fazzuoli

Thanks very much, your insight is being very helpful! From what I understand you seem to be quite satisfied with your experience at Nottingham. Are there any specific aspects of the programme you were the most happy with, and possibily something that did not work too well? Sorry for asking so many questions but I have been looking for an MSc graduate from Notts for the last three months!

Thank you very much for your reply! So if I understand well there is basically no hope to get into a top PhD in the UK from Notts, right? Sorry If I am indiscreet, but in case you have personally tried to apply to one of those PhDs you mentioned (or someone you knew well), have you had the impression that Nottingham was not even considered from those PhD admissions (LSE, Oxbridge, Warwick, UCL) irrespective of the student performance? As for your latter point, of course I cannot assume I will easily get a Distinction a Notts. However, having been top of my class in Tor Vergata, I think I can hope to have fair chance at a Merit at UCL~ Distinction at Nottingham, provided I put all my possible effort into it. Of course I might be overestimating myself here, in which case I shouldn't have too much of an headache and give up on a top PhD... but if you don't try you'll never know! As for Tor Vergata, it is the most puzzling degree you can possibly imagine. You go from the toughest and amazing module taught by one of the best scholars in the world to a fake module with a fake assessment. It has a very high potential but it is so badly organized that you may end up being less prepared than you were in your undergrad in certain areas (like macro in my case).

My answer probably arrives too late, but I thought it was still worth giving my contribution. A very close friend of mine with whom I attended my undergrad in Rome is graduating at the LMEC next October. Having heard a lot from him about the course and having seen some of the material, I can safely say it is arguably one of the best masters in Italy (possibly better than Bocconi). It is very well organized, most of the professors are top researchers in their field and their placement for PhDs is amazing. In my friend's cohort they have at least 7-8 people getting offers from LSE, UCL, Warwick, Zurich, EUI etc. If you still have to accept your offer I strongly suggest you do, also because it is really good value for money and Bologna is a fantastic town. If you already did, well just let me say you made the right choice !

Hi all, I am an Italian student who is currently enrolled in the first of a two-year Masters degree in Italy (Tor Vergata University, you probably never heard of it) but has decided to suspend there to pursue an MSc in the UK. My main objective is to do a PhD with a strong microeconometric focus in the UK. I have got the following offers: - MSc Economics & Econometrics at Uni of Nottingham with full tuition waiver - MSc Economics at UCL with no funding at all Of course the answer to the title of the thread is obvious: UCL is tragically better than Nottingham and arguably the best place for microeconometrics, and also I would get an offer for their MRes conditional on a Distinction. However my trade-off here is: If I go to UCL I'll have no money left after the MSc and, most importantly, I am absolutely not confident I'll get a distinction there. Realistically I know I can get a merit but if that means I can only aim at a mid-tier PhD with that, then I'll basically end up with what I could have had for free with Nottingham (where I know I can be top of my class). What could make a difference here is whether you guys think/know it is possible to access top UK PhDs with excellent results from Nottingham. Consider that, despite it being a very bad experience in terms of teaching, my current course at Tor Vergata has allowed me to attract the eye of some very good professors (a Princeton guy and an LSE guy, both very highly regarded abroad), who could potentially write references for my PhD applications later. This could in part offset the lack of important names in Nottingham. Thank you very much for your help!