UGA, Clemson, UTK, waiting to hear from UF
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deferred Miami EA or did not apply?
Applied but they havenât announced yet EA decisions I believe. The value proposition wonât be there if she gets in, compared to UGA honors though, weâll see
sounds like you made lots of smart decisions. note Miami sometimes comes in with big merit for the better students.
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Thanks, we overdid it I feel with the number of applications but these forums scared me with all the talk about uncertainty and randomness, lol
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Better to do too many than not enough - until you have too many offers and the student canât decide !!
It will all work out.
Do they have a major in mind yet ?
Have they visited all these yet ?
If so, and budget isnât an issue, theyâll be able to cull quickly. If budget is an issue, theyâll be able to cull quickly.
So itâll work out fine !!
How many total apps ??
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12 total apps, havenât visited all yet. Economics or finance major, definitely not STEM.
Iâll post when we hear from the FL schools and the others
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Good luck. Itâs been said many times that Econ and Finance are very different.
From my Freshman Dâs perspective who just took an Econ class her first semester:
âI had no idea what was going on and didnt understand it other than drawing a bunch of graphsâ. She got an A in the class but sheâs very happy she didnt choose a school that only offered Econ and not Business.
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Not too many :). Good luck.
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Definitely agree, she likes Econ because of the psychology/behavioral aspect but finance has a bit of that too. Econ can be too theoretical
Once she takes a solid macro sequence she may change her mind. Itâs much more analytical/math (with moderate psychology, i.e. âwhat will the Fed doâ) and not that much theory. And fantastic opportunities down the road.
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Most of the schools she applied to have two different tracks for Econ majors, one more quantitative than the other, so she would be able to choose. Definitely agree about the options down the road, itâs a major that provides a solid foundation.
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These analyses may be helpful for a student deciding on a college for the study of economics:
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Good stuff!
#28 Vandy
#29 UT Austin (only TX top 50)
#49 Tufts
Didnât see Wake or Miami. Do the top liberal arts Econ departments provide better education (and opportunities) than top research universities?
A nephew is at a top 75 Econ department and says the students are sharper than the business finance students. However, he didnât get admitted to the b-school.
That is a controversial topic, to put it mildly.
Without at all suggesting this is decisive, I think it can be worth looking at these PhD feeder lists:
Of course not all Econ kids would even want to go to a PhD program to begin with, but I do think if an Econ department sends a relatively high number of kids to PhD programs, it probably is at least among the colleges where you can get a good education and good opportunities if you do well enough.
OK, then there is totals on the left, per capita on the right. Research universities dominate the totals list, but then lots of LACs get on the per capita list. Of course some universities are also high on the per capita listâspoiler alert, Chicago, Harvard, Princeton, MIT, and so on do have good Econ departments, and kids who do really well in those departments will have lots of options.
But I think this evidence is suggesting that is ALSO true of Swarthmore, Williams, Pomona, Wellesley, Carleton, Davidson, and so on. Which is also not exactly shocking news.
Where I think this gets kinda interesting is the sorts of big public research universities that are high on the totals list, but nowhere on the per capita listâBerkeley, Michigan, Wisconsin, Maryland, and so on.
I definitely do NOT think this means they somehow give an inherently inferior education, or cannot launch great careers. I do think, though, at these large publics there may be a bit more competition to really distinguish yourself in your department, to get to know the top faculty, to get the best research opportunities, to get the best recommendations, and so on.
Which you should not necessarily be afraid of. But on the other hand, if you believe you are more likely to excel from the beginning in a more intimate departmentâI think that is worth seriously considering.
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Awesome stuff. Another thing is that many students in econ departments at Michigan, UT-Austin, UNC, Wake, SMU, etc. may primarily be there because they didnât get into the b-school. A friendâs kid at Michigan is in econ for that reasonâŠdidnât get into Ross. He has no desire to get a PhD in econ but is combining the major with other coursework to find a business type job, like consulting.
When I was at W&L our Econ majors went to investment banks as often as business majors. I donât remember any grad school students. Of course many later went on to get MBAs.
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As another, perhaps differing, opinion, a student who studies both economics and mathematics may accrue more substantive preparation for a career in finance than a student who majors in finance alone.
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Note that Miamiâs department placed 75th in the analysis.
Iâd encountered a study several years ago that concluded this may be the case, as shown by separate cohorts of students who had graduated from universities or colleges when followed through their PhD programs in economics.
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Yes, this gets very complicated because you have colleges where there is no undergrad business program at all, and yet lots of kids go into business, and then colleges where there is an undergrad business program, but it has its own admissions so some kids wanting to go into business might be in another program anyway, and then finally the colleges where you can freely choose business programs but some of the kids interested in business careers choose other majors anyway for a variety of reasons.
And all sorts of other possible nuances. And then how this all intersects with who ends up being an Econ major in light of their possible career goalsâvery complicated.
As a final thought, if you actually compare the total number of Econ PhDs to the total number of Econ graduating majors, then even at the highest per capita programs, you are usually just looking at a fraction of the majors. Meaning even at a Chicago or whatever, most of the Econ kids are NOT going on to PhDs.
So even though I offered them up for consideration, I think it is absolutely right no one should take these PhD feeder rankings too precisely or exclusively or anything like that.
What I do think, though, is they are useful inclusively, meaning at least most of the colleges that do well by this sort of measure do in fact have good undergrad Econ programs. Exactly how to compare them, thoughâtricky, tricky business.
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