Economics-major, Introverted, picky - looking for intellectual safeties

College Search & Selection
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<p>John Siegfried and Wendy Stock authored a 2006 paper that identified colleges with the highest rates of economics PhD production, normalized by institution size and by economics program size (you can Google it by author names). I ran my own query against NSF data for economics PhDs earned in 2007-2011, adjusted for the total number of bachelors degrees awarded at each school in the preceding 5 years (2002-2006). Here are the resulting top 25:</p>

<p>Rank … College … Earned Econ PhDs 2007-11 … Earned Bachelors 2002-06… Rate</p>

<p>1 Williams College 23 2580 0.89%
2 Harvard University 75 8955 0.84%
3 Swarthmore College 14 1824 0.77%
4 University of Chicago 35 5129 0.68%
5 Princeton University 36 5598 0.64%
6 MIT 38 6011 0.63%
7 Wellesley College 17 2972 0.57%
8 Stanford University 47 8739 0.54%
9 Macalester College 11 2133 0.52%
10 Simon’s Rock 1 220 0.45%
11 CalTech 5 1165 0.43%
12 Centre College 5 1225 0.41%
13 Grinnell College 7 1744 0.40%
14 Randolph-Macon Woman’s College 3 774 0.39%
15 St John’s College (Annapolis) 2 515 0.39%
16 Wesleyan University 14 3649 0.38%
17 Randolph-Macon College 4 1137 0.35%
18 Reed College 5 1478 0.34%
19 Amherst College 7 2113 0.33%
20 Yale University 21 6628 0.32%
21 Lewis and Clark College 6 1914 0.31%
22 Northwestern Univ 30 10241 0.29%
23 Whitman College 5 1826 0.27%
24 Austin College 4 1511 0.26%
25 Bard College 4 1536 0.26%</p>

<p>source: <a href=“https://webcaspar.nsf.gov/[/url]”>https://webcaspar.nsf.gov/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>I would tend to discount some of these schools with very low absolute numbers unless they also have very high production rates in related fields or maintain the good results over a longer time frame.</p>

<p>The top 5 research universities in the list above also happen to be the top 5 in the USNWR economics graduate program ranking. The other 3 research universities in the list above also are in the top 15 of the USNWR graduate program ranking (which is based entirely on peer assessment surveys).</p>

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<p>On the Wisconsin question – UW has a very strong Econ dept, I recall top 10 or top 20, depending on what rankings you look at. While UW is known for being a party school (I should know, my son is there), it is entirely possible to go through UW on a different path. One can live in Lakeshore neighborhood, join academic clubs, get research funding as an undergrad to work with faculty etc. </p>

<p>The winters are long and cold – we are from the midwest, and my son reports Madison is colder, for longer, than he is used to. But, campus sits on a lake, with lots of blue sky, cold winter days. Not the brutal wind you get in Chicago, but certainly cold. </p>

<p>Madison is more manageable as a city – as the state capital, there is lots going on, but it is not a big city. </p>

<p>The application does include one or two essays, so there is some commitment involved in applying. With rolling admissions, if your app is in by Nov 1, you should hear by end of December – while many students are postponed until Jan-March cycle, the applicants with the highest statistics tend to be admitted during that first admission cycle. Financially, it doesn’t hurt that tuition is about $27,000 instead of the typical $43,000 or so for the private universities. </p>

<p>Good luck, it sounds like you have some solid safeties on your list.</p>

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<p>46% of Wisconsin classes have less than 20 students; 20% have 50 or more.
It’s a Big Ten school with 25 Division 1 intercollegiate sports.
This year, Playboy magazine named it the country’s number 2 party school.
9% of men are in fraternities, 8% of women are in sororities.
2/3 of undergraduates are from Wisconsin.
It has 43,000 students.</p>

