<p>I came to you guys when I was a high school student looking for undergraduate schools. You helped me pick a perfect fit: University of Pennsylvania. Now I'm looking for a graduate program in Economics.
I'm looking for a school that:
1) Is on the east coast
2) Offers financial aid
3) Allows graduate students to perform sufficient research and TA positions
4) Is ranked high (>top 25)
5) Offers programs in both microeconomics (specifically game theory) and macroeconomics</p>
<p>I'm currently a rising junior in Chemical Engineering and Economics. My GPA is around a 3.5 but it is closer to a 3.8 if you take out first semester freshman year. It is also about a 3.8 if you only rate my math and economics classes. As an engineer, physics and organic chemistry are GPA killers. </p>
<p>I'd appreciate any advice you can give me to help prepare me for admission to a good graduate school. Thanks!</p>
<p>It seems like your knowledge of graduate economics programs, Ph.D. in particular, is limited. Are you looking at masters or Ph.D.? Any doctoral program requires research (that’s what a dissertation is) and most require you to work as an RA or TA. Most doctoral programs fund for at least the final three years, and many will fund all years. And unless it’s a school like Caltech, almost all departments have programs in micro and macro, among other things.</p>
<p>To make it into a top 25 program, you’re going to need economics research experience, a strong math background (multivariable calculus, linear algebra, diff eq, probability, statistics, real analysis is probably the minimum), and letters from economists who can speak to your abilities as a potential researcher. Top programs are extremely competitive, and the factors I listed above are minimum requirements just to be considered.</p>
<p>If you are at U penn, ask your professors. They are the best resource for you!
Generally for Econ program,
Math/Econ GPA, Math courses are important part of your record.
Graduate Econ is all about math math math math math.
For top schools, you probably need to do Real Analysis and if possible, take Grad Micro course too.
For econ, the classes they care are inter econs and econometrics.
Take relatively easy econ electives and use them as your GPA boosters.
One of my letter writer who is well known told me that they can teach you the econ but they cannot teach you the math because it takes time.</p>
<p>Also, any quant you do in your engineering classes won’t suffice (this coming from someone who was an engineering major before going math/econ). You’ll be doing a lot of computations in engineering, but will be lacking a lot of pure maths involved (analysis, stochastic, etc.), so make sure you take those courses.</p>
<p>I endorse the idea to take grad/doctoral courses in Econ. I took the first 2/3 graduate Microecon courses at my school, and it gave me a much better understanding of what is expected of me in my Ph.D. It’s a world of a difference between undergraduate and graduate level economics.</p>
<p>Like Yanks said, pretty much all schools are research-intensive, have TA/RA ops, have at least funding post-coursework, and are all tough. Many economics students fail out because they didn’t have adequate preparation in math during undergrad; many others fail out because they don’t know what academic economics research is about. You have to go into applications for Econ with as much quality information about what you’re getting yourself into, or else you may be in over your head.</p>