Jasonblue

Any thoughts? Rumors? There have been some admits and rejections on GC and TM, but it seems that it has been taking quite some time for them to make the decisions on the other MRes/PhD Track1/2 applications. Expecting a rejection, now I am starting to worry if they are going to consider my 2nd choice in time...

There also seems to be one acceptance...

I was admitted directly into M2, and did not get through M1. But I agree that our classmates who went through M1 had some advantages, because on one hand, the M1 program is very rigorous (as far as you study hard and despite the poor teaching quality), and on the other hand, they have a lot of insider info. To perform well on the exams, the rule of thumb is to study hard and pay enough effort. Apart from that: 1. The most important: Talk to your classmates who took M1 or those in higher grade who took M2. Get some ideas of each instructor's personality and teaching style before choosing classes (core micro macro and metrics are mandatory for the first semester, so you don't have a choice but only to hope), and before taking exams. If those students tell you negative things about some profs, be warned that it may not be a good idea to take their classes, though some of them are great researchers. At TSE, there are many great researchers who don't care about teaching (I literally meant GREAT w.r.t their research)... So, checking their CV and publications is apparently NOT sufficient. Always try to get insider info. 2. Don't trust too much the tutorials. The tutorials are conducted by TAs separately for the corresponding classes. While it is always a dominant strategy to do your best on the problem sets, you should always bear in mind that the final exam might be very different from what you have done in the tutorials, and the exam problems can be very sporadic (honestly, I don't think profs spend much of their precious time making good exams problems). 3. Peer learning is very important. TSE does have many good students in their M2 program every year. Make friends with those who are both smart and friendly (willing to help), and discussions in many cases are more helpful than talking to some unpleasant profs. 4. At TSE, students don't have bargaining power at all. If you don't like a prof or don't agree with what he does, let it go... Always do your best on your part, and hope for the best. 5. Lastly, if you have any problems, talk to secretary Aude. She is the only one that every student respects (because she respects every student), and is respected by all the faculty members. This is pretty much what I can come up with. You should always try to get more information from others. Best wishes,

@kondratieff, Wow! seems that all of us are gathered here to protest against our school :) @economist26: I do endorse EVERYTHING that gkhn said! However, I'd be happy to provide some more info. 1. Not all profs are "bad". TSE does have some good profs who are good at (and care about) teaching, for example, my current supervisor for my thesis is quite nice to me. However, firstly, the good profs are a rare case, which means that no matter how, you'll always see some unpleasant profs who don't care about teaching at all. If you are lucky, you end up taking few courses with unpleasant profs; if not, you end up question about academia everyday and why the hell could such kind of profs get a job. In sum, I do not want you to think that all profs are bad here at TSE. Some of them are quite good, but unfortunately, they are just a very small portion. 2. Among those very few profs who care about teaching, again, a very small portion of them are approachable after class. This makes the total number of nice and approachable profs to a very small number. 3. Course levels are not low. If you don't make efforts, you won't get good grades for sure. However, if you do make efforts, in some cases you still won't get good grades, because grading is unreasonably tough (when I say "unreasonably", I literally mean some profs don't even give you a reason) and some profs won't even listen to you if you firmly believe that indeed solved the problem correctly. So, if you come here, when you take exams, be very careful, write exactly in the way they want/anticipate, otherwise, no one is gonna care about the injustice. 4. Kondratieff has mentioned in another thread he posted above: the exams are designed for the top students, if you are average (and considering point 3), making efforts or not makes no difference on the final score. And the grade of the course is only based on one final. 5. Then how do you learn?! Mostly through independent and peer studies. In class, you do your best, and then ask around your classmates after class if there are things you don't understand. 6. It's also my responsibility to tell you that not all students think like this. We do have one classmate of us (a crazy Chinese guy) who got the attention from the faculty and interacted with many famous profs a lot. However, if you ask around, 90% of the students will tell you the same as what we said (except French students who are probably used to the system). Whether you want to score for that 10% really depends not only on your academic super-excellence, but also on how you perceive your future luck at TSE (yes, you do need some luck). 7. Lastly, I need to remind you that what I have said is based on what happened this year. There is chance that this year is an outlier in the sample. Indeed, most of the profs for last semester seemed very inexperienced. and this semester has slightly improved. (SLIGHTLY!) I tried my best to give you an objective view, but I hope you understand that every opinion has some bias. You should always try to hear from more people to balance the information. Best of luck to your future PhD!