<p>You can look up economics course enrollment sizes from the following page:
<a href=“https://portal.isispub.wisc.edu:7052/psp/public/EMPLOYEE/HRMS/c/COMMUNITY_ACCESS.CLASS_SEARCH.GBL[/url]”>https://portal.isispub.wisc.edu:7052/psp/public/EMPLOYEE/HRMS/c/COMMUNITY_ACCESS.CLASS_SEARCH.GBL&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>USNWR ranks its graduate economics department 13th.
For economics PhD production adjusted for institution size, according to my calculations from NRC data it ranks 147th (12 econ PhDs in 2007-11; 31,040 bachelors degrees granted in 2002-2006). Adjusted for program size, according to my calculations it ranks 130th (12 econ PhDs in 2007-11; 1,158 bachelors degrees in econ awarded in 2002-06.)</p>

<p>Other state universities in the USNWR top 25 economics graduate programs: Berkeley, Minnesota, UCLA, UCSD, Maryland. Minnesota or Maryland probably could be considered safeties for full-pay, OOS students with the OP’s stats.</p>

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<p>For what it is worth, I was responding to OP in #27 where she asked for comments about schools such as Michigan and UW. She had noted that size is not that important, as long as there is a way to create a smaller, more peaceful, intellectual experience within a big school. At UW, Honors in Letters & Science is open to all admitted students, by application, and is not a separate living/learning experience. My son is in Honors, and it gets him Honors discussion section with the prof at the intro level, rather than TA, plus scholarship/funding for research. </p>

<p>UW is roughly 60% instate, plus 15% Minnesota, and 25% other locations, drawing heavily from Chicago suburbs and east and west coasts. For a student looking for solid safeties, a school like UW or other major publics could work.</p>

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<p>Maryland’s economics department appears to emphasize math in economics. The intermediate microeconomics course (ECON 326) has math prerequisites of calculus 3 and linear algebra, or an economics course covering those math topics for application to economics (ECON 300).
[Economics</a> Major Requirements | Department of Economics, University of Maryland](<a href=“http://www.econ.umd.edu/undergraduate/overview/degree_requirements/major_requirements]Economics”>http://www.econ.umd.edu/undergraduate/overview/degree_requirements/major_requirements)</p>

<p>UCLA offers a math / economics major, but the economics courses do not appear to be especially math-intensive, except for a few topical electives (inequality, mathematical finance, probabilistic microeconomics), although graduate level courses are available.
[UCLA</a> General Catalog 2013-14: Economics Course Listings](<a href=“http://www.registrar.ucla.edu/catalog/catalog13-14-286.htm]UCLA”>http://www.registrar.ucla.edu/catalog/catalog13-14-286.htm)</p>

<p>Wisconsin is similar to UCLA in offering a math option to the economics major. It does offer a less math and more math version of intermediate microeconomics, but the more math version lists only calculus 2 as the math prerequisite.
[Requirements</a> for Completing the Major](<a href=“http://www.econ.wisc.edu/undergrad/Reqs%20for%20Major.html]Requirements”>http://www.econ.wisc.edu/undergrad/Reqs%20for%20Major.html)</p>

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<p>Given the limited math prerequisites in the economics courses, probably as much as at some other colleges.</p>

<p>Actually, it does seem surprising to me that many colleges’ economics departments do not integrate math that well into upper division economics courses. Granted, an economics department may want to keep enrollment up with math-fearing students using economics as a substitute business major, but it does seem odd to not even offer the option of math-intensive intermediate economics courses for students who are considering graduate study in economics. Perhaps the research universities may just be telling students to take graduate level economics courses if they are so interested, but that still leaves the question of why many of the LACs often appear not to have math-intensive upper division economics offerings.</p>

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<p>Thank you everyone for your wonderful suggestions :)</p>

<p>I have been researching public universities, and have so far considered the following:

  • University of California - Berkeley
  • University of Maryland - College Park
  • University of Wisconsin - Madison
  • University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
  • University of Minnesota - Twin Cities</p>

<p>The first two seem to have more math-focused intermediate economics courses, but all of them have pretty decent advanced quantitative offerings, so I think I should be alright at any of them. </p>

<p>Socially, almost all flagships seem to:

