick" their master students out is brutal! Finally, do consider the Canadian master as well. Toronto, UBC and Queens are all very good. You might also want to take into account the cost or availability of funding. Funding for master in LSE or the other UK schools are almost non-existant whereas there are some possibility of that in central Europe or either that, the cost is really cheap there.

You "sit out" for one year and apply in the next cycle. There are a couple of ways to do it... you can get a short-term job outside, try to get a paid RA job somewhere, or you stay on in the university (or go to another university) to do some more coursework. Toulouse, for example, allows you to do so. But the bottom line is you need to make clear to them that you will be leaving after it and not take up their funding or phd space that they might be offering you at the end of your master. If not, nobody is likeli going write you any LOR. Most of the programs on the OP's list are very top Master program. There has been a lot threads on the forum on using a master as a stepping stone to a good US phd program so I suggest to those interested to check them out. From what I personally know, to get into a good US phd program eventually (good as in say, top 15), it is an absolutely necessary but insufficient condition that you graduate as a star of your master cohort (say top 5 or even top 3 depending on which program). But while it is not sufficient, I do believe it improves your chances very significantly. I personally know of people from LSE, UCL, Toulouse and Bocconi going to the top 10s (and even top 5) after graduating as the top few in their master cohort in recent years. As for the importance of the master program's strength being in line with your own interest, I personally have 2 ways of seeing it. If you are very sure you will do well for the master and will be leaving for the US after it, the university's strength is quite irrelevant because coursework (which is what most master is about) is pretty much the same everywhere. You will not be discounted, for example, by topping in Toulouse (which is deem weaker at marco) and applying to a US phd and declaring that your interest is in marco after that. What matters more to the adcom is your overall performance in your master. On the other hand, I think most people underestimate the difficulty of coming out top of their master program. Bear in mind that while you are trying to use the master as a stepping stone, there are others who are thinking the same way and there's no reason to believe that they are any inferior to you. So my advice is to choose a master program in which you will be happy to stay on there to do a phd. While it's difficult to come out top of the master program, it's a lot easier to do well enough to be accepted by their phd program. But note that even achieving this "minimum" result is non-trivial in most cases.

Sorry, I don't agree with this. I have mentioned elsewhere before that I know of people who have gotten acceptance from schools as high as Princeton and Chicago with only a "math for economist". Sufficient knowledge of calculus and linear algebra is an absolutely necessary condition for graduate work and research in econ but having explicit grades on the transcripts is not the only way to signal such ability (although it is obviously the most direct one). If a person can have good grades in graduate micro and metrics from a reputable school like those mentioned by philecon, then quite clearly he/she has the required knowledge in calculus, analysis, linear algebra and probability theory. Also, a couple of the European programs like UPF, Toulouse, UCL are well-within the top30 or 40 (at least in my opinion) and a vast majority of their students do enter without any formal math on their transcripts. So I will not go as far as saying the OP's application will go straight into the rejection pile of even the lowest ranked phd programs I do agree that taking more math courses will be a good piece of advice to the OP (and as to any other potential applicants). But I'm personally more supportive for the OP's case to do a master instead. Going to a reputable place for a master gives more opportunities to obtain "quality" LORs and the sorts, and can also help to signal the OP's ability in graduate econ. I will not put this gain below taking a few more sequences of calculus or linear algebra. Just my 2 cents:)

