floplo

so and how much of the 50 hours is actual useless procrastination on the Internet...? so actual working time might actually be somewhat less than that ;-)

Meissner is a very well respected young Economic historian. What this hire shows is that Davis cares about one of their strenghts, namely Economic History.

The source of the number is the grad registrar, and compared to previous years (including my own visiting day), 38 is definitely on the very high side....

Little fun fact of the day.... 38 admitted students are planning to attend the Yale admit weekend well, it's going to be crowded :D

Go to the AEA website here: http://www.aeaweb.org/RFE/showCat.php?cat_id=13 under 'Job market outcomes and advice' you find the article 'Survey of the Labor Market For New Ph.D.s in Economics' , which will give you an idea of starting salaries for different institutions (Bachelor, Masterg-ranting, Phd-granting)

Since you seem only to do part of the grading, i assume there is some faculty supervision above you ? If so, have you ever talked to them about this problem ? Also have you ever confronted him about his behaviour ? Maybe a clarification of what his and your obligations will get him to realize what he is doing wrong ? (Maybe just decree that your next meeting is not about content but about academic work rules) I tend to be usually a supporter of reading the riot act...but sometimes a little bit of diplomacy and leading questions might help this guy figure out what to do....

i don't know whether their hiring cycle is already over, but did you consider applying for positions at the Fed (board of governors or one of the regional ones) ? I believe there should be other agencies which keep the PhD option. Also ever considered something like an RA-position for a year ?

i don't know whether their hiring cycle is already over, but did you consider applying for positions at the Fed (board of governors or one of the regional ones) ? I believe there should be other agencies which keep the PhD option. Also ever considered something like an RA-position for a year ?

About using placement as an indicator, well you ran into all kind of selection issues.... Placement can give you a certain indication what preferences are prevailing in the department, it also can give you a certain indication about the department support for various fields and ranks. But parsing it too closely is simply not that useful, because you are missing other info (like attrition, underreporting, position quality (tenure track or not), etc)

Ghampani, I am sorry but the issue that many people use the US News ranking doesn't really make the ranking any better (and most people use it because it's the most visible, not the most useful, out there) Also, from my impression at a relatively high-ranked school, the common perception about the US News ranking is pretty much that, a joke (which doesn't exclude that there is some truth in it...)

Karina, Yale doesn't really have much in terms of international / Public Finance, which may explain the IMF placement gap. the other point is that (at least at Yale) the main focus is on research, so many students will prefer an academic placement over a WB placement. So from the "normal" academic perspective, having more placements at WB is actually a sign of being weaker, because they can't place them in good academic positions. (obviously personal perference plays a major role, but that is the impression I got)

Antichron, My personal experience is that it pretty much arises naturally in most conversation anyway. I got pretty much asked "What other schools are you considering ?" by a prof who contacted me.... Obviously you should ask such a question in a nice, polite manner which indicates interest in a professor's knowledge about the field, not in gossip about other schools....

Hi, can you visit the schools ? Given your interest in cities, I assume that the actual city the school is in will have an impact on your quality of life... Obviously i am biased since I go to one of three schools, but unless you really are looking for a specific field/prof, the difference between the three is small enough, that your own quality and not the name of your school will determine your placement (or schools might have different strength in placing different people, so A places better top people, B places its lowerranked people better, C places people with non-mainstream topics better,etc....and you don't know yet what your status will be) So since you don't seem to be focussed on a particular topic, you should seriously consider quality of life issues (can you handle snow, do you need entertainment, do you want to be able to save, do you like the atmosphere of the department etc pp) And if you want to have a little bit of fun, why don't you ask faculty at each school why you should go there and not to one of the other two.... have fun deciding ;-)

fp3690, the question is not "Can it be done?", (which yeah, sure, there are examples out there), but whether this is the best way to do it....

