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Hey guys, my parents recently gave me the greenlight to study overseas (I live in Singapore). My results are pretty good - 4 A-level As and 2280 for SAT, so I'm trying to get a good econs uni.
So, can anyone tell me what you think a good econs uni is that I am likely to gain entry into? don't tell me wharton i'll never get in, etc
Also need applications advice, maybe advice/strategy for navigating UCAS
edit: like, don't put long shot unis as your 1st choice etc
EDIT: Can someone explain to me what "liberalness" of programs means? Are we talking about the schools of thinking at each uni?
Background info for singaporeans replying (love you guys): I'm from RJC and am in my 1st year of NS, ORD Dec 2011
here's some i thought of:
UK
Warwick
UCL
maybe LSE (long shot)
Aus
Melb U
ANU
US
UCLA
UChicago
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Austrian School of Economics.
University of British Columbia has the best economics department on the west coast.
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United States7481 Posts
upon rereading the OP i realize that what I said wasn't really applicable since it's more for grad programs
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Both MIT and Caltech have very good economics departments, especially the latter is severely underrated. If you want to study behavioral economics Dr. Colin Camerer is guy to study with. Harvard also has a good Ec program, might depend on how mathematical you want it to be.
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Wharton is not an econ school, it's the business school at UPenn.
I would know, since I'm applying to the College of Arts and Sciences at UPenn, which includes econ, lols.
Anyways, if you don't want to apply to UPenn, maybe USC? Yeah, it's much further down the line, but it's still a good business/econ school.
To be honest, your grades/sat don't tell much. They act only as a checklist for the universities; within a range, and you'll be okay. Below the given range, you better have some other darn good impressive things to show.
Assuming your grades are in the correct range now, it depends on what you've done in high school. Clubs, activities, leadership positions, church missions, sports, community service, etc.
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Korea (South)11599 Posts
International University of Monaco?
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5003 Posts
"Austrian School of Economics" is utter nonsense and should be avoided. Any econ department that is austrian will be completely worthless in preparing you for any career that involves Economics.
Most of the top schools have pretty good undergrad econ programs. Just because a given school is reputed to have a good econ program doesn't mean it has a good undergrad program -- since most professors who will be teaching you are lecturers and assistant professors since you're an undergrad. In the end, though, it depends heavily on the courses you choose to take that this university that makes the good programs. Make the most of it. I can definitely tell you Uchicago undergrad econ program has pros and cons, but I'm not 100% certain how it is compared to other schools other than the biased rumors I'd obviously hear around here.
It also depends on what kind of econ you want to do - so take a look at that, if you know what you're doing, then you should be able to find schools with the kind of classes you want to take.
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On October 28 2010 17:16 Milkis wrote:
"Austrian School of Economics" is utter nonsense and should be avoided. Any econ department that is austrian will be completely worthless in preparing you for any career that involves Economics.
Most of the top schools have pretty good undergrad econ programs. Just because a given school is reputed to have a good econ program doesn't mean it has a good undergrad program -- since most professors who will be teaching you are lecturers and assistant professors since you're an undergrad. In the end, though, it depends heavily on the courses you choose to take that this university that makes the good programs. Make the most of it. I can definitely tell you Uchicago undergrad econ program has pros and cons, but I'm not 100% certain how it is compared to other schools other than the biased rumors I'd obviously hear around here.
Can you tell me a bit about UChicago's undergrad econ program? I'm applying there as well.
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I'm studying at LSE currently, and honestly a lot of people here get in because of their curiosity of mind and natural intellect. It is taken for granted that Singaporeans have 4 As. The only other thing UK unis see is your personal statement, so you have to be sure of where you want to go and why you want to go there, and show that in your writing. And just to dispel a myth, UK unis (UK ONLY) don't give a damn about your CCA and most external activities. Focus on RELATED stuff, like internships at a bank or something.
UCAS does not give you a choice to rank the unis you want to get into, and since you are entitled 5 choices per application cycle, have a few "dream" choices and a few "safe" ones. There's no marginal cost in putting down all 5 choices anyway 
When I was applying for unis, I considered these unis to be the best in econs:
MIT
UChicago
LSE
Cambridge
UCL
Ivy Leagues
The list is not exhaustive of course.
Don't completely rule out the option of studying at NUS/SMU as well. With the cost of UK tuition fees set to rise in the upcoming years, and US unis being as ridiculously expensive as ever, you may enjoy the financial freedom that you get staying in Singapore.
Just as a personal note, I love LSE and I've never regretted coming here, so do apply and hope to see you next year  Good luck!
