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.

I believe you will be allowed to add a signature once you reach 100 posts. It is definitely related to either reputation or post quantity.

If you have already taken an entire semester course on modern probability theory then you will certainly be fine with a stochastic processes course based on Ross's book (I took such a course with his book as an undergrad). As unitroot said, Ross's book is an undergraduate book that doesn't use measure theory. So typically universities will require an undergraduate (non-measure theory) level probability course as a prerequisite, as your school does. Also as unitroot said, if you're taking a 2nd semester course on advanced probability theory, then you will likely see all most of the material in Ross' book in that course, and at a more advanced level. So it's probably not the best use of your time. Maybe take a light load and relax and concentrate on the probability course and a few others. If you end up attending flyouts, these will interfere with your semester and so you don't want a heavy load.

Who wants to "stay on campus" for 5 to 6 years straight? I'm with econphilomath, crime is an important topic to consider, along with all of the other factors that affect quality of life. (Side note: this kind of non-academic consideration may be more important to people who are moving with a family instead of alone.) Personally, my final decision was heavily influenced by these kind of considerations. If you're a good student at a good school then you'll turn out fine. I believe that hard work will be rewarded in the end. Hence in the final days of decision making I begun to think that the academic differences in schools were not that great and so lifestyle factors made the decision. As econphilomath said, you will be there for a long time, 5 to 6 years. Life is short and you want to be comfortable and happy. You bet I was reading crime reports for the various places that I was considering. Anyway, as for the data itself, there have been some good comments. I agree with econphilomath that the absolute magnitude may be important, even if the probability is lower, because that contributes to the atmosphere. Moreover, crime statistics in the neighborhood---not just on campus---are also important (and would probably knock U of C down the list). Finally, type of crime is also important, so you should compare burglary rates, murder rates, etc.

Roth's response certainly reflects my feelings. Also, I hope that when Laibson said "There are very, very, very few economists who can be proud" he was not being general and referring mostly to financial and macroeconomists, but that's not the way I read it, unfortunately. I'm an economist and I'm quite proud of what our profession has accomplished since it's beginning when it comes to explaining human behavior and market behavior in general. Sure, there is a lot of additional work to be done, but the basics are quite solid and that's something to be proud of. The big lesson of 2008 is to be humble on our total knowledge and in any predictions (or policy prescriptions!) we attempt to make, especially when studying the most complicated and difficult area of economics: macro. As I said, I believe economists understand much about the world, but there is still much to learn.

I am going to echo buckykatt's and singmeat's responses. Rankings are useful. The mere fact that the NRC is taking so long to produce their report is testimony to this: data is costly to gather and analyze. Reports like the upcoming NRC one are useful to applicants who do not have the time or knowledge to accurately make certain kinds of comparisons. As buckykatt said, each discipline has it's own procedures and they are rarely directly comparable. In economics it is pretty rare to know for sure what subfield you'll end up in and even rarer to know exactly what kind of research you'll be doing. This, from what I've heard since I know very little about these fields, is a marked contrast to the hard sciences. So it's important for applicants to have a broad ranking of programs. Again, echoing what others have said, many pieces of data should go into one's subjective ranking, and the NRC report should be a useful compenent. My complaints against the NRC are complaints that could be levied against any organization with some kind of a deadline: your customers are going to lose faith in you to deliver the product if you keep breaking deadlines that you set. Moreover, complaining about breaking your own deadlines belittles the organization.

Their methodology supposedly has changed dramatically this time, so it's not as easy as just running the old code from 10 years ago. When they broke their first deadline their excuse was something like: "There are some irregularities in the data that we need to figure out. We do not want to be hasty." At this point, they've broken their own deadlines so many times that they have lost a substantial amount of credibility. If the folks in charge at the NRC (yes, you Charlotte Kuh) are truly "very tired of NRC DELAYED AGAIN headlines", then maybe they should act like a serious organization doing serious research that sticks to hard deadlines and works extremely hard to meet them. As the days go by and the data gets older and older and more defunct, as others have mentioned, the rankings become more and more useless. Sad.

You could broadly cover the history of mathematics in economics, but you might have a hard time contributing something original without simply summarizing. Antichron wrote a paper similar to this for one of his undergrad classes. Here are some resources I suggest you investigate at your university library: (1) How Economics Became a Mathematical Science by E. Roy Weintraub (2) Mainstream mathematical economics in the 20th century by by Pier Carlo Nicola (3) Economic theory in retrospect by Mark Blaug These books should have plenty of other references for you to follow up on. Consider writing about a specific point in the history of mathematical economics rather than a broad summary. For example, the marginal revolution, history of general equilibrium analysis, or Paul Samuelson's role in modern mathematical economics (I believe there are several books on this topic). These topics might require a bit too much of a time investment given that you don't have an extremely extensive background in economics. The book "The origins of Cauchy's rigorous calculus" by Judith V. Grabiner is excellent as a history of, well, rigorous calculus (i.e., analysis). I think you'd benefit from looking into this book just as well as you would writing a paper on math in economics. This book certainly helps one appreciate the precision of modern mathematics.

I appreciate the comments that everyone has given, and I'm sure the OP does as well. Regarding the price theory curriculum: My understanding is that at Chicago you must teach yourself the modern technicalities yourself (like MWG). The benefit of this is that they can emphasize applications and ideas that aren't given much attention at other schools. Whether or not this curriculum is for you probably depends on your personal philosophy. For example, I agree with Becker that game theory is given too much weight in most programs. As a disclaimer, I haven't taken the 1st year sequences at Chicago and other schools, so I can only make comparisons based on what I've heard. Personally, the Chicago bashing makes me more inclined to attend.

Yes, I had the same thoughts regarding advisor dependency. I was worried that once eliminating Heckman's students, the placements look dismal. Of course, you provided a piece of counter-evidence--Schulhofer-Wohl was not a Heckman student. By a direct comparison of placements, I think Chicago is better than Penn. You'll have to look at the data yourself and see if you agree. Have you seen the full placement data? I was at the Chicago visit day, so yes I've been to the department. In fact, I loved the fact that they put up pictures of their incoming classes. None of the other schools I visited did this. To me, it signals an underlying bond, that despite the apparent tough love you may get, you become part of a family. That's worth something.... Finally, I don't think that googling random alumni names is a proper measure at all. The people you google might have decided they weren't interested in a top 10 research job, you never know. De gustibus non est disputandum they say, lol.

Sigh...the rumor mill keeps on spinning.... I have their full placement lists back to eight years ago and they are solid. In addition to the Princeton placement you mentioned there were placements at Penn and Northwestern that year.... Ultimately, their placements are characterized by high variance. Furthermore, it's extremely difficult to estimate the school effect on placements versus the student effect. I believe that Chicago's entering class is still somewhat eccentric and this drives high variance in placements. Finally, Chicago's job market process is more decentralized and advisor dependent. This also creates higher placement variance. Contrast this to Northwestern, where placements are a department effort. Chicago doesn't appear to care about getting good placements, whereas Northwestern does. But consider: If there's one thing that hasn't changed about Chicago throughout the years, it's that they still consider doing fabulous research to be the first priority. Indeed, the extent to which they believe in this drives some of their apparent weaknesses. To be successful at Chicago, you must trust yourself. If you have the discipline and the willpower to use their resources, you will succeed. Anyway, I personally am leaning away from Chicago, but only because I really don't want to live in Hyde Park.