I'm not so sure I agree with the point that b-schools are necessarily more inclined towards more applied work. Stanford GSB for example is arguably the holy of the holy places for micro theory and Kellogg is amazingly strong in decision theory. My view is that the b-schools of universities whose econ dept are the commonly accepted "top 10" (eg. chicago booth, hbs, stanford gsb, kellogg, nyu stern, columbia gsb, etc) are themselves top-10 standard as well and rarely inferior to their econ counterpart. Placement wise, I think both directions (b-school to econ dept and vice versa) are equally common. Just like econ dept graduates, there are plently of very famous b-school graduate as well (holmstrom, athey, milgrom, klemperer, etc) although it is almost certain that they are in the micro-related field. In fact, I tend to see that b-school graduates place better than their econ counterpart these days. My feeling is that because the intake in b-school is much smaller (usually 4-7 for each concentration), the students get more attention and get placed better, and coupled with it being more niche (eg. usually no marco) which can be a good thing or bad, b-schools are still able to chunk out their phd students within 4 years as opposed to the 5 to 6 years taken in most econ dept. I think chi-square made a very valid point in that if the econ dept is good enough for you, then the b-school should be as well since the two dept basically share the same people. Whenever possible, you should apply to both the b-school and econ dept. I'm not sure which is usually easier to gain admission to. I got into Stanford but got rejected by their GSB but I know of another person accepted by NYU stern but rejected by the econ dept. As kipfilet has illustrated, a lot of people do not realize how good some of the b-schools are and so the b-schools get less applicants which probably make it easier to gain admission. On the other hand, their intake is much smaller which makes admission harder. The only exception will probably be Northwestern which allows only application to one but not both the econ dept and b-school, and my personal take is that at least 80% of the people choose to apply to the econ dept which makes Kellogg slightly easier to gain admission (but then this is just my guess). I got rejected by Northwestern and on the hindsight, I thought I would have been better off applying to Kellogg instead. But one thing's for sure: the stipends of b-schools are higher than the econ dept and the figures can get quite obscene sometimes!;) So apply to both whenever possible!

For what it's worth: I took an extra year in undergrad in order to complete my math major on top of my econ. Barring my final sem's grades, all my math grades were there during my first application but I did not get into anywhere I wanted. I went to a reputable school to do a master instead, did well and knew more people. Applied again with new LORs and grades from the master, and the results were much more satisfactory this time. I'm not saying those math grades were useless but I believe my grad econ grades and new LORs were more instrumental in getting me into schools. I won't say that one extra year was a waste since I did learnt quite a bit of (useful) things and those knowledge might have been important in allowing me to do well for my master eventually. But I do once in a while feel that if I was given the chance to choose again, I might have chosen to do away with that extra year.

One of the most common feedback from editors when one submits a paper is to shorten it or take away certain parts. It has nothing to do with cost of printing; We just don't want papers to be longer than otherwise needed. That's why they always have some technical appendix left out and sort. I really don't think it is necessary to have bullet points (and if you like, relative to not having bullet points) in most cases. And my very little knowledge in game theory tells me that most academia agrees with me; If not, this would not have been sustainable as a stable equilibrium for so long. Based on my very humble experience in grad school thus far, we are usually interested in the "how" instead of the "what" of the paper. A paper can have a bullet-point saying (for example) "Below, I give an alternative method of identification with a conditional median restriction" but it does not add anything since it's the method that we are interested in. Beyond proper lemma, theorem or corollary, I just don't see any value-add in having bullet points in most cases. But then, it's just a personal experience and I may be just not smart enough to appreciate the beauty of bullet points. But whatever the case, I think this is a rather "silly" (no offence intended) topic to be arguing about. But then again, I may be too silly myself to appreciate the importance of this topic. Seeing how papers in the top 5 journals are so sophisticated (at least to me), I am not sure if I can ever have a publication there. It's a pity that you said you do not have the time to write the AER paper which sounds really interesting. I sincerely hope you will be able to find the time to write the AER paper soon and I looking forward to reading it (and hopefully be able to understand it too:)). Oh, and I'm not trying to formulate an argument against your points. I usually take ages to read an AER paper so it's understandable that my points will appear weak to you... I won't even begin trying to argue against it. Thus, I rest my case:)

The simple answer is editors of journals will almost never allow for bullet-points because they want to "save space". You can make bold, italic, etc... for all you like but everything must be concise both in terms of writing and the presentation. In any case, there's really not much need for bullet-points. All the important results of a paper can be found in the abstract, in the conclusion and in some parts of the introduction. Everyone knows how and where to find them after a while so there's no need to have bullet points to emphasize them. And most people only read the main body if they are really interested in the results and when they choose to do so, there's no need for bullet points in the main body to catch their attention as well.

