The following soft-smile-hard-sell advertisement directed to potential applicants for the graduate economics program at Northwestern University was found in the economics department records of M.I.T. These notes were written by M.I.T. Ph.D. (1967) Robert J. Gordon who was then serving as the director of graduate admissions in economics for Northwestern in 1977-78. Gordon had been appointed professor of economics at Northwestern in 1973. This document provides a fascinating comparative glimpse of economics programs and locations as seen at that time.

Pro-tip:  Robert J. Gordon has shared his personal archive of “Photos of Economists”  on-line.

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INFORMAL NOTES ON GRADUATE ECONOMICS AT NORTHWESTERN

Robert J. Gordon
Director of Graduate Admissions in Economics, 1977-78

To supplement the rather formal compilation of admissions and degree requirements contained in the pamphlet “Graduate Program in Economics, 1977-78”, I have put together a more informal set of observations on economics and graduate student life at Northwestern. Just as television commercials are no longer inhibited in naming competitors, I have included a few comparisons between Northwestern and some of the other departments to which you may be planning to apply. My comments on other departments are entirely personal based on my years as a student or faculty member at Harvard, M.I.T., and Chicago, and on the academic “grapevine” as regards other schools. In no sense do these subjective comparisons represent an “official view” of anyone in the administration of the Department of Economics or Northwestern University, nor would my colleagues necessarily agree with them.

I. WHO SHOULD APPLY TO NORTHWESTERN?

Universities in the United States are currently awarding roughly 2,000 M.A.’s and about 850 Ph.D.’s in Economics every year. Taking account of voluntary and involuntary dropouts, this suggests that about 2,500-3,000 candidates enter graduate school in Economics every year, and that the number of applicants is even larger. Both the applicants and the graduate schools are diverse in quality, and the admissions process can be described as an exercise in “matching” wherein the best schools attempt to select the best candidates, the next-best schools attempt to find the next-best candidates, and so on down the line. As long as a fee is charged for an admission application (currently $25 at Northwestern), potential applicants must carry out what economists call a “cost-benefit” analysis when deciding how many and which schools should be applied to. Too many applications may waste fees, but too few applications may lead to unanimous rejections. The best strategy is to realize that admissions committees are imperfect judges of your own “true quality”, and in some cases you also may over- or underrate yourself. To protect yourself against mistakes, it is best to apply not only to schools at your own perceived quality level, but also somewhat above and below. (In a recent survey 57 percent of the respondents rated themselves in the top ten percent of their class!)

Rating Department “Quality”

While a number of different characteristics are relevant to the final choice, faculty quality is the most important single criterion by which alternative graduate programs should be judged. Among the advantages provided by faculty members who are widely regarded in the profession as among the best in their field are not only correct and current courses, but also guidance in Ph.D. dissertations and knowledge of the most promising areas for student research, the ability to win research grants which in most cases provide funds for student research assistantships, and finally, widespread professional contacts to aid students in the job market.¹

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¹By the way, there is currently no problem in finding jobs after graduate school in Economics. This contrasts with other disciplines, particularly the humanities, history, and sociology, where jobs are scarce and some Ph.D.’s are unemployed. The healthier job market in Economics is explained by the large demand for Ph.D. economists in business and government which supplements the demand by colleges for teaching posts.

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The already high quality of the Northwestern faculty has been supplemented in the last few years by the arrival of three new full professors who are both relatively young and are regarded as among the top economists in their respective fields—Marc Nerlove (winner in 1969 of the American Economic Association’s John Bates Clark award for the best American economist under the age of 40), Frederick Scherer, and myself. Since the most recent official survey to determine the ranking of Northwestern relative to other economics departments is more than five years out of date, there is no accurate information available which is both objective and current.

As a substitute I can provide the results of my own subjective but detailed evaluation, which is current as of Fall 1976 (e.g., it takes account of the movements of J. Stiglitz from Stanford to Oxford and Michael Rothschild from Princeton to Wisconsin). In consultation with several highly regarded economists, all permanent faculty members in the top 18 U.S. departments have been rated with a “quality score” ranging from one (low) to 10 (superman), and the total scores in each department of the faculty members rating “5” or above have been added up.² An attempt has been made to include members of business schools known to play a major role in graduate economics education. For most departments official faculty lists have been obtained to insure completeness.

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²Note that this technique gives a premium to large departments, partially explaining the “victory” of Harvard over M.I.T.

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³Numbers in parentheses are faculty citations in the 1973-74 Social Sciences Citation Index.

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It would appear that there are four departments in the top category, and then a group of “next best” from ranks 5 through 12 which are very close together in total points. If you think rather highly of yourself, it is probably worthwhile to apply to at least one department in the “top four,” but keep in mind that the total number of first-year students in these departments is only about 135 out of the 2,500-3,000 students who enter graduate school in economics each year. Most students will want to apply to one or more of the “next best,” whether they are top students who want a safety valve, or whether they evaluate themselves at “next best,” or whether they think of themselves as “third best” but are willing to take a chance that an admissions committee in the second tier might overrate them.

