<p>I've been searching around and it seems like Yale is just a tad bit "worse" at Econ than Harvard, Princeton, UChicago, etc. This is true, right? But the main thing I wanted to ask was how does learning Econ differ from school to school? Like, what does "liberal" teaching mean (I think I read that somewhere)? For example, compare Ivies (Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Columbia, etc) with other colleges (Duke, UChicago, Berkely, Michigan, Stanford, whatever). I kind of doubt that the teachers at Yale Econ are worse at teaching than Princeton or Harvard. True, Harvard and Princeton seem to have all the Econ Nobel Prize winners, but I think the teaching is probably similar, right? Aren't rankings for how "good" a school is at econ based off of how the students do in the future? So wouldn't the quality of education be similar, for example, in Yale and Princeton? I'm just curious...And by the way is learning Economics fun in college? Sorry a little off topic! But Econ seems interesting (the subject, job prospects, etc). Is it interesting/stimulating/fun to learn though? I think high school Econ is mostly consumer Econ and at college it is much different. Sorry for so many questions in one post; please answer whatever you can! Lol</p>
<p>Differences in rankings are relevant at the graduate level when you’ll be deeply specializing in some aspect of economics. At the undergrad level, the teaching is mostly the same at all the top schools. I’ve taken a few econ courses here and have had excellent experiences. All my friends who are econ majors are very happy and are going to be doing whatever they want to (wall street, grad school, etc). I think it’s fun and way more mathy than high school econ, but to each his own. I think economics at Wharton is very different from the rest because you take way more finance courses, but at all the other schools you mentioned, econ will be essentially the same. As far as “star faculty” go, Yale has it’s fair share in econ, and I’ve actually taken a class with Shiller and even spoken to him one on one about finance, and there are a lot of other studs here that I don’t know (Garten, Roach, Gorton, Altonji, etc). </p>
<p>If you’re choosing between those places, focus on student life and how you feel there because the quality of education is very, very high. Good luck!</p>
<p>While it is true that the Yale Economics Department generally gets ranked just below a top set, it is still a really strong Economics department, and Economics tends to be a subject matter that many universities and colleges cover well (in large part because it is popular with students). It is really unlikely that, as an undergraduate, you would ever notice or care about the factors that give, say, Princeton a slight advantage over Yale in graduate-level rankings. And I have a strong impression that within Economics there is more uniformity in people’s views about what undergraduates should learn than there is in many other fields, which tends to make differences between institutions a lot less important.</p>
<p>A couple things to look at which may distinguish one college’s program from another:</p>
<p>How math-focused is it? At Chicago, for instance, the answer is “very”, and in fact a decent chunk of would-be Econ majors are counseled into a “Math with concentration in Economics” major. That said, I think everywhere effectively offers a math-heavy track and a math-light track, so the difference is really in how many students choose each.</p>
<p>How big is the department, both at the undergraduate level and the graduate level. Harvard and Chicago both have legions of Economics grad students. That makes for a vibrant, strong department, but also diverts faculty attention from undergraduates. And in both of those places Economics is a top undergraduate major as well. So there are lots of people to talk to, but you have to be comfortable in a crowd. (Economics is a big major at all of these schools. But there are about twice as many Econ majors at Chicago than there are at Princeton or Yale, with the same overall class size.)</p>
<p>How flexible is it? Some Economics departments don’t play well with others, aren’t open to interdisciplinary things. Some encourage that. “Interdisciplinary” sounds like an unmitigated good thing, but if you think about it you will realize that it’s not clear what the right approach is, and most students will probably benefit from being focused primarily on one field. Anyway, this is a legitimate point of differentiation. Also look at how extensive the requirements are, and how much space you will have to explore other interests.</p>
<p>Is there a mandatory senior capstone project? If not, how many students do an honors these? Princeton, for example, has a mandatory thesis.</p>
<p>As someone has said already, if you wind up having a choice among any of these schools, it’s a tremendous luxury, and you really can’t make a bad decision. But if you DO wind up having the luxury of choice, there are some actual differences to think about.</p>
<p>JHS is spot on. Great insight. Really, any of these universities would be terrific for undergraduate economics. If you are seeking a Ph D down the road, then yes, there are rankings for that. Columbia’s got its share of Nobel Laureates in that regard.</p>