I think I sounded a little misleading. Just to clarify, while we did not have the type of "math genius profile" that this forum seems to suggested needed for entrance to a good school, we all have got very good master degree and good grad econ grades to show for (but I'm not suggesting doing a master is the way to go either). I personally think that the OP's profile (and that of his/her mate at ASU who has also posted on another thread) reflects a good student. So when I see suggestions to aim low just because of math deficiency, I thought I should pop in to share my personal experience and offer encouragement. I won't even begin to speculate which schools the OP can get into but I stick to what I said: we can never know how competitive we really are until our application outcomes are out. As for the buzz about my friend who has only a math for economist, he's only starting grad school this fall but I am confident he will survive well. Although he has no formal math training, he certainly has picked up the necessary math knowledge along the way. For one, he can still sleep like a baby at night after going through the math appendix of Stokey and Lucas or MWG. I hold a math bachelor and I don't think his mathematical maturity is any inferior to mine. But the bottom line is, he still only has a math for economist to show in his application and he still got into good schools. I have to disagree with the view on math grades being of importance second only to LOR. It's just like who should we choose: Steven Levitt (who self-proclaimed to be poor in math) or a mathematician who can prove the Fermat's last theorem with two eyes closed. There is certainly a correlation between mathematical ability (perhaps best signalled by courses such as real analysis) and being a good economist eventually, but if a person has evidence of being able to handle the advanced econ stuff which is really the bottom line, then I don't think math matters much anymore. In short, I think math grades are more important relatively to basic econ grades but will be less important relative to the advanced econ signals (eg. research ability, grad econ courses, etc). But then, this is just my personal views. And I certainly do not think one needs to be exceptional in math to survive in a top econ program. Exceptional ability in math is very rare...certainly, one needs to know a fair amount of math but it's really nothing to the degree of making advancement in proving the Riemann hypothesis. It is always good to know as much math as possible but the same goes for any other type of knowledge as well, be it econ, ability to write, etc. My opinion is that if one has the chance to take math courses in his undergraduate, he should really seize it, but not at the expense of doing other (presumably econ) courses that he is interested in and certainly not be overly worked up by not having "sufficient" math. If he has a sound knowledge on multivariate calculus and linear algebra, he will be able to pick up all the necessary things during grad school with a little bit of hardwork Finally, like I said, it's only my views so take it with a pinch of salt. And let's not derail further the OP's thread and discussion of his/her profile.

To the OP: I'm not trying to put the others down but take everything regarding profile evaluation on this forum (including from me) with a pinch of salt. My personal view is that this forum overplays the importance of math and math grades way too much. I believe the adcom when choosing who to accept takes into account all the information available to form an overall impression about the quality of the applicant. While math is certainly an important part of it, your application will not go straight into the rejection pile just because you have a few B’s in math or do not have real analysis. I, for one, got into top 10 schools without stellar math grades and I know of two people who got into top 5 schools, one of them had a C in real analysis and the other had only a math for economist course. But I have to agree that we are probably not in the majority. My own advice is to not be discouraged and try to apply to as many schools as possible, all the way from the top 5s down to the top 40s or 50s. There is a fair degree of “randomness” in the application outcome in the sense that it’s very difficult to gauge how competitive you are until your application outcomes are out. A letter from Prescott certainly means a lot so I don’t think you need to be overly pessimistic (if you are). But do apply only to schools that you really won’t mind going to if you are accepted (i.e. don’t apply to some lower-ranked schools just because it’s easier to gain admission to). If you aspire to go to a really top school, perhaps you can try applying to a few masters as well to do some grad courses and sort which might be helpful (this might be a reasonable safety option for you) and try applying again if you are unsuccessful the first time.

I don't know much about Cambridge's strength in empirical IO but I believe UCL strictly dominates Cambridge in almost every area except for things related to monetary marco which is practically non-existence in UCL. But if you check it out, UCL doesn't have any senior people specifically doing empirical IO.... I think even for the junior ones, there are only Lars Neshim and Adam Rosen and both are not well-published (yet), and Adam Rosen is more of a theoretical econometrican than an empirical IO-ist. Nevertheless, there are really top econometricans in UCL who are good enough to do applied work in any area as long as it is to do with cross-sectional data so in this sense, UCL still not that bad. (There are rumours that UCL has plans to bring a couple of empirical IO people but I don't want to be held responsible for this information.) I don't know about the upward trajectory of Cambridge but my view is that the gap between UCL and Cambridge as a dept is not quite possible to be bridged within the next 5 years. In fact, I will put Warwick in front of Cambridge if I'm choosing a dept as a whole. I will personally choose UCL among the 3 choices if I were you. Probably just one last note... the location of the 3 schools might be a factor as well since the 3 places give almost the greatest constrast you can ever get. Without a better choice of word, Warwick is located in a "****-hole" in Conventry, Cambridge is an amazing town especially for students, and London is, well, London.