PinkEcon, they probably just ask colleagues for standard form letters anyway and then tweak them..... besides at many programs the number of students from foreign universities is high, and probably all of them had Rec's from people who don't even work in English that much....

fp3690, IDE is predominantly a policy course because that is why students take it. Many of them come from abroad and then return to some form of public service in their home country. Occasionally they enter PhD programs (in recent years I know of one of managed to move from Yale IDE to Yale PhD, but she was really good and is now a prof at MIT Sloan). So if you are set on getting a PhD, you might consider taking a more academic Econ program, if you are set on working in Development,Public service,etc but want to keep your option of a good PhD open, then IDE might make sense. IDE students have their own courses, occasionally a few of them try to take PhD courses, but it is very rare that they actually stay. (some PhD course Profs don't even allow it)

Sorry, I don't really get what you want to know. Your goal is to get into a good EconPhD program via IDE and then an RA ?

and the answer is: NOTHING.... approximately the middle of May you will get a check (or more likely a direct deposit) with your summer funding.... and that's all there is no, so no TAing, no RA. (and if you pass your exams, no studying either), you literally can spent months on the beach if you want to (and I think some of my classmates actually did...) Some people actually RA duing the summer, but that is in addition to summer funding

The grad registrar pretty much just told me the following: Everybody who got admitted got notified by e-mail some time last week. Everybody who is on the waiting list gets notified by snail-mail which was sent out last friday. Rejections will go out at some point soon (not sure but likely by e-mail) And please don't blame the Econ department for this weired way of doing things, it's caused by the Grad school administration....

Yale will give you an office starting in your third year. Most of them tend to be two person offices, some are a little bit larger. oh, and summer funding is without conditions attached, so yeah, see you at the beach.....

Cassin, Yale contacts everybody. The only difference is which professor contacts you. That is usually done on a field basis (with another factor being nationality)

Getting contacted by profs (at least at Yale and i assume other top-ranked schools as well) is purely to help you make a better decision. These calls are not interviews, they are supposed to give you a better picture of the school (both sides profit if you figure out that this is not the place for you after all). You will likely get similar calls/e-mails from other schools (sometimes faculty, sometimes grad students), so make use of them. These are also not one-time opportunities, I am sure most profs have no problem if you ask them whether you could talk to them again in a few weeks. And if you don't know what to ask them, there is always the weather, food, housing, entertainment, etc, don't forget you are not just picking a school, you are also picking a place to live.... Also since the deadline is still a few weeks out there and you might not have gotten replies from other schools, don't hesitate to let them know that you have yet to figure out what your other options are. And once you know, it's no problem to ask people to compare various schools (and it's an interesting question to figure out the incentives for people to answer these truthfully...). It's likely people will actually flat out ask you what other schools you consider. I know that the whole thing is stressful (been there done that), but once you get offers (and funding letters....) you should start to relax....(and yeah I know it's easier said than done...) Good luck to all

Cph, sorry if I was unclear about funding length. I don't know whether Yale officially guarantees six years, but for all practical purposes you do get at least six years of funding. (The department never has enough grad student TA's, they usually need to hire people from other schools (Business, Law) as additional ones) The first two years are fellowship (afaik they can't be deferred, but if you get outside funding you might get a certain part of the money) for year three and four you have to fully TA three semesters and get one off for year five you get one additional fellowship semester and usually a TAship for one semester for year six it's a TAship for the whole year. So this plan is the standard path, but that can be rearranged in some ways. Also this is what current students get, sometimes they improve the incoming deals over the current situation. Also it is possible to replace TAships with RA positions (and in some cases additional fellowships)

Greenstone, I assume you talk about Economics ? the main difference tends to be at least two years of coursework (a very extended MA) in the US If you already have a masters, some places might have the possibility that you could skip first year of coursework. Usually that however requires that you write (and pass) Qualifying exams before you even enter the program... (and pretty much nobody does that) In general, accept that you will take a year or two more. Your MA will help you in the first year, but how much is very ideosyncratice and likely very limited (personal experience...)

Hi, so the standard funding package at Yale is Base stipend of ~20k for the first two years TA-ship with the same amount of money starting in year 3 One more year of stipend fellowship during years 3-6 3 summer funded (~3.5k) this is the base graduate school package, so I believe nobody should be below this, but you might get an additional fellowship atop on it. any other questions about Yale, let me know