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Ah, thanks a lot, everyone. British uni's don't give a damn about CCA or external stuff? omg. I didn't know that at all...
What's this about liberalness of economics programs? can anyone elaborate
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with 4 As it did be a waste not to give a shot at the ivy leagues unless you seriously have zero extra curricular activities / external accomplishments / character of a fruit cake :p
check out northwestern, michigan, duke, NYU as well, all 4 should be within your reach and have pretty reputable econ programs.
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University of British Columbia has the best economics department on the west coast.
ignoring Berkeley, LA, Stanford, and UCSD, possibly Davis as well if you include agricultural/resource economics.
Also OP, UCSF is a medical/graduate school. Go to Stanford or Berkeley if you want a good econ school in the Bay Area.
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This thread is attracting a lot of singaporeans lol. Makes me warm and fuzzy ^_^
On October 28 2010 18:00 jalstar wrote:Show nested quote +
University of British Columbia has the best economics department on the west coast.
ignoring Berkeley, LA, Stanford, and UCSD, possibly Davis as well if you include agricultural/resource economics. Also OP, UCSF is a medical/graduate school. Go to Stanford or Berkeley if you want a good econ school in the Bay Area.
Stanford and berkeley is outta my league T.T
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On October 28 2010 17:51 GenericTerranPlayer wrote:
Ah, thanks a lot, everyone. British uni's don't give a damn about CCA or external stuff? omg. I didn't know that at all...
What's this about liberalness of economics programs? can anyone elaborate
You've probably heard of econs being part of liberal arts courses, or as an "arts/humans" degree. This is usually the case in US unis, where they focus mainly on qualitative econs and the philosophy of it. Comparatively, inn the UK econs is treated as a science (my degree is a BSc.) and there's a lot of maths involved. If you temporarily ignore the complexities of life, and think of uni econs courses in one dimension, you can rank the unis in terms of how "liberal" they are:
<----from MATH SUCKS ----------------------------------------------------- to MATHS IS EVERYTHING--->
liberal arts colleges -- Oxford (PPE) -- MIT/Ivy leagues -- LSE -- Warwick (?) -- Cambridge -- UCL
It is one legitimate factor to consider before choosing your unis. Anyway you've not told us, why do you want to take econs?
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UK doesn't care about extracurriculars? Well I'm jealous. [DELETED] (who knows, they might be anal.)
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On October 28 2010 18:19 Karliath wrote:
UK doesn't care about extracurriculars? Well I'm jealous. [DELETED] (who knows, they might be anal.)
Well they expect you to have a few lines on that stuff. They only want you write more if you can somehow relate them to your academic interests. Or use them as examples to support the things you're saying "I have a very competitive mindset... I can work well in a group... This is what helped me achieve my gold medal at the 2008 olympics etc."
In general though, people who write a lot about extracurriculars tend not to be as successful. Although it might be a case of cause/effect being confused.
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On October 28 2010 18:22 Nytefish wrote:Show nested quote +On October 28 2010 18:19 Karliath wrote:
UK doesn't care about extracurriculars? Well I'm jealous. [DELETED] (who knows, they might be anal.) Well they expect you to have a few lines on that stuff. They only want you write more if you can somehow relate them to your academic interests. Or use them as examples to support the things you're saying "I have a very competitive mindset... I can work well in a group... This is what helped me achieve my gold medal at the 2008 olympics etc." In general though, people who write a lot about extracurriculars tend not to be as successful. Although it might be a case of cause/effect being confused.
If an applicant writes a lot of extracurriculars, it is signalling to the admissions officer that he/she does not have anything else to write about. Which is pretty true, since why would anyone be writing about their (irrelevant) extracurriculars if you have other related activities to write about?
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On October 28 2010 18:22 Nytefish wrote:Show nested quote +On October 28 2010 18:19 Karliath wrote:
UK doesn't care about extracurriculars? Well I'm jealous. [DELETED] (who knows, they might be anal.) Well they expect you to have a few lines on that stuff. They only want you write more if you can somehow relate them to your academic interests. Or use them as examples to support the things you're saying "I have a very competitive mindset... I can work well in a group... This is what helped me achieve my gold medal at the 2008 olympics etc." In general though, people who write a lot about extracurriculars tend not to be as successful. Although it might be a case of cause/effect being confused.
Wow okay. Here, at competitive schools, it's pretty much:
Grades and test scores look okay? Great, that's 80% of applicants. Now let's see if you've been a leader of several groups, participated in many different types of activities outside of school, stayed committed to the activities throughout your high school career, given back to the community, done something worthwhile (winning SC tournaments does not count), etc. etc.