Thewhiterabbit has made a lot of valid points in my opinion but I am not so convinced by this point. Firstly, an honest self assessment is really easier said than done. People who came from "lower ranked" undergrad and are realistically aiming for the top dept are almost always the top of their "lower-ranked" undergrad. It's understandably difficult to honestly assess where he/she stands in such instances; He/she might still be the top if he/she had been in Harvard or MIT, or he/she may just be an average student if put in a top school. From personal experience, it's just impossible to honestly judge your own ability if you are already at the ceiling of your environment. However and more importantly, I don't think it's very relevant to look at the median student of a master program. (For phd program, yes, I agree the median job placement is v important but not for the master.)To my knowledge, the cohort size of most master is way over 50 and the median student of most master program do not end up continuing for a phd anywhere. Perhaps one can look at the 25th percentile or sort but then I believe these are more or less correlated with how well the top students of the master program do. My point is that a master program is only effective as a "stepping stone" to the the extent that one's undergrad has casted too low a ceiling for him/her to reach a target and so, the main objective is to find a master program whose ceiling is high enough for his/her goal. (Of course a master program can improve one's profile and help to gain admission to a, say, top 50 school as opposed to only possibly reaching a top 70 schools without it and etc but I'm ignoring all these here.) Short of being able to give a honest and "true" assessment of one's ability and predict how he/she will do in the master, I believe the most "risk averse" way of choosing a master program is based on two criteria (1) whether topping the program gives the person a realistic chance to reach his/her aim (2) whether if one will be satisfied in doing a phd in the school where he/she is attending the master The thing is, lest LSE which I believe is top 10, a lot of those "good" master program like TSE, UCL, the Canadian 4, etc are more or less top 30 schools themselves. The stars of their program can probably try to crack the top 10 or 20 schools, but it's unlikely for those who are out of the top 5 or 10 students of the program to crack the top 30s so staying on in that dept for a phd is likely going to be one's best bet. Of course thewhiterabbit's point about how frequent or easy the master's student make it to their own PhD program has to be taken into serious consideration as well.

TSE has Gilles St-Paul and Christian Hellwig for marco and a couple of other guys who are pretty decent, and Jean Tirole does a bit of macro now as well. But yes, its marco is on the weak side relative to its strength in IO and contract theory (and probably finance which is gaining momentum there) but then, practically all European departments (or departments outside the top 10 in the world for that matter) are strong only in certain areas and relatively weak in some and TSE is no exception. Departments are not going to discount your marco grades from TSE because (i)as weak as TSE's marco might be, it is still well within the top 50 I think, and (ii)more importantly, examination at the master or 1st year phd level everywhere test more or less the same thing and it is probably not going to be much easier to score a higher grade in marco in TSE than at a top marco school like Minnesota. In short, TSE's "weakness" in marco should only be a concern if you are intending to do your phd in marco in TSE but if you intend to use it as only a stepping stone for future US application, then I would say it is almost irrelevant. Finally, a hell lot has been said (not just in this thread) about using a master as a stepping stone for US application and asking if XXX school's master has good placement to top phd program and sort. Here's my view on this: Unless you come from a top 5 or 10 school with excellent connection to top recommenders, you basically need to be one of the top students in your school to be admitted into a top top phd program. This will NOT change for a master program, that is, you will still need to be (as thewhiterabbit puts it) one the stars of your cohort if the top 10 is your aim. If you are already doing very well in a "lower-ranked or unknown" undergrad but still could not crack the very top dept (perhaps because the adcom does not know or trust the quality of your undergrad), then getting a good master AND being a star in it is going to have more than a marginal effect in your chances at a second crack at the top dept. There is NO such thing as coming in less than the top few in your master and still gaining admission to a top 10 schools. Thus you should not discount a master program if its 10th best student does not crack the top 10 school. Look only at the top 3 or 5 students and see how they do in the application process and if it's good, then that master program should be good enough as a "stepping stone". For TSE, it's very rare that the top few M2 students apply away after the program. But in the few instances (that I know of) that they do, they did well in the admission process. For example, Conger is going Princetion and he was the top M2 student of his year. But this is not an advertisement for TSE. I believe the top student of Queens MA also got into Princeton this year and I won't be surprised if the top students from schools like LSE, UCL, Toronto, etc do equally well. In short, it's I think it's already quite well-established which are the "good" master program for "stepping stone". The problem is there are some people who try to search for master programs where as long as they graduate from it, they will stand a good chance for a top US program in future, and not realizing (or refusing to accept) that master program (no matter where) can be "stepping stone" ONLY if one ends up being the top few students. And having said that, it's really difficult to be the top students in any master program and I think one really shouldn't assume he/she will be prior to starting the program. However, it is always a lot easier to enter the phd program of the dept from where you get your master, as opposed to trying to gain admission from outside. So if you deciding whihc master to go to, my own advice will be to choose one where you will be satisfied doing your phd there eventually. If you do end up as the top students, then good for you and you can choose to leave and try to crack the US dept. If not, that phd place will be a good enough backup for you. So for example, if your interest is in IO, then TSE will probably be the best choice for you to do your master but if you are interested in marco instead, then you should choose schools like Queens over TSE. But then, it's just all my personal view. Take it with a grain of salt.

