Top US Universities for undergraduate Economics - Page 3

RML · 11-05-2009, 10:40 AM

^ Thanks for the correction, UCBChemEGrad. The idea is, top students at California apply to Berkeley as Berkeley accepts only the top students of California. The same goes for Cambridge where most top students in the UK apply to Cambridge. However, there is no clear record that those students at Cambridge are more talented than those at Berkeley. I, for one, wasn't accepted at Berkeley when I applied there a decade ago, but was accepted at some fine US private schools including 3 ivy league schools (Columbia, Cornell and UPenn). So, for Berkeley's standard, I'm not good enough. But I was good enough for some pretty fine private schools which kwu has deemed more prestigious institutions.

cbreeze · 11-05-2009, 12:54 PM

Quote:

^how broad? to the point that "business" and "economics" are interchangable? IMO, wharton just uses a wrong title, perhaps because Penn tries to fit in the rest of the Ivy that have always shunned the business major.

Wharton has been giving out economics degree since 1881. You can speculate all you want about "business" and "economics" but the term economics were more widely used at the time for all things related to commerce. Thus, there was no "business" degree then.

cbreeze · 11-05-2009, 01:48 PM

Are you a Wharton reject?

Sam Lee · 11-05-2009, 01:49 PM

^Time has not changed? Are we still in 1881? Should we call accountants and CPAs economists also? After all, I bet many of them have taken at least 2 econ classes. How about calling all the MBAs (and BBAs for that matter) economists? You can argue all you want; nobody in the right mind would expect an "economics" major has only 2 intro economics classes. Even a minor/certificate would require more than that. The OP was clearly asking for REAL economics program--the kind of program for which students take intermediate macro, econometrics, and upper-level economics classes or the one that's in Penn's CAS. Thanks for inserting your beloved Wharton and its irrelevant program in the middle of this discussion.

cbreeze · 11-05-2009, 02:06 PM

Wharton has 2 required econ courses, and most students take upper economics courses from CAS to fulfill upper level requirements.

Quote:

Should we call accountants and CPAs economists also? After all, I bet many of them have taken at least 2 econ classes

How do you know what the OP is not interested in finding out about Wharton's economics degree?
You are here merely to be argumentative and not adding any value to this thread.

Sam Lee · 11-05-2009, 02:38 PM

Quote:

Wharton has 2 required econ courses, and most students take upper economics courses from CAS to fulfill upper level requirements.

Upper level requirements can be anything from real estate, marketing, to accounting, depending on the specific concentrations student pick, just like many undergraduate business programs out there. "Economics" is *not* among one of the concentrations listed (which adds more irony to it). I doubt your claim has any basis.

Quote:

How do you know what the OP is not interested in finding out about Wharton's economics degree?
You are here merely to be argumentative and not adding any value to this thread.

Speaking of argumentative, you were the one who disputed kwu's assessment and USN ranking when obviously the ranking pertains to economics in Penn's CAS. You were the one who tried to put Wharton's "economics" in the same sentence as HYPSM/Chicago/Berkeley/Northwestern ECONOMICS when it's a completely different animal:

Quote:

Business at Wharton or Econ in a liberal arts program?
It is often confusing to compare programs across schools. We get this question all the time. Although we offer a B.S. in Economics, studying business at Wharton and studying economics in a liberal arts program are very different, in both the curriculum and the teaching and learning methods. (from Wharton's website)

If you want to offer an alternative to the OP, fine. But don't try to go so overboard in pushing for your school and say it's "economics" is better.

collegehelp · 11-05-2009, 04:31 PM

Gourman Report undergrad economics ranking:

Gourman Report undergrad
MIT
Chicago
Stanford
Princeton
Harvard
Yale
U Minnesota
U Penn
U Wisc Madison
UC Berkeley
Northwestern
U Rochester
Columbia
UCLA
U Michigan Ann Arbor
Johns Hopkins
Carnegie Mellon
Brown
UC San Diego
Duke
Cornell
NYU
UVA
UC Davis
U Washington
U Maryland College Park
Michigan State
UNC Chapel Hill
U Illinois Urbana Champaign
Texas A&M
Boston U
Washington U St Louis
Purdue West Lafayette
USC
U Texas Austin
Vanderbilt
Ohio State
Iowa State
SUNY Stony Brook
U Iowa
U Mass Amherst
UC Santa Barbara
U Pittsburgh
Virginia Tech
Claremont McKenna
Rutgers New Brunswick

Rugg's Recommendations economics

American U. (DC) …….
Amherst (MA) …..
Babson (MA) …..
Barnard (NY) ……
Bates (ME) ……..
Boston University (MA) ….
Bowdoin (ME) …….
Brandeis (MA) ……_
Bryn Mawr (PA) …..,
Bucknell (PA) ……..
California, U. of (Los Angeles) ….,
California, U. of (San Diego) ….,
Chicago, U. of (ll) …….
Claremont McKenna (CA)….
Colby (ME) ……..
Columbia (NY) …
Connecticut College…..
Cornell (NY) ……….
Dallas, U. of (TX) …….,
Dartmouth (NH) …
DePauw (IN) …,….,
Duke (NC) ……..
Georgetown (DC) ….
Georgia Inst. Of Tech. ….
Grinnell (IA) ……….
Hamilton (NY) …
Harvard (MA) ….
Haverford (PA) ……
Holy Cross (MA) …….
Kalamazoo (MI) ..,
Kenyon (OH) …….
Lafayette (PA) …….
Macalester (MN) …..,
Michigan, U. of ‘”
MIT (MA) ……….
Middlebury (Vf) ……
Mount Holyoke (MA) ….
Northwestern (IL) …
Occidental (CA) ……,
Pennsylvania, U. of ……
Pomona (CA) ……….
Princeton (NJ) …..,
Rhodes (TN) …….._
Rochester, U. of (NY) .
Rose-Hulman (IN) …..,..,
Smith (Mass)…..