Comparisons Among Departments

Selection of a choice among the “top four” depends on your abilities and tastes. M.I.T. is almost universally praised for the quality of its faculty, its devotion to the teaching of graduate students, and for its physical facilities, but it can accept only about 35 out of roughly 350 applications, and students without excellent mathematical training will feel left behind. Harvard has a senior faculty which is tops in fame and reputation but which is frequently criticized as aloof and inaccessible not only to students but even to junior faculty members; classrooms and faculty offices are in several buildings with no natural physical focal point for students; but on the other hand the attractions and convenience of Cambridge have appeal. At Chicago the faculty is better at teaching than at Harvard, is much more accessible, and in many fields of economics is more innovative than at M.I.T.; compared to M.I.T. Chicago’s disadvantages are huge first-year classes (55-80 is typical) and the neighborhood (crime is a problem, and also there is much less to do in Hyde Park as compared with Cambridge, so one is dependent on downtown Chicago, which is very difficult to reach by public transportation from Hyde Park at night). I lack personal experience at Yale—the problems which recur in “grapevine” conversations is the physical and social separation between the faculty in the Cowles foundation and in the rest of the departments, the aloofness of many faculty members, and the disadvantages of living in New Haven. On the other hand, some ex-graduate students claim that the Department/Cowles split does not affect them, even if it has disadvantages for faculty members.

How does Northwestern compare with its competitors in the “next best” group? Stanford, Berkeley, and U.C.L.A. are obviously superior in climate but suffer from other disadvantages. Because the Stanford campus is so vast, there is no university shopping district within easy walking distance, and the attractions of Palo Alto are uninterestingly suburban, with the delights of San Francisco 35 miles away and accessible only by car. Berkeley is a much better place to live, both more interesting by itself and closer to San Francisco, but the department itself is large and impersonal, with long corridors of closed office doors, and the mathematical economists are off across the campus in a separate building. Princeton is located in a posh expensive small town 45 miles from New York, which is therefore less accessible than Boston from Cambridge, San Francisco from Berkeley, or Chicago from Evanston. Pennsylvania is located in a relatively unattractive section of Philadelphia and faculty houses are widely dispersed (as is true at Harvard and M.I.T.), which inhibits the faculty from lingering after seminars and from giving post-seminar cocktail parties. I lack close familiarity with U.C.L.A., Penn, and Minnesota and won’t cast further aspersions, other than to note that they are all relatively large and impersonal universities.

Northwestern combines a number of advantages—a high-quality faculty which is extremely accessible to students both individually and in group seminars, together with a location which combines the best features of small-town and large-city living. Another significant strength is the relatively prosperous budgetary situation at Northwestern, which is currently allowing the Economics Department to embark on a major program of hiring new tenure and nontenure faulty members. It is likely that by the time current applicants arrive here, the relative ranking of Northwestern’s Economics Department will have risen even higher relative to the many universities which are currently suffering from tight budgets.

 II. ASPECTS OF GRADUATE LIFE AT NORTHWESTERN

Courses and Seminars

The Ph.D. program typically takes four years, divided into an initial two-year period devoted mainly to courses, followed by two additional years devoted to attending seminars, finding a thesis topic, and writing the dissertation. There is a single written general examination (“prelim”) in economic theory (three hours for macro and three hours for micro), which most students take after their first year of courses. The process of learning at Northwestern does not consist of rote learning or indoctrination, but rather a process by which the student is first trained in the tools of theoretical, mathematical, and statistical analysis, and then is exposed to the frontiers of economic science and urged to use his tools to help resolve controversies and contribute to the advance of knowledge.

The process by which a student arrives at a dissertation topic generally begins in the second year of class work. Unlike many graduate schools, where the general exam process continues to the end of the second year and sometimes beyond, at Northwestern most students enter the second year of classes with their general exam behind them and can concentrate on finding a special field of interest. Second year classes are usually small enough to allow students to participate actively in discussion and to encourage the faculty both to assign term papers and to read them carefully. Second-year term papers are a “proving ground” where students can experiment with possible thesis topics. Under a new system, students are required to give a paper in a field “workshop” after they are finished taking the courses their primary field sequence.

A formal requirement for admission to Ph.D. candidacy, in addition to the written general examination on economic theory, is an oral qualifying examination on the dissertation, which is usually taken during the third year. The purpose of the exam is to ascertain whether the dissertation topic chosen by the student is feasible. Usually the exam consists of a discussion of a brief written thesis proposal which a candidate submits to the faculty committee of examiners.

At many graduate schools there is no formal program for third and fourth year students, who simply “disappear” in the library or their homes and are unavailable for conversation and consultation with each other. At Northwