polkaparty

For my cohort I got a few people from TM to meet up and visit NU the day before the Chicago visit, and although it wasn't the official visit day, NU gratefully put together some things for us, i.e., professors and students to meet with. There were also people who did the reverse and visited Chicago on that Thursday. Also, FYI, if you are going to the NU flyout, I recommend staying at the Hilton Garden Inn, which is easily within walking distance of the department: Evanston Hotels - Hilton Garden Inn Evanston Hotel, IL - Illinois use the group code ECO to get the special rate of $99.00 a night.

If I could somehow combine both schools together, I think it would be the greatest economics department in the world. The two schools are just so complementary in terms of one's strengths being the other's weakness. Of course, for someone choosing between the two, it makes for a wretched decision. Thus this decision requires some deep personal reflection, and none of us can help anyone with that choice---it must come from within. So for the OP and anyone else making this choice, or a similar choice for other schools, I wish them all good luck! And remember that, as powerful as the institutional constraints and biases we ultimately will face, we do indeed control our own destiny and we can forge a way towards our own unique place in the world, as we see fit. Good luck.

[insert 2 inspirational sentences which currently evade me, darn that brain jelly-fying school...] We will miss you, TruDog. Good luck!

Except that the OP specifically asked about visiting a school where he or she did not have an offer yet. Still, I don't think the recommendations change. A suit is too much. I would stick with business casual as others have said. No graphic tees or baseball hats. Style is subjective and if you're quite risk averse like I am, you wouldn't want that to even be a factor in their decision on whether or not to offer you an admission; hence the neutral clothing recommendation.

Well, you know what they say. .

LOL. This is certainly a rarity: taking the 1st year sequence at three different top 10 schools. There are plenty of people who do it twice, but three times.... That deserves an award!

Ah but who's heard of that? Let's look at the big conference that matters: 2002: Atlanta 2003: Washington, DC 2004: San Diego 2005: Philadelphia 2006: Boston 2007: Chicago 2008: New Orleans 2009: San Francisco 2010: Atlanta 2011: Denver 2012: Chicago 2013: San Diego 2014: Philadelphia 2015: Boston So that's Chicago twice, and NYC... hmm. ;) P.S. Just so there is no uncertainty, I like NYC more than Chicago, but they're different. Every place has it's own qualities and, again, which are more important come down to personal preference. [P.S. I got data back to 2002 only because that's where the years on the journal pages I was looking at ended. I haven't seen the data before then. And now I have real work to get to...]

I don't keep track of Princeton's activities, but I can say that so far this year NU has had Paul Krugman, Sylvia Nasar, and Ken Rogoff, among others (a lot of people on the financial situation), give presentations to the public. There are others as well of course, but as a first year I don't follow too much of this. And of course, what really matters is not presentations to the public, but research seminars, and there are plenty of weekly seminars and presentations here. Just see this list of people who visited last year [starts at bottom of page 12]. Now, having a ton of speakers is something I expect of any top school, so I'm not trying to distinguish NU compared to Princeton are anywhere else for that matter, which I'm sure has had an equally impressive list of speakers. I'm just responding to the quote above which makes it sound like the outside speaker environment at NU is a vast wasteland. If it makes anyone feel better, I hadn't heard of NU before I applied to grad school, and even then I didn't know much more than its ranking. The brand is certainly not as strong as the Ivies, but a PhD degree is a research degree and the qualities that support a vigorous research environment are what you should care about the most. Not saying branding doesn't enter the utility function though... ;) [P.S. I am writing purely with an eye towards Academia, not consulting, etc.]

