<p>agreed. this thread should die out with the other ones that harp on USNWR rankings.</p>
<p>Quaker, I never said that I was mistaken. I merely said that RenMan was right in that he never mentioned prestige. That in no way means that I am wrong, as I saw the same logic you did. =]</p>
<p>you guys are driving me crazy! I hope this will be very clear:</p>
<p>I AM NOT, IN ANY WAY, INTERESTED IN DISCUSSING RANKING, PRESTIGE OR ANY SYNONYM OF THOSE WORDS!</p>
<p>when is said reputation I was talking about reputation of acedemic quality that IS NOT reflected in USNWR rankings.</p>
<p>can you all please stop ragging on me and help me learn more about Penn's ACEDEMIC quality. i agree with sweetnsarah point, although it does not affect me, and quaker10, when I mentioned Wharton I was asking for opinions on if it inflated the precieved academic qualtiy of Penn as a whole.</p>
<p>Again, this thread is about ACADEMIC QUALITY</p>
<p>Now, any details on the diffrences in the econ departments between Penn, Brown, Duke, WashU, Columbia, Stanford, etc.?</p>
<p>Well, it's kind of tough to compare academic quality without actually attending all of those schools. Different schools have different programs - depending on the individual, one school's program might be better than another.</p>
<p>Why isn't The University of Chicago on your list? I believe they have had several Nobel Laureates in Economics.</p>
<p>heres some interesting econimcs program ranking (not USNWR meaningless ranking BTW). any thoughts?</p>
<p><a href="http://www.uoguelph.ca/%7Etstengos/eearank93.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.uoguelph.ca/~tstengos/eearank93.pdf</a>
<a href="http://www.econphd.net/rankings.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.econphd.net/rankings.htm</a></p>
<p>found them at this thread
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=184292&page=6&pp=15%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=184292&page=6&pp=15</a></p>
<p>So we're back to rankings? LOL!</p>
<p>Lol. Rankings...</p>
<p>To answer your question, "academic quality" is impossible to gauge because there are 1) so many factors and 2) you would have to have attended multiple institutions to compare. I'm not sure what you're looking for in "academic quality."</p>
<p>By Faculty reputation in economics, Penn outranks Brown, Duke, WashU, and Columbia. Of course, others would argue that on the undergrad level, phd and faculty measures are bogus. Even then, based on undergrad, Penn is one of the most selective schools in the country, so the quality of the student body is very high.</p>
<p>From what I have noticed, a lot of times at the undergraduate level research and quality of teaching can be diamertically opposite. Some professors are absolute geniuses but quite crappy teachers, and others are doing average research but are amazing teachers. In short, any ranking of research is quite irrelevant when it comes to teaching quality.</p>
<p>However, onto your actual question. How is the economics department? I am an economics major, and have taken both all the introductory classes as well as some upper level classes. The teaching quality has over all been very good, and the intro classes prepared me very well for higher level coursework. One upper level undergraduate class I took was taught by a nobel laurate, both a good researcher and a good teacher.</p>
<p>Also, as as soon as someone starts talking about the rankins, USNWR or otherwise, prestige is an aspect. Just by bringing in the rankings saying that you doubt the college based on others' perceived notion that it is not worth its rank you also bring in prestige.</p>
<p>thanks for responding snipanlol,</p>
<p>can you tell me more about your experience at penn, stuff like class size, amount of work, intelligence of your peers, or anything else to help me get to know penn?</p>
<p>Well, introductory economics classes are of course huge - as they are everywhere. You do however have smaller sections with a teaching assistant.</p>
<p>However, as soon as you are out of the introductory micro and macro classes things change dramatically. Classes drop to around 20 people even on the intermediate level, and the only task of the TA is to grade homework and exams. In my industrial organization class we were around fifteen people and had Lawrence Klein co-teach it. </p>
<p>As for amount of work, economics is interesting in that it requires a special mode of thinking. If you begin to understand that mode of thinking, it will not require obscene amount of work to get good grades. If you don't manage to learn that mode of thinking, you will have problems. Most people get it with some work, but for some it proves hard to grasp the certain form of logics that is required.</p>
<p>As for the intelligence of my peers, it is great. The introductory courses are curved and the competition for the top grades can be fierce. But the positive aspect of that is that the classroom discussions in the higher level courses are amazing and carried out with the basis of a really good understanding of economics.</p>
<p>Agreed - what makes the college special is the people that you're surrounded by. Whether you're in Wharton or you're in the college, your classmates will be exceptional.</p>
<p>As for the Economics department, I just finished taking Macro this semester. Our teacher, Professor Eudey, was great. It's a tough class, but she made the material really clear. She also wrote the textbook that we used for the class; initially, I was annoyed because I thought it was just taking advantage to sell more copies of the book. When I saw that it was one of the most clearly-written books I've ever used, full of examples and practice questions with answers, I felt bad for being angry earlier. Before coming to Penn, she reported directly to Alan Greenspan (the only bad part is that she kept on reminding us about it to make sure we knew how great she was =) )</p>
<p>I'd also recommend taking a Ben Franklin Seminar for econ, which is like an honors class. You can request permission from the professor even if you're not actually a Ben Franklin scholar, and they'll almost always give you the approval. I was with nine other kids, and the class really was more like a conversation than a lecture. If someone asked a question, our teacher was willing to go on a tangent for a little bit to really explore. We were also able to go into the math that prroved the theories we were learning, using calculus and stats. </p>
<p>After taking econ, I hope that I'll be able to take a few more classes in the department as electives. It's different than Wharton because it gives you a much more theoretical view, which can definitely compliment the practical applications side. </p>
<p>Econ definitely isn't an "easy major" - towards higher classes, I've heard it gets a lot more numbers-based. You also need to take up through multivariable calculus for the major. </p>
<p>See if you like Penn overall. If you do, I'm positive that you'll be happy with the education you receive.</p>
<p>thanks for the info. Penn really sounds great and I'm glad to hear the econ department is top notch. but is there anything you dont love or would change about Penn?</p>
<p>eighteenforluck- macroeconomics was tough?Thats definitely surprising.</p>
<p>I think you should pursue a dual degree in business (Wharton) and a liberal art major (english, history, etc). Penn does have a strong history program and has one of the best archaeological museums in the nation.</p>