  1. Have a ton of parties and a large Greek presence,
  2. Rank very well in playboy’s list of party schools, yet
  3. They have very diverse social and extracurricular scenes so more serious and introverted students should be able to find their place.
  4. They also mostly seem to go by the “work hard, play hard” motto. </p>

<p>I know that students from all flagships (or for that matter all colleges, but certainly big state universities) drink and party, and am fine with that. I would just like to know where there would be more people like me - I usually hang out with a few very close friends; I also love research and volunteering. I would very much prefer it if others would not negatively judge me for who I am (e.g. “she’s that nerd who studies all the time”, in a contemptuous tone). </p>

<p>So, how should I differentiate the flagships? Offhand, which of them do you think would be best for me? What about publics not on the above list?</p>

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<p>Many of them would be realistic safety schools, but a few would be match schools with slightly cheaper sticker prices than the private alternatives. So if it’s an “intellectual safety” you want, strike the most selective state schools from that set. Among the remainder, many factors could differentiate them. One is cost. Another is the relative math-focus discussed above. Another one, which hasn’t been mentioned yet, is the availability of internship opportunities. This can be very important if you plan to work immediately after college. UMCP has advantages here due to its DC-area location (with opportunities to intern in government agencies, think tanks, or banking/finance).</p>

<p>You should be able to find your tribe at any large school, but you may need to develop a thicker skin for at least the year or two you’d be in a dorm at a big state school, if it bothers you to be around kids who are more interested in drinking and partying than you are. Even at some very selective schools, econ may attract many of the kinds of characters you’re trying to avoid.
[Economics</a>, the gut major | The Economist](<a href=“http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2007/01/economics_the_gut_major]Economics”>Economics, the gut major)</p>

<p>Have you considered majoring in math and minoring in econ? Also investigate substance-free dorms and honors college options. In some honors college programs, you live among the regular riff-raff. In others, they put you in a high tower surrounded by a moat and guarded by dragons.</p>

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<p>Large size likely has a lot to do with it in many cases. For example, Berkeley has a prominent fraternity/sorority row, but only 11% of undergraduates are in them, and they are easily ignored by those students who are not interested in them. However, the 11% in fraternities and sororities at Berkeley is still more students in fraternities and sororities than the entire student population at places like DePauw (where 70% of the students are in fraternities and sororities, which dominate the campus social life there).</p>

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<p>The large size also means that students who are somewhat outliers should be able to find their peer groups more easily. If you want to go to a small school, you need to be much more careful about the social fit of the school and students there, since outliers may end up being socially isolated. However, different large schools may have different size groups of intellectual versus party oriented students, so even at large schools, the size of your potential peer group may vary.</p>

<p>Percentage of students in fraternities and sororities may be worth considering in this respect (lower is likely better from your viewpoint). However, note that some schools with minimal or no fraternity and sorority presence may have organizations with somewhat similar functions (Harvard final clubs, Princeton eating clubs, etc.).</p>

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<p>True, there seem to be a lot of students studying economics as a substitute business major. Consider the sizes of the intermediate microeconomics courses at Berkeley, where the less math version is several times larger than the more math version.</p>

<p>However, at some of the most selective schools which only offer more math versions, the students may still party hard, since they may be intellectually capable of handling those courses and partying hard. Some of the most selective schools are heavily laden with pre-investment-banking rather than pre-PhD students, so the intellectual emphasis among the students may differ.</p>

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<p>All women dorms (or other housing or entire colleges) tend to be less rowdy than co-ed (or all men) versions, so that may be another option to consider.</p>