FYI, in another thread I posted, someone said that he emailed LSE and was told that they plan to have all the Track1/Track2 results out by Mar 10 (which means by the end of today I guess...). The waiting time for master programs is about 8 weeks after submitting your application according to their official website, but a majority of cases get their results much sooner than that. I emailed Oxford on Monday asking about their decision dates on MPhil and got no reply. However, the secretary emailed back on Mar 7 asking for my fall term grades and asked me to send it to her "by Mar 12", which I did right away. The application confirmation email did say that they plan to release results in mid-March though. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for Oxford:) Hope the information is helpful. I only applied for Oxford and LSE, and am supposed to respond to Tinbergen's offer by Mar 15 (I took a very risky approach by applying for only three schools)... I'm hoping for the best! Best of luck to all of us!

How could I have missed this thread...?!!! As a current classmate of gkhn (haha, gkhn, I know who you are:glee:), I just wanna second gkhn's comments on TSE. I came to TSE for its reputation in IO and it is thus far the worst decision about my future I have ever made in my life...

Thanks a lot for your advises! I was just gonna request a letter explaining the situation. It's been taking forever for the prof to make the corrections...

I am in a very awkward situation now, and I am looking for some advise from you guys. So, a school contacted me for my fall term grade. I do have decent grades, but there's a problem on my transcript that is yet to be corrected. One subject score was miscalculated due to a grading mistake. Should I just report what is on the transcript? Or should I add some explanations to it? I was thinking that they may think I am a whining student and like to dispute grades... Thanks for the advises!

I took first year PhD courses in a Top 40 US department as an undergrad and entered the second year of a master program at Europe (an intense and well respected European master program). While I am not particularly sure about British schools (I am also waiting to hear from LSE), I can share some info or personal opinion with you about programs at continental Europe. 1. The classes in the 2nd year of a good European master program are NOT necessarily less demanding. In my case, I feel they are just as demanding as the 1st year PhD courses I took back in the US (I attended courses in a Top 40 program which may not be as intense). One major difference is that in general, profs in Europe care less about teaching compared to profs in the US (again, I'm not sure about England, and I personally also have put my faith onto LSE this year). In order to do well in the program, it requires a lot more independent and peer studies after classes. Most of the time, profs aren't available after class (no or very little office hours, very rare email responses, etc.) 2. The main difference is that being a master student in Europe, you definitely won't enjoy as much privilege as you could in the US. This means that you don't have an office (or won't be able to share an office with your classmates), won't be able to attend some seminars/workshops (sometimes they will tell you "this is for 'PhD students' only"), and if worse comes to worst, you may even have to pay for printing, etc. 3. You hear less about research in everyday life in an European master program. European master programs are centered around course studies. Though most programs require a master's thesis (including mine), the research environment in a master program is definitely not as good as a typical US program. This might be due to the course arrangements, faculty availability for research supervision on master's students, or various other reasons. After all, the above are based on my experience in a not highly ranked US program and a good master program on continental Europe. I really don't know how much information you can get for your future LSE EME. But anyway, I hope this is helpful. As I am also waiting to hear from LSE EME, I really hope we can be classmates in the coming fall semester:)

Hey eXcuvator, I noticed that your signature indicates "Out: Oxford". For Oxford, did you apply for the DPhil or MPhil? I'm anxiously waiting to hear from them. It seems that they are a bit slow in making decisions this year... Thanks!

Thanks a lot for the information! Good luck to all of us!

So, it's been another week. Any rumors from LSE?

So, are we expecting the decisions to come out this week? Any rumors? I hate the fact that this February has 29 days...

ESRC funding at LSE seems to be a bit ambiguous to me. Does anyone know if ESRC funding is only for MRes/PhD track 1 and track 2, or EME (1-year research) is also eligible? According to the program description, EME (1-year research) admission comes with a conditional offer to MRes/PhD track 2. Is there any other sorts of full funding available to MRes/PhD and EME (research) other than ESRC? Many thanks in advance!

Check out this youtube video, and you'll find the answer: