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I always appreciate your help and recommendation. profile: Currently a law school faculty at one of Asian university. BA in Econ (Ivy league), MA(Yale IDE), JD, LLM and SJD in the US. Real analysis and math courses taken in distance learning program Field experience in both public and private sectors. Age: 40 (Yes indeed) Published various articles and books including the best peer-reviewed journals in my field. I write many law and economics articles and i think i need further training and economics. The following is my questions. 1. Do you think i am eligible to apply ? Have you seen a crazy person like me before? Would there be any way that i could waive some GRE or other admission requirements? 2. I guess i prefer a part-time PHD since i have a job now. Do you know anything about part time program at Oxford? 3. Do you think i can try top 15 economics PHD in US.? 4. I am sort of aiming Oxford or Cambridge since they require less extensive coursework and time. Do they have qualifying exams? if so, what is the passing rate etc? I would be grateful for your further advice and suggestions.

Thank you!

Hi Everyone, This is my first post on urch and I recently took my second GRE practice test. Please find below my issue essay question stem along with the response. Please rate my response and kindly highlight my improvement areas. Thanks in advance. Undergraduate students majoring in Business or in the Sciences should not be required to take any courses in the Humanities since those courses won’t benefit their future careers. Write a response to the prompt in which you discuss whether or not you agree or disagree. Be certain to fully develop your position and carefully consider ways in which your position could be challenged. A student always learns multiple things during the course of his/her education. Not everything is futile, and not everything is useful. Having a well rounded understanding of all topics can help students deliver better results in the long run. Hence, I disagree with the stance taken in the prompt about undergraduate students majoring in fields such as Business or Science to not take courses in other fields such as Humanities for primarily two reasons. To begin, education is something that can never be commensurated in terms of limit i.e. it is very rare for any field to be so niche that it deems knowledge gained in that field as sufficient. Over the years, we have observed multiple fields converging with each other to beget stupendous results. To illustrate this, we can take the example of the economics and finance that are a beautiful amalgation of mathematics /calculations and human elements that impact the imminent trends in the market. To estimate sales of a product, the company can have calculations based on statistical data that could determine what should be behavior of market in the upcoming months, but analyzing the confidence of people in the product and understanding the need of the hour for people can really help take the prediction to much higher levels of precision. Thus, based on the above argument, we can say that having knowledge of other fields can act as a boon. Further, having a wholistic approach and understanding of topics definitely helps people blur the lines and transition between fields on a need basis. An idea to support the argument would be to look at Elon Musk who is a perfect embodiment of science and humanitarian shades. He has a pioneer in the field of science and technology for a very long time and has benefitted the technology world with products and his companies such as PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX etc. But the vision that he carries to carry the human race to Mars in the upcoming years is only a testament to his humanitarian aspect that can truly be achieved if one delves deep into humanities along with science. Thus diving deeper proves beneficial in the long run and can be proved by many such examples. Having said that, there is another way to look at it by considering learning things apart from the field of specialization of the individual can turn him/her into "jack of all trades, master of none." This is obliquely possible, but on the contrary, a person who is focused on his field of specialization will definitely find it easier to accommodate the knowledge gained from other fields in a way that does not impact his/her current ability to master the desired field. In fact, an erudite person is expected to utilize the gained knowledge in his/her field to yield better results. To put it succintly, knowledge never goes in vain. To conclude the response, I would like to disagree with the argument and state with the help of the above given points that undergraduate students majoring in Business or in the Sciences should be required to take courses in other fields such as Humanities to help them benefit in the long run.

So as we know, H index is actually pretty subject-dependent, which means that we cannot compare the index across different subjects. Then, in the field of strategic management, how high should it be for a scholar to be considered little-known/somewhat recognized/well-known/prestigious? I can point out several scholars in the field who might very well be considered to be prestigious: Michael E. Porter, h-Index: 180 David J. Teece, h-Index: 106 Jay Barney, h-Index: 87 But what about those whose h-Index is 70? 56? 40? 30? Might I know from you guys if there's a general understanding regarding the use of h-Index in the field? Thanks for time and attention!

Hi there! I was wondering if someone might be able to offer some insights into the level of prestige that Bocconi enjoys in the academic field of strategic management. I have done a quick research through the UDT ranking myself, and if one selects only the journals in the field of strategic management (i.e., AMJ, AMR, SMJ, ASQ, Org Science, and Management Science), it seems like Bocconi is a respected but not excellent research institution in the field. However, unsure about the usefulness of the ranking results since they do not take into account the differences in the faculty numbers at different schools, I would like to kindly ask some "insiders" to help me compare Bocconi against some other top research institutions. Specifically, would someone be so kind as to tell me how is Bocconi compared with INSEAD, Harvard, Wharton, HEC, HKUST, and so on IN THE FIELD OF STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT IN TERMS OF ACADEMIC STATUS? Is Bocconi among the top 10 or 20 most respected research institutions in the field? Thanks for reading and time!

Just wondering how much emphasis I should place on the following factors when 'selecting' PhD advisers to approach: 1) If a PhD adviser has a few published Top 5's versus one who has published consistently in top field and second tier general interest journals. The reason I ask this question is because I have heard that academics with Top 5's help push PhD students towards Top 5 publications more so than those without. Although, I'm not sure how true this is, it's just what I have heard. 2) The quality/rigour of the core and field courses. Assuming a strong enough Math background would someone be able to self-study sufficiently to overcome weaker courses 3) Being in a good academic location surrounded by other universities conducting good research. Maybe this network effect has good influence on further developing ideas. I know there are other considerations to have in mind such as placement ranking, supervisor compatibility, however, just wanted to know how much emphasis I should place on these in particular.

