| Economics office hours are easy to get into at Chicago, particularly as an undergraduate. In part it is because they are not very popular to begin with. You cannot show up and ramble about your economic opinions and expect the professor to listen. You do have to prove you are going to utilize the time well (and more often than not, you are being implicitly graded as far as the wiggle room at the end of the semester goes). However, despite the process being somewhat daunting, I had solid 15-45 minute conversations with Levitt, Becker, Fogel, and so on at various points in my UG career, and I would not consider this out of the ordinary. Junior professors will offer considerably more time – particularly if you join them at lunch. Most students address non-elementary technical issues that come up in journal articles or lectures. TA’s handle grading matters almost entirely and review of stock solutions.
However, I guess if you are looking to talk to a professor for like an hour about your work (why didn’t this compute?), then LAC’s might serve you far better presuming the faculty at the school in question are not overloaded. Same goes for non-graduate school related career advice like weighing various company offers or future professional education programs (e.g. MBA, CFA) – Chicago professors would often just direct you to look online. But as far as class size and breadth of offerings, Chicago does excellently vis-à-vis top tier LAC’s. |