SUCH a pain. But my journey is almost complete ><
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On October 28 2010 18:27 Vinnesta wrote:Show nested quote +On October 28 2010 18:22 Nytefish wrote:On October 28 2010 18:19 Karliath wrote:
UK doesn't care about extracurriculars? Well I'm jealous. [DELETED] (who knows, they might be anal.) Well they expect you to have a few lines on that stuff. They only want you write more if you can somehow relate them to your academic interests. Or use them as examples to support the things you're saying "I have a very competitive mindset... I can work well in a group... This is what helped me achieve my gold medal at the 2008 olympics etc." In general though, people who write a lot about extracurriculars tend not to be as successful. Although it might be a case of cause/effect being confused. If an applicant writes a lot of extracurriculars, it is signalling to the admissions officer that he/she does not have anything else to write about. Which is pretty true, since why would anyone be writing about their (irrelevant) extracurriculars if you have other related activities to write about?
What do you guys consider extracurriculars? For us, anything outside of class, including
Speech and Debate
Mock Trial
Academic Quiz/Decathlon
Junior State of America
Playing in a (relatively) renowned symphony
Varsity sports
all count. So you can see why some of these are important. Especially if you can say, "I'm the president of the speech and debate team of our school, and we went to state last year." That's obviously impressive, showing you are intelligent, hard working, wtv wtv.
If these also count as extracurriculars for you guys, what do you write about if not this?
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On October 28 2010 18:31 Karliath wrote:
What do you guys consider extracurriculars? For us, anything outside of class, including
Speech and Debate
Mock Trial
Academic Quiz/Decathlon
Junior State of America
Playing in a (relatively) renowned symphony
Varsity sports
all count. So you can see why some of these are important. Especially if you can say, "I'm the president of the speech and debate team of our school, and we went to state last year." That's obviously impressive, showing you are intelligent, hard working, wtv wtv.
If these also count as extracurriculars for you guys, what do you write about if not this?
Any extracurriculars that are related. President of speech and debate team will look great on your personal statement if you are applying to, say, Law, but if you are applying to some Music degree, that's not really relevant. Community service is also not really highly regarded, unfortunately. You could say that the Brits are pragmatic to a fault, but outside of America few people really care about who YOU are, and more of WHAT you do/can do for the school and why you want to study your degree.
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I have a bunch of friends going to both UCL and LSE and I highly advise them for doing economics! I know you said LSE was a longshot, but if you have 4 a levels (I assume high grades since you got a 2280 on SAT) then I don't think you should sell yourself short. Also London is a wonderful place!
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If you have half-decent grades and you're Asian you actually have more chance of getting into LSE than a non-asian. No joke.
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I've heard very very good things about ANU, especially for ugrad.
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that's a good list
any school with a great grad econ program is going to have a strong undergrad program as well
So what are you going to do after college? Do you want to go to business school? Or just make money in IB? Or what? Maybe you haven't thought about it so much, but having some idea helps when you're applying to undergrad schools
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On October 28 2010 17:16 Milkis wrote:
"Austrian School of Economics" is utter nonsense and should be avoided. Any econ department that is austrian will be completely worthless in preparing you for any career that involves Economics.
Milkis, i knew i liked you, but this made me like you even more.
God, i can't stand Austrian schoolers. They're generally willfully ignorant about contemporary economics, statistical methods, and, well, pretty much everything. They reduce the incredible complexity of actual economics to a univariate view of the world that sees central banking as the cause of all the worlds ills, and define central banking so broadly that it basically constitutes "the existence of anything that looks remotely like a government."
The worst is when they make evidential claims to support their view, but when you provide evidence contrary to it, they go and say economics is a priori and evidence doesn't matter.
Other than that, i second most of whats been said here.
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On October 28 2010 17:21 Karliath wrote:Show nested quote +On October 28 2010 17:16 Milkis wrote:
"Austrian School of Economics" is utter nonsense and should be avoided. Any econ department that is austrian will be completely worthless in preparing you for any career that involves Economics.
Most of the top schools have pretty good undergrad econ programs. Just because a given school is reputed to have a good econ program doesn't mean it has a good undergrad program -- since most professors who will be teaching you are lecturers and assistant professors since you're an undergrad. In the end, though, it depends heavily on the courses you choose to take that this university that makes the good programs. Make the most of it. I can definitely tell you Uchicago undergrad econ program has pros and cons, but I'm not 100% certain how it is compared to other schools other than the biased rumors I'd obviously hear around here.
