Greg Mankiw on Choosing Where to Go to Graduate School

|Peter Boettke|

Greg Mankiw gives some excellent advice for those making the decision on where to attend graduate school for the PhD.

For students thinking about George Mason, the only factor I would add is that unlike other places, GMU has an unusual cluster of students each year that care passionately about specific sub-fields in economics (e.g., public choice and law and economics) or paradigmatic perspectives (e.g., Austrian economics and Experimental Economics), let alone the even larger cluster of students who would identify with classical liberal and libertarian ideas.  Attending the graduate program at GMU is like going to an IHS Liberty and Society seminar for 4 years in terms of the students who you will interact with on a daily basis.

Comments

[Steve Horwitz]

That is all good advice from Mankiw, but this one is particulary good:

8. Don't be distressed if you did not get into your top choice. What you do in graduate school (or college) is far more important than where you go. Your personal drive matters more than the ranking of the school you attend.

I think the experiences that GMU students have had over the last 20+ years bear this out, as the ones who have done great things in grad school got good jobs, even back in the old days when GMU wasn't as highly ranked as now.

And as someone on the demand side of the PhD labor market, this is the way I approach job applicants and I have largely, though not completely, persuaded my department over the years that it is the better way than the pedigree of the department. Give me the hungry, productive grad student from the 30th or 50th ranked school over the dregs of Harvard ANY time.

The best undergraduates at SLU are the top kids from the mostly un-spectacular high schools in a 100 mile radius. They are much more engaged and interesting, in general, than the B and C students from the very well-known prep schools or big suburban high schools.

Hungry and productive is way more important than pedigree.

[FC]

I've been wondering something, and this is as good a thread as any to ask. I'm sure I would have a great time as a GMU graduate student in economics, but I don't want an academic career. Would a MA or PhD from GMU be of any use in gaining entry to a career in corporate finance or other fields of business? Have any recent graduates been able to do this? Thanks.

[Kerem Cantekin]

I have applied for the Ph.D. program at the GMU but haven't heard back yet. Any idea when they will let us know about admission decisions?

[Richard]

GMU is my dream school. Hope I'll get to meet you all some day.

[Benny]

kinda funny how he points to the rankings where (of course) harvard is at the top of each one :-)

[topills.com review]

Look, the process hasn't been perfect and this wasn't the bill I was hoping for. Politics is never perfect. But if you've honestly convinced yourself that this little analogy of yours is a good representation of what's going on, then you're clearly too mired in your own opinion of the reform to frame what's going on objectively.