Chill mate!! I don't see how what you said can be offensive in any way. Relax! The 11th rank of TSE is clearly overly flattering to TSE but nevertheless, it is a very good place in many aspect. Their courses are all on the website I think (I know that's true at least for M2), and 12/20 is not exactly a very high score. One probably needs at least a mid to high 13 in order to be accepted for the phd from M2 and if you work sufficiently hard, I think getting a 12 in M1 shouldn't be a problem at all. Just search for the username "conger", he has posted a couple of posts on the forum and he was from the M2 last year. Anyway, to the OP: I totally agree with what thewhiterabbit said about needing to be the stars of their classes. In fact, for these schools, you almost literally have to be the number 1 student and even then, there is still more chance of getting rejected than being accepted from these schools.

I don't think I'm exactly sugar-coating TSE but rather comparing it relatively to the rest of the UK schools that the OP mentioned. If it's relative to some other programs like LSE, UCL, or Queens, Toronto, it probably wouldn't have sounded so one-sided but then, I'm still in the opinion that TSE is comparable to any of them. Sorry I don't have any so-called "unbiased critical comments" on TSE (not because it's perfect but rather that I don't know what to say). If you have any specific stuff in mind, perhaps you can raise it up here to discuss (or if you like, you can send me a msg). I believe there's a TMer (conger) from TSE as well... he might be able to answer your concerns.

For what it's worth: 1. I don't quite agree with it. I do once in a while click on CV's of phd students in top US programs and agree that there aren't many from TSE but at the same time, I don't remember seeing many from schools like LSE (or from any of the UK universities you have gotten into for that matter). Such "straw polls" sampling should be taken with a grain of salt and ultimately, I believe it's the reputation of the department and recommenders that matters and with all due respect to the schools you mentioned, I believe TSE dominates them all. 2. I don't think this is true at all. A lot of TSE faculty members publish in top journals regularly (and I'm not just referring to Jean Tirole) and many are rather famous figures. TSE probably has the most number of fellows in the econometric society in Europe together with LSE and UCL and again, with all due respect to the people in the UK schools you mentioned, the top people in TSE are definitely more "known". 3. The M1 is technically not a master degree (I'm not sure you even get a degree from it) but the M2 definitely is. My personal view is that the M2 offers one of most rigourous and intensive economic training for a master degree in the world since it is essentially the 1st year coursework of the phd program of TSE. For example, the micro in M2 covers almost the whole MWG and contract theory at the level of Bolton-Dewatripont so it is definitely tought enought. The M1 itself is probably at a slightly lower level than a proper Master degree but slightly higher than the final year of a 4years US bachelor. 4. It really depends on how you define what is a good grade. I do agree grades are somewhat deflated in TSE but there is a proper ranking clearly stated on your transcript. So you might get a final average of (say) 16 out of 20 (which might be good or bad depending on how one views it) and that will probably put you in the top 5 graduates which I believe is a decent enough signal. 5. Depending on what you meant by hard to live in TSE. If you are talking about school, then I would say that things are tough and one really needs to work hard. But then if your ambition is to do well, there is no subsitute for hardwork. If you are talking about life in toulouse itself especially if you cannot speak French, then of course it's not going to be easy but then, it's definitely not going to be a binding constraint either.