degree of importance among admission criteria

[KKecon]

A few of my professors said that more-and-more grad programs in econ are looking for people with good computer skills. (Specifically programming.) These were younger professors as well. I'm sure it wouldn't make up for any deficiencies, but they said it helps a lot on the margin. Thought I'd share and see what people thought. (One professor even told me to take C programming over topology.)

 

Surely, one having good math background can help to imply that one has potential in computing? From what I know, computer scientists heavily rely on tools from Abstract Algebra to do research.

[yankeefan]

I think the 1st two pages of this thread is golden so it deserves a bump

[James Taylor]

Heres a question: when "Econ GPA" is discussed, is that strictly GPA in econ classes, or does it include any classes (including non econ) used toward an econ major? Econ GPA = Major GPA?

[yankeefan]

The only non-Econ classes that are usually required for an Econ major is Calculus I-II and a statistics classes, all of which get counted in the math GPA. So typically Econ GPA refers to econ only courses

[Nonsequitur]

 

Additionally, the reputation of an undergraduate econ program may be useful for students from PhD-granting institutions, but it means nothing for the students who come from smaller schools or LACs. (And there are quite a few of us; in that case, adcoms consider the school's overall reputation or the record of past PhD students.

 

Students from highly ranked LAC's are in a different kettle of fish, often overlooked on this forum. Their UG experience may bring some deficits to the applications table but they also bring some positives. There's *way* too much smug outlook from those receiving their UG from at Top 10/Top 30 uni with a strong Econ program.

[Nonsequitur]

As for what to do if you can't do everything, I'd say do whatever feels like it's the best for your long-run professional development and curiousity. Generally I feel people on this board place too much emphasis on surviving the first year and convincing admissions committee's they can survive the first year, and not enough on engaging in practices that will enable them to ultimately become successful researchers. I'm not suggesting that first year success is irrelevant to being a successful researcher, but I am saying that making choices solely along the dimension of admissions outcomes and first year benefits might be suboptimal behavior. There's generally little be gained about trying to discern the nuances of how schools make their decisions.

 

I'll "third" this. Often those on this board are so intent on "leaves" that they don't properly gauge "trees" let alone "forests."

[Nonsequitur]

I agree with everything Canuck said, with one exception.

I know many (myself included) who got into good schools without a single econometrics course. That said, every such person I know was a non-econ (math, engineering, physics, ...) major.

 

Yeppers.

[Humanomics]

I'll "third" this. Often those on this board are so intent on "leaves" that they don't properly gauge "trees" let alone "forests."

 

Fourth. It can go too far though. I've traded off math courses for my independent research and RA work on margins that have damaged my transcript some. That was a result of my risk loving preferences I suppose. We'll see if that pays off long-run in my pubs. For now I'll continue to j-walk into oncoming traffic.

[Nonsequitur]

Fourth. It can go too far though. I've traded off math courses for my independent research and RA work on margins that have damaged my transcript some. That was a result of my risk loving preferences I suppose. We'll see if that pays off long-run in my pubs. For now I'll continue to j-walk into oncoming traffic.

 

Fwiw, I wish you well. I think the world needs more "thoughtful contrarians" willing to swim against whatever the conventional wisdom of the moment is. It's from them that productive change is most likely to arise in the long run.

[Humanomics]

Fwiw, I wish you well. I think the world needs more "thoughtful contrarians" willing to swim against whatever the conventional wisdom of the moment is. It's from them that productive change is most likely to arise in the long run.

 

That really means a lot, thanks. Heterodox/behavioral scholarship is a lot like entrepreneurship. If someone told you tomorrow he was an entrepreneur -- your first thought would be, "Who is this Larry who thinks he's going to reinvent sliced bread and be a millionaire." And that attitude is statistically supported -- most entrepreneurs will egregiously misread market demands, invest in things for which they do not have human capital, over extend themselves and fail to keep the bathrooms clean, etc.

 

Similarly, scholars who try to do risky new things will misread market demands (their audience's language and intellectual currency), invest in things for which they do not have human capital (shirk traditional disciplinary training almost entirely), over extend themselves and fail to keep the bathrooms clean (make enormous causal leaps without attending to linking details).

 

So most of these people fail, miserably and embarrassingly. Statistically speaking, you bet -- most new ideas are garbage. But we limit scientific possibilities when we encourage an environment where scholars are so terrified to invent garbage which nobody wants, that they don't invent anything.

 

Economics is a strange place in that it relegates any amalgam of generally new or not-yet well represented ideas to their own subfields: heterodox and behavioral. What the hell is "behavioral finance?" A fancy name for new ideas in financial economics.