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<p>You might also want to consider “dry” campuses for your safeties, or schools that offer “substance-free dorms”.
I second the idea of women’s colleges, in larger metropolitan areas especially (Simmons, Mills, Agnes Scott…) since they tend to be less rowdy than other schools.
I think that a well-chosen smaller school (being picky about “fit”) is easier to handle than a very large school if one is not in the Honors Program. One big drawback for shy students at a large school is that they take longer to make friends and because everyone moves constantly, the nice kids you met at orientation may live accross campus and take zero class with you, so even if you wrote down their names and cell number it may be very difficult to arrange a meeting time say for lunch, and the large size of the school makes it harder to find them again. Same thing for large lecture halls, it’s much harder to speak up in front of 400 people than in the middle of 18 of them.
Look at the large universities’ honors program and see what benefits there are. It may be a way to distinguish between the different large schools that would be your safeties. Of particular importance for you if you are a little shy and not interested in getting wasted (and in the afferent vomit-soiled bathrooms), is the access to Honors Housing, be it Living-Learning communities or Honors Dorm(s)/Wing(s). Of course depending on the university the Honors Dorm may not be devoid of large, loud, drunken parties but it’d ensure those are kept to the weekends. Other criteria you may factor in when choosing your “large U safety”: Are there other benefits to the Honors Program (special Honors sections for the most common first year classes? cultural activities/trips? merit scholarships? special mentoring for national fellowships? study abroad program/stipend?..etc)</p>

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<p>When looking at big universities, try to get a feel for which ones have a reputation for students having a tough time registering for the classes that they want. Some school make this process very difficult and you are already quite advanced in many topics. You have the luxury of considering this before choosing your school with your scores.</p>

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<p>My point in mentioning Wisconsin was that 1) it should take you no more than 60 minutes to fill out and 2) if you apply in September, you will have your admission by October and then you are done with safeties. It will save you time. I don’t think that you will be attending your safety. You just have to have one. You don’t even have to write great essays, just answer the 2 short questions. A properly filled out application will get you admitted as soon as it hits the officer’s desk. There will be no “hollistic” evaluation of it. Your stats put you in the automatic pile. </p>

<p>While other schools like Minnesota also have easy applications, you won’t hear an answer as quickly. The point is to hear quickly so that you can check off the safety box.</p>

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<p>Given that the OP appears to have already taken all of the lower division math and economics courses, the giant lectures are unlikely to be much of an issue for math courses. For economics courses, if the school has more math and less math versions, the OP will presumably choose the more math versions, which will be smaller with more intellectually-inclined students than the less math versions that are filled with “economics as a substitute business major” students.</p>

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<p>I’m sorry for this late reply; I’ve been submitting final papers and preparing for end-years these few weeks. Still, I thank everyone for all your replies; they have been really helpful in allowing me to consider factors I had not thought of before. </p>

<p>Here is the updated list: </p>

<p>Harvard University
Princeton University
Cambridge University
London School of Economics and Political Science
University of Chicago
Swarthmore College
Barnard College of Columbia University
Wellesley College
Bryn Mawr College
Smith College
University of Texas - Austin
University of Wisconsin - Madison
Clark University</p>

<p>For Texas - I would like to apply to Plan II Honors, and would love it if I had a chance at the 40 Acres program there. Wisconsin and Clark are the solid safeties - they may not have exactly what I would like in a college, but they are still great schools that I would be willing, though not necessarily thrilled, to attend. </p>

<p>Any comments on the new list? Too long? Too short? Too many reach schools? Are my safeties really safe? (Are there safeties that could satisfy my criteria better? I am still not very contented with the lower end of the list.) Am I really competitive for the schools at top of my list? </p>

<p>(I realize I am being repetitive here; but I actually do worry quite a bit about being able to attend a good-fit college, and hope that more information about myself would allow for more and better advice to be given.) </p>

<p>As has already been established, I am a good, intellectual student. The academic system here is cut-throat. My school is technically more selective than Harvard, and I am top 10%. </p>

<p>BUT my school also practices grade deflation - I do have Bs as do tons from my school, and while we still get hundreds into Oxbridge and Ivies, I am also applying to places that do not know my school’s profile well - how would they view my comparatively low GPA? And while I consider my grades Freshman year where I had my worst episode of depression fine - top quartile or so with 3 B+s out of a rigorous 10-subject load - they certainly are not CC standard good. </p>

<p>I am also not an extraordinary person. I published a paper, initiated some projects in my community, won some national awards - but nothing other top applicants do not have. I play the piano and have an ABRSM Diploma, but never played at Carnegie Hall or anything. I cannot play sports because of my various chronic medical conditions that are not very well controlled. </p>

