team

Thanks a bunch for your replies guys. Do you think that rankings is all grad school adcoms care about? (Are they even aware of current rankings?) What about Ivy-League membership (when applying to places like Harvard, Princeton,...) and other non-quantitative factors?

Do they actually take into account whether you're a foreign or domestic applicant? If so, what kind of verbal/awa score should foreign applicants have in order to be competitive at top5-10 schools? Would scoring significantly higher boost your chances?

Hi, I've been offered to spend the first year of my Master's degree program in Poli Sci as an exchange student at one of the following universities in the US: Cornell Duke Johns Hopkins NYU Ohio State UPenn Vanderbilt UCLA UCSD Chicago How would you rank those univs with regard to how they would look on a subsequent application to graduate programs in Political Economy (Poli Sci, Econ departments or Business Schools) at places like Stanford, Princeton and Harvard ? Should I rely on usnews rankings in Economics and Poli Sci ? I'd really appreciate your help :-) Danielle

Hey guys, final results are in: 290. I don't know the essay score, but I guess it should be 5.5, shouldn't it?

hey elektrotechnik, could you do me a favor and send the file to timsk@web.de as well ? Thanks :-)

thanks, that'd be great! team1983@lycos.co.uk

Hey elektrotechnik, how did you come up with the conversion of your grades from the german to the US system ? I'd really appreciate your help...been looking for an appropriate formula forever...

Hey guys, thanks a bunch for your replies. Btw, would anyone of you happen to know what kinda salary people at the European Central Bank get? On their site, they're referring to an annex of a pdf document with regard to the ECB's salary structure, but the pdf document doesn't contain any annexes...

Hi, I was just wondering if any of you guys knew what starting salary to expect in a non-academic position (World Bank, European Central Bank,...) with a PhD in Economics from a top5 school. Any help is appreciated.

Any thoughts? :)

Hey guys, a friend of mine could use your help on something. As part of her Master's degree from a European univ she wants to spend a year abroad at a univ in the US. While she's aware that there are many other things to consider besides academic reputation when choosing a univ (such as location,...), she's also concerned as to how a year abroad at a specific univ would look on her subsequent application to a US graduate program. She'd like to go for a PhD in Political Economy (so either Poli Sci or Econ departments). The univs that have exchange programs with her univ are the following: Columbia Cornell Duke Emory Indiana Johns Hopkins NYU Ohio State Princeton Stanford Tulane UPenn Vanderbilt UCLA, UCSD, UCB,... Chicago Minnesota U of Washington Wake Forest Univ Western Michigan Univ How would you rank those universities in regard to the path she intends to take (Political Economy)? Also, would spending a year at Duke improve her chances when applying to places like Harvard, Princeton or Stanford or would it rather hurt her chances? We'd really appreciate your opinion on this :)

@ind_game: I don't think you can get the CBT book on toefl.org, can you?

Thanks guys :) @charanya: I didn't really practice, just took the two PowerPrep tests from www.toefl.org yesterday morning and scored even a little higher than on the actual TOEFL. So I figured I wouldn't need any further practice. (The CBT TOEFL book seems pretty good though.) 3 years of English back in highschool ought to be sufficient for TOEFL anyways...don't you think?

Here's the breakdown: Listening: 29 Structure/Writing: 13-29 Reading: 30 The essay topic was something like "What qualities should a good neighbour have?" Not very challenging, I guess... Preparation: Basically, I started yesterday by taking the two Powerprep tests and flipping through CBT's TOEFL book... Time: more than enough, except for the writing section, where I just finished in time... All in all, I'm a little disappointed, because I did better on the PowerPrep tests and was hoping for a perfect score. But in the end I only need 250 for my application, so it doesn't really matter... Well, if there are any questions left, just ask. I'd be happy to help :) Daniel

Anybody else got an opinion? Any more comments? I'd really appreciate it :)