I'm sure this is not adding much, if anything, since what I'm going to say is obvious. Yes, Evanston is not Chicago, it's a different city which borders the north edge of Chicago. NU is a suburban-ish school, compared to the urban NYU. Nonetheless, many students live in Chicago and commute, although usually after the first year is over. So you can get city life if you want it at NU, you'll just have to wait a year. Whether or not this fact is desirable depends on ones preferences. I'm from a big suburban sprawl area where you have to get in a car if you want to do anything. So I, someone who is less than 50 years old, enjoy the quasi-suburban / mini-city feel of Evanston. It's somewhat of a change from my old home since you can walk a lot, but you can still drive to some very nice shoppping malls, and big box stores, etc. Chances are I'll stay here for all of grad school, rather than move into the city. Those are just my preferences though. I just wanted to respond since Rational_Agent makes it sound like no sane person would choose an area like Evanston over an urban area like Chicago or NYC, although some might question my sanity.... Visiting the schools and areas is the best way to see whether or not they jive with you. P.S. Also, the idea that there's damaging competition among students here is news to me.

These are the kind of answers that are totally useless. No justification for why, just a statement of someone's preference. Useless to the OP. Useless to all. Eee, see my PM for details. For anyone else in this situation (as I was last year), I strongly advise against splitting the day and going to both. NU and U of C are just too far apart for it to be worthwhile, even with a car. Pick one to visit officially and visit the other unofficially.

Grats!!!!! Come to NU and we'll party it up!!

To AspringEconomist: sorry for the misinterpretation, but it sure reads like a joke to me. Krugman gave up his scientific credentials long ago. My point was that in one sentence you claim not to have a simple answer and in the next sentence you claim to have a simple answer (namely, that "tax cuts" have been "disastrous" et cetera). Again, such statements on taxes are far to simplistic to have any meaning. Taxes make people worse off 99% of the time, do you disagree? As I said in my earlier post, the issue is always about the trade off: higher taxes combined with more government spending versus the opposite. Even this is a gross simplification of the problem. And as jeeves said, if you think any politician makes decisions based on "sound economics", then you'll be disappointed. This is the nature of the game.

Not according to the president, LOL! I think it was a joke, and a good one at that!

This is certainly a powerful observation when doing economic science with the goal of determining optimal policy, and it basically comes down to the assumptions of the various models that our objective function is some social welfare function. Obviously this is not the case in practice, although some might argue that it's a "natural" starting place. (Not me though, but it is simple, I agree. With more realism comes more complexity....) There's a book on this topic that looks excellent titled Political Economy in Macroeconomics. I got this like 3 or 4 years ago but it was way too advanced for me to understand then. After a year of macro I think I will finally be able to tackle this book and I'm pretty excited: "Political economy thus begins with the observation that actual policies are often quite different from "optimal" policies...."

This statement holds for pretty much any political party or ideology. Moreover, at some point you must have some kind of "faith" because no single person can seriously scientifically examine every topic that comes up in typical political discourse. So ideology is actually a good thing, sometimes. Of course this very feature which makes it desirable simultaneously makes it undesirable. Time is quite valuable, as I have learned in the past year, and most people don't want to spend it on examining facts. That is not, per se, a bad thing. Indeed, we economists are the few who have decided to dedicate our lives to this complicated task. Put aside the fact that these two quotes are somewhat contradictory. The second quote is pretty funny to me because, as a libertarian who often sides with the old school GOP (not the GOP under Bush, that is), pretty much everyone in my circle of friends says the exact same thing about the Democrats and their policies. "Look what the New Deal did, prolonged the depression. They keep pushing for more of the same economic control." I certainly don't care what people say amongst their friends, but when an economist speaks in public, it should be with a reserved caution and an appreciation of how little we truly "know" as a science. If you think you have a definitive "answer" on optimal government policy, please tell me because I'd love an article in the AER. I wouldn't typically be so harsh, but let's leave the public mud slinging and empty accusations to those who have not chosen to be scientists. P.S. I don't think anyone disagrees that taxes are "bad", ceteris paribus. The issue, of course, is relaxing ceteris paribus. Are lower taxes and less government spending "good"? The reverse? The answer to such questions often depends on value judgments that are neither right nor wrong. At that point, there can be no resolution, no "solution" to such differences.