<p>I am a nice person - I have done what I have service-wise because I genuinely feel that as a society, we have let down these people, especially underprivileged children who are born so beautiful and good, yet almost without exception grow up to become delinquents and fail in the system. But you don’t get into college for being nice. </p>

<p>I grew up privileged. I feel very thankful and blessed, but at the same time I also feel stuck in this process. I feel that academically and socially I would fit in at many top schools; yet I have nothing special that would get me in. </p>

<p>So - do I need a safer list? How safe? Or are my worries unfounded? </p>

<p>Lastly, a question - my parents will pay for any college that is best for me, partially because they had once lived on meagre scholarships and do not want me to face the same. They will pay for medical, law etc. schools - I do not intend to take that route, but a lot can change in 4 years. I know I can count on them, and they can afford it, while still having sufficient for retirement and a decent home. Yet I know that among other things, they have always wanted to travel the world - a luxury I have had since I was young, but which they never had till their 40s. A nice house in a good neighborhood. But paying $300k or more for my education would be $300k less they can enjoy, and they would have to retire later. My parents are happy to do it. I feel I have been treated too well, and think that they deserve to enjoy more of the money they are earning - they are also helping with the extended family. As parents, do you think I should look at some schools with good merit?</p>

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<p>As a full-pay student, you could cut costs significantly just by choosing a less expensive OOS public school. I would not expect too many selective, private schools to offer the $20K or more it would take in merit aid to undercut Wisconsin. Maybe. But consider the University of Alabama if you want enough merit aid to get you significantly below Wisconsin’s ~$36K.</p>

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<p>I am aware that I will not qualify for FA at most privates on the list, because I had created the list without considering the cost of attendance. </p>

<p>My parents can afford any price, and they would be happy to pay - that seems like the end of the story, but I was wondering if it would be more responsible to look at schools with lower costs. I have never really worked nor handled such a large amount of money in my life and therefore do not have a very good perspective on the issue. While I understand that this is a personal decision, I would like comments from more mature adults/parents. I know that if I discuss the possibility of deliberately chasing merit aid with my parents, they will insist that there is no need. </p>

<p>I understand that if I decide to chase merit aid for schools (other than my top choices), I will have to review much of the list. I would not, however, have a target for COA - rather, I would simply like to save as much as possible for my parents without compromising significantly on the quality of the experience.</p>

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<p>No longer interested in Maryland or Minnesota?</p>

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<p>You may want to take a look at this post:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1503504-assessing-academic-rigor-2.html#post16446199[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1503504-assessing-academic-rigor-2.html#post16446199&lt;/a&gt;
and PM the poster (b@r!um) for more details (she was a math major, so her comments on Bryn Mawr may be relevant to you).</p>

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<p>Take a look at the Kiplinger’s tables to identify some good merit aid schools.
[Kiplinger’s</a> Best Values in Private Colleges-Kiplinger](<a href=“http://www.kiplinger.com/tool/college/T014-S001-kiplinger-s-best-values-in-private-colleges/index.php]Kiplinger’s”>http://www.kiplinger.com/tool/college/T014-S001-kiplinger-s-best-values-in-private-colleges/index.php)
You probably won’t get enough to make it cheaper than a state school, but if you can save your parents 10 or 15K a year, it might be worth considering. Especially if grad school is likely.</p>

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<p>I’m definitely still considering them, but I wanted to keep only one of Maryland, Minnesota or Wisconsin so that I could shorten the list. While all three appear to have good quantitative Economics, the large-state-school-type social scenes, and not the best Honors program (and appear almost similar to me in many ways!), I do have relatives in the Madison area - not very close to them since we’re at opposite sides of the world, but they’re still family that could help. </p>

<p>Berkeley and Michigan were also on a list that became 20 schools long, but I cut them because their selectivity appears similar to Barnard, Wellesley, etc., and I would prefer the LACs to the large state schools. </p>

<p>I have not ruled out the state schools though - do you think I should keep them in? </p>

<p>Meanwhile, I will take a look at the links and suggestions given :)</p>