Can you tell me a bit about UChicago's undergrad econ program? I'm applying there as well.
It's the best undergraduate economics set-up I've ever heard of.
I'm currently an econ major at uchicago, and it is really really good. Compared to almost all US schools, it has a much more rigorous math requirement/level, and there are lots of avenues to go way beyond even the higher general level that's required here. Classes are really good, in particular the math-intensive/honors/harder classes. And it's hard enough that it isn't an easy/filler major like it is at most schools.
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did anyone else read "give me good economic units"? i was like wtf...
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MIT's economic grad school is the best in the world hands down. The people I've talked to who took the Econ program were very happy with it. Boston is also a great college town.
honestly though, you're better off looking for an undergraduate school on its other merits rather than soley its econ program. Pretty much any school you're going to apply to is going to be more than adequate for your undergraduate purposes.
ofc anything with more math isn't* going to waste your time.
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On October 28 2010 18:28 Karliath wrote:Show nested quote +On October 28 2010 18:22 Nytefish wrote:On October 28 2010 18:19 Karliath wrote:
UK doesn't care about extracurriculars? Well I'm jealous. [DELETED] (who knows, they might be anal.) Well they expect you to have a few lines on that stuff. They only want you write more if you can somehow relate them to your academic interests. Or use them as examples to support the things you're saying "I have a very competitive mindset... I can work well in a group... This is what helped me achieve my gold medal at the 2008 olympics etc." In general though, people who write a lot about extracurriculars tend not to be as successful. Although it might be a case of cause/effect being confused. Wow okay. Here, at competitive schools, it's pretty much: Grades and test scores look okay? Great, that's 80% of applicants. Now let's see if you've been a leader of several groups, participated in many different types of activities outside of school, stayed committed to the activities throughout your high school career, given back to the community, done something worthwhile (winning SC tournaments does not count), etc. etc. SUCH a pain. But my journey is almost complete ><
Though I guess it depends on which uni in the UK you apply to I'm under the impression they don't care all that much about the personal statement at all, it's more for weeding out the complete idiots.
Candidates are selected at interview, which is entirely focused on your knowledge of and passion for your subject. (As well as general intelligence I guess)
As for OP, I don't see why you are so pessimistic about your chances at LSE? Also I don't see why you aren't applying for oxford or cambridge as well, I mean you could very well fail at LSE and succeed at cambridge or vice versa so in the end it's just one more interview you could potentially do really well at.
General presonal statement tips, Focus on why economics is important to you and why you want to study it. If possible reference things outside of school where you have learnt economics (maybe a published paper you found really interesting or whatever) , or perhaps used your knowledge of economics in a real world situation.
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5003 Posts
On October 29 2010 03:02 theonemephisto wrote:Show nested quote +On October 28 2010 17:21 Karliath wrote:On October 28 2010 17:16 Milkis wrote:
"Austrian School of Economics" is utter nonsense and should be avoided. Any econ department that is austrian will be completely worthless in preparing you for any career that involves Economics.
Most of the top schools have pretty good undergrad econ programs. Just because a given school is reputed to have a good econ program doesn't mean it has a good undergrad program -- since most professors who will be teaching you are lecturers and assistant professors since you're an undergrad. In the end, though, it depends heavily on the courses you choose to take that this university that makes the good programs. Make the most of it. I can definitely tell you Uchicago undergrad econ program has pros and cons, but I'm not 100% certain how it is compared to other schools other than the biased rumors I'd obviously hear around here.
Can you tell me a bit about UChicago's undergrad econ program? I'm applying there as well. It's the best undergraduate economics set-up I've ever heard of. I'm currently an econ major at uchicago, and it is really really good. Compared to almost all US schools, it has a much more rigorous math requirement/level, and there are lots of avenues to go way beyond even the higher general level that's required here. Classes are really good, in particular the math-intensive/honors/harder classes. And it's hard enough that it isn't an easy/filler major like it is at most schools.
I definitely don't feel that way regarding the undergrad classes here.
First, most of the electives are nonsense. You are just repeating what you have done, or the teacher absolutely does not give a damn and teaches word per word off of a text book or another source. There are a very few classes that are actually worth taking, and most people seem to dodge them since it's supposed to be "difficult", although these classes are usually "just right"
The math/stat requirement for the average econ major is a joke, and honestly, they don't really learn anything.
Basically i had to take grad classes/high end stat courses before I actually felt like I was doing econ.
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EPT
