Best undergraduate economics program

<p>dont understand why people link PhDs to where you do your undergraduate degree... it should be related to grad-school not undergraduate...</p>

<p>Having Ph.D. rankings are better than none for liberal arts subjects. And most of the time, Ph.D. programs "trickle down" to the undergraduate programs. Remember that your TAs are Ph.D. students, and many of your professors will teach graduate-level courses in addition to undergraduate. It's not a perfect measurement, but a pretty decent indicator nonetheless. I think there's definitely a correlation.</p>

<p>^ Quite right.</p>

<p>redhare317,</p>

<p>Yes, but keep in mind that good researchers aren't always good teachers. Let's be fair here: undergrads don't need people who are doing the most original research. They need people who can teach the basics. Even at the graduate level, I often get frustrated with professors who can't explain the basics.</p>

<p>i dont know why everyone is insulting Dartmouth by not including them in any of the groups/categories...from what i can tell, Dartmouth's program is not only rigorous and competitive with reknowned professors, with a small student to teacher ratio, but is also highly recruited from Banks. Right???any comments</p>

<p>Dartmouth is definitely a target school. People forgot to put certain schools in groups. It's not necessarily intentional.</p>

<p>UCLAri, I agree with you. Some of the most brilliant professors might have the worst communication/teaching skills. But like I said, if there are no undergraduate rankings for liberal arts subjects, I think looking at Ph.D. rankings should help out a bit. It won't be that much different. Look at the economics Ph.D. rankings. UChicago and MIT at the top, closely followed by all of the ivy league. Chemistry: Berkeley at the top. Wouldn't you say that it's realistic enough to say the same for undergraduate programs? I think so. Rankings are flawed, but they are useful to a certain degree.</p>

<p>Sure, there's definitely a strength to rankings. But I do feel that we shouldn't overlook less highly ranked programs (for econ) like Dartmouth, Brown, Duke, etc.</p>

<p>Rubin, Dartmouth has a great Econ program. The reason many are not including it in their ranking is because it is a small department. However, if you look at my posts #14 and #23, you can definitely see that Dartmouth Econ gets a lot of respect. My personal favorite though is post #63.</p>

<p>I heard University of Bridgeport has a ridiculous econ program. Watch out though...it's really rigorous and hard to get into.</p>

<p>I'm not too sure about that. The only thing I ever heard about Bridgeport is their degree in martial arts studies. Given that their SAT average is 800-900, I highly doubt they have a "ridiculous" econ program.</p>

<p>i heard, for a community college, nassau CC has a great econ program and that they've sent 40% of graduates into i-banking, where 20% were making 100k in their first year out of college....i also heard arkansas pinebluff has some of the best i-bankers in the nation</p>

<p>Is the drop-off between UC Berkeley and UCLA that severe?</p>

<p>What about the Environmental Econmics and Policy major at Berkeley, is that program as well-respected as a straight-up econ major?</p>

<p>Thanks.</p>

<p>No, the dropoff is not that severe. </p>

<p>Don't worry so much about majors, rankings, etc. It really means very little in the long-run.</p>

<p>what about harvard econ v. princeton econ for someone who wants to go into business?</p>

<p>Just base that decision on fit. There's going to be almost ZERO difference.</p>

<p>curiously, how is the duke program?</p>

<p>Duke has a good economics department. Very good undergrad program, as well.</p>

<p>which program econ program is better, duke or dartmouth and which school ahs more prestige???</p>

<p>Dartmouth and Duke have roughly similar quality Econ departments and both are equally prestigious.</p>

<p>Joshua, as much as I love Michigan, and as good as it is in Econ (definitely top 15, arguably top 10), I would not put it on the same level as Northwestern, Penn or Yale in Economics...not yet anyway. Those three are definitely top 10 Econ programs. Columbia is also red hot right now. The good news for Michigan is that they have hired some future leaders in the field of Economics over the last 4 or 5 years and that should pay handsome dividends in the near future.</p>