I would like to know if the Economic History Field is still active and which schools have Ph.D. students with EH specialization. I have done my research, finding 5 schools who publicly show their economic history specialization option (sadly top 20) but I'm unaware if admissions are open for candidates who want to specialize in that field. The reasoning is based on the lack of graduates from those institutes with an economic history field. Before anyone criticizes me or directs me to apply to LSE Economic History Ph.D., my central interest/research is Macroeconomics but economic history is a very crucial subject to all Economic courses (even Econometric) and I desire to research in that field as well. I refuse to apply to an institution that does not even have an Economic History course as a requirement for Ph.D. completion. I would love to go into more (possibly rant) but I will appreciate any help and/or tips.

Hi, Does anyone know where this field is going? I thought I wanted to structural IO when writing applications but during visits, and talking to bunch of professors who do structural stuff, I realized that my interest was in structural methodology (which is as vague as microeconomics) especially applied to the field of public economics. Unfortunately, I did not get admission outside of top 10 and wondering which school might be the best to do structural public econ. Thanks in advance!

Posting for a friend who's not on this forum. He's choosing between HBS, MIT, Princeton and Stanford. Interested broadly in behavioral/experimental/micro theory - not really committed to any field but that's the neighborhood. How would you rank the choices and why?

Hi everyone, I recently started a PhD program that offers a couple fields, one of them being macroeconomics and money, which I love. However; they lost a big faculty member this semester and they say they don’t have enough interest now so they are going to stop offering the field. What would you suggest I do in this situation, given it was the field I was hoping to specialize in??

Some people believe that college students should consider only their own talents and interests when choosing a field of study. Others believe that college students should base their choice of a field of study on the availability of jobs in that field. As the saying goes “Do what you love, and you’ll never work another day in your life”. Students should definitely choose a field they are interested in. If a student chooses a field that interests him and knows that field will complement his talent, he should without any doubt pursue it. It is not very often that a student chooses a field of study solely because of the availability of jobs in that field and performs exceptionally well, even though he was least interested in that field of study. It is very difficult to give your best when you choose a field that doesn’t interest you. And even though you choose a field keeping your interests aside, there is no guarantee that you will end up getting a job. As the competition in that field of study will be more and if you have not performed well in your college in that field, you may end up getting no jobs at all. Considering a student ends up getting a job in the field he was not very interested in, he may not get the joy working there and later ends up leaving the job for a job that brings him the peace of mind. One may question that in this day and age where money is so important in everyone’s life that we may end up compromising on our interests and go for the field that will, in the end, pay us more. So, the security that at the end of the course a student will have more opportunities to work and earn money can play a big role for many in deciding their field of study. One can pursue his interests like Painting, sketching, and football as his hobbies while working full time in an IT company or any other company for that matter, even though he was not interested in it at first. Sometimes, it a possibility that we are not interested in some field of study because we know very little about it in the beginning, but as we get to know more about it and go deeper and deeper into it we develop a liking towards it and end up doing well. Your field of study should only matter on what your interests are and how well that field complements your talent. Choosing a field that offers more job opportunities does not guarantee a job since you have to do exceptionally well in the field that you are least interested in to even get a shot at the job opportunity. As there is a risk involved in taking the field in which a student is not interested in, he should definitely go for something he is interested in and not compromise his talents.

I've been accepted to BU and Duke and my field of interest is macro. Which one is best?

Hi all. I am an undergraduate student at a public university with top 15 econ department. I took many advanced math courses (including Phd real analysis) and Phd micro sequences and got all A's and A+'s for them. However, I got one A-, one B+, and one W in three undergraduate economics field courses. The one that I withdrew was one that I did not do well in the first midterm. All of these have exams that rely heavily on memorization, and I am extremely bad at such types of exams, and just could not outperform my classmates who are good at memorization in the grading curve. (I often confused things and forgot what I had memorized.) I have only three other undergraduate field courses in which I got A's, which makes half of my undergraduate field courses be something below A. I am mostly interested in theory and the professor that I RA'd for said that those courses would not be too much of a problem for conducting theory research, but I am really concerned that such profile would be seen by the adcom as someone who is not serious in economics. Would this compromise me too much? Would stating an interest in theory in SOP save me to some extent?

Is there any way to have a big picture about what each field in economics is about? For example, what people are studying in applied micro theory. Does it matter (to know about what specific field you want to do in PHD) when you apply for econ PHD programs? Thanks a lot in advance.

Hi Everyone, Have you decided on which field or fields to focus on? If so, what made you decide to focus on that field in particular? What was it about that particular field that attracted you to learning it? What skills or talents do you feel are helpful for someone wishing to go into that field? I am an undergrad who is in the process of deciding which field to focus on, so any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Ariella

Hey everyone, I thought it would be interesting to look at programs that for one reason or another are slept on. Basically, admissions-wise, they aren't as competitive as they should be or the department isn't balanced (like most programs outside the top 20-30). At the same time, it could be used as a good compilation of information on what fields lower ranked schools are strong in. I tried to use the search function to find field rankings. There was one post attempting to make top 5 lists for every field but the same group of schools kept appearing in every field list. This is of course because the top schools are good in everything but not every applicant is applying to top 10 or 20 programs. Also when people ask about field rankings, they are usually given links to the Grijalva and Nowell paper which is a few years old now (and also suffers somewhat from the same flaw that the previously mentioned thread had) or the econphd rankings which is even older. The thread title is misleading because I don't think a ranking should be created, rather just a list of programs that applicants have come across that are much stronger in a certain field than others. We can also include programs that are highly ranked but receive less applicants than other top schools (what the poster Nanashi called the "location effect" in a few other threads) Wow, sorry about the long post, and I hope everyone understands what I'm saying