St. Mary’s Coll of Maryland…..
St. Olaf (MN) …..,……
South, U. of the (TN) ….,
Southwestern (TX) …
Stanford (CA) ……
Swarthmore (PA) .
Trinity (CT) ……
Trinity (TX) ….
Vanderbilt (TN)..
Villanova (PA) …
Virginia, U. of …._
Wabash (IN) …..
Wake Forest (NC) …..
Washington & Lee (VA) ….
Wellesley (MA) …….
Wesleyan (CT) ….,.
Whitman (WA) ..
Willamette (OR) ……..
Williams (MA) ……
Yale (CT) ……….

cbreeze · 11-05-2009, 06:43 PM

Your posts are confusing. What are you trying to say?

Quote:

Upper level requirements can be anything from real estate, marketing, to accounting, depending on the specific concentrations student pick, just like many undergraduate business programs out there. "Economics" is *not* among one of the concentrations listed (which adds more irony to it).

This entirely contradicts your following statement

Quote:

^how broad? to the point that "business" and "economics" are interchangable?

If the degree is in itself an economics degree, why in the world should you have an economics concentration.?

You want Wharton to change its degree its economics degree to "business" to suit changing times ?

How many students do you know who hold economics degrees call themselves economists?

Sam Lee · 11-06-2009, 12:42 AM

Quote:

If the degree is in itself an economics degree, why in the world should you have an economics concentration.?

It means none of the Wharton's specializations/concentrations requires any upper econ courses from CAS. Your claim that "most students take upper economics courses from CAS to fulfill upper level requirements" has no basis. I doubt they have the pre-reqs to do that even if they want to anyway. It seems like you were not truthful here.

Let me try it one more time using Wharton's website again:

Quote:

At Wharton, you have a great amount of breadth and depth within your business courses.... Your business classes are in subjects such as management, finance, marketing, statistics, business & public policy, accounting, and legal studies & business ethics. Your area of specialty might be in any of these areas, or others such as real estate, entrepreneurship, health care systems, retailing, or environmental policy & management.

Did you see the word "economics"? On the other hand,

Quote:

If you are enrolled at a liberal arts institution and major in economics, you will probably take 8-12 courses in economics, mostly focusing on economic theories, history, and modeling. Most liberal arts schools do not offer classes in areas like finance, marketing, or other business disciplines.

Wharton's "economics" program is very much like most other undergrad business programs. According to your view, they could all be called "economics programs". USN, Ruggs, Gourman should all include those business schools then.

But what you were doing is like saying Stanford's biology is stronger than UCSD's BME and comparing apples to oranges.

Northwestern has a top-5 (graduate ranking) industrial engineering and management sciences program; one can argue it's more "business-like" than many economics programs out there. But I don't go around business threads and start saying it's better than, say, McCombs.

RML · 11-06-2009, 04:53 AM

cbreeze,

I did look into this just now and I have to agree with Sam Lee on this one.

tk21769 · 11-06-2009, 08:33 AM

The OP's question was,
"Can anyone list the top 10 universities for economics in the US?"

Certainly you can tie this question into issues like overall prestige, recruiting, career prospects, etc. We can talk about whatever we like. But it seems to me, the original question can be approached more straightforwardly if you focus on identifying the schools that provide the best education in the field of economics as an academic discipline. Where does the OP go with that in life? That's up to him/her.

Econ is a bread-and-butter major. There must be 50 or 100 or more schools that can do a pretty good job of teaching you the basic concepts. There are far fewer schools that are advancing the state of the art, schools where you can be taught by people who are exploring deep, fundamental questions about the economy, how we measure and analyze economic performance, etc. You have a new approach like behavioral economics coming into focus in recent years; it has the potential to fundamentally change the field. Very few universities are engaged in that level of innovation. If you wanna be part of that, the usual suspects would include MIT, Harvard, Berkeley, Chicago, maybe a few others. That ain't happening at Georgetown, and probably not at Wharton either, no matter how prestigious those places may be or how good the campus recruiting. Look for schools that have had Clark medalists and Nobels in econ on the faculty, in combination with small classes and an otherwise good learning environment for undergraduates.

If however you are not interested in economics scholarship at that level of excellence, then you aren't really interested in "top 10 universities for economics". Just look at the overall USNWR or any other holistic rankings that strike your fancy.

IBclass06 · 11-06-2009, 01:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tk21769

Where does the OP go with that in life?

IBanking, presumably. That was discussed in an earlier post.

It was also discussed that quality of economics program =/= IB recruitment. Chicago is a leader in economics, but it does not get recruited like Wharton and Dartmouth do.

tk21769 · 11-06-2009, 01:47 PM

O.K., then maybe Wharton or Dartmouth is the answer. But why get all torqued up about these "prestige" issues?

IBclass06 · 11-06-2009, 01:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tk21769

But why get all torqued up about these "prestige" issues?

CC without endless prestige debates would be like sitcoms without laugh tracks. A great deal quieter and perhaps better off, but a very different thing indeed.

sakky · 11-06-2009, 08:48 PM

Quote:

Keep in mind that IB recruiting is only loosely connected with the strength of the business or economics program at a given university.

Although one could argue endlessly over the precise groupings, it generally goes something like this...

Tier 1: Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, Wharton

Tier 2: Columbia, Dartmouth, Duke, Penn, Yale

Tier 3: Brown, Chicago, Cornell, Georgetown, Michigan Ross, Northwestern, NYU Stern, UCB Haas, UVA

Tier 4: CMU, Rice, UCLA, others

When it comes to Ibanking recruiting, I have to believe that MIT is at least as good as, say, Georgetown.