<p>Proudpatriot:
Aside from Columbia and Case(I’m biased), none of these schools are worth raving about.
My biggest qualm with the economics department here at Case is the lack of depth in the coursework. After taking their core courses, Econ students can select ~5 elective courses from a wide variety of subjects. While it is certainly nice to have such wide variety in the coursework, students can’t really focus in on a particular subject. For example: If I wanted to work more on developmental economics, I can only take one course on the subject before running out of course offerings in that field.
Another issue I have is the lack of math involved. Economics by nature can be math intensive, especially in graduate school. But Case’s program requires students to take only two semesters of intro calc and one semester of intro statistics. This is nothing compared to the amount of math/statistics other universities require their econ statistics to take.
Both of these reasons are big contributing factors to the lack of graduate school placement for econ majors. For your son though, he might have a better shot getting in given his quant background. For everyone else choosing to study economics at Case, I definitely recommend getting at least a math minor.
As far as job placement goes, unless you have done exceptionally well academically, you will have difficulty getting a good job.</p>