pepper123

UCSD is certainly the better school. But it largely depends on whether or not you can support yourself in the first year. If you don't care taking loans than go to UCSD. I guess there's the possibility that you will get funding in UT at last minutes since I know somebody who will reject their UT Austin offers.

These two schools are quite comparable in micro theory. So you need to know what kind of research interests you more. Also it largely depends on what kinds of financial packages you receive from them. UCSD requires teaching in first year, which is a bit annoying. Concerning applied micro, I believe Columbia is better. I personally prefer Columbia because apart from its economic department, you can benefit a lot from the business school. UCSD's financial situation is always a problem and I remember they even lost some faculty to Columbia GSB several years ago. Not sure whether the California turmoil will end in the near future.

It seems to me that Penn is a better choice. UCSD has been financially tight for years and they lose some really good junior faculty in past 5-6 years (Kartik, Jaimovich, Costinot etc.). So I think it is naturally to doubt its ability to retain its current faculty. As you said, Penn is hiring theorists this year so we don't know what will be like in five years. The biggest concern for Penn would be its relatively high attrition rate.

Hello Anyone here still waiting for the decisions of CMU Tepper Econ? I have just seen an admit on GC, but not sure it is true. Has anyone else received their calls? I think there decisions are usually made around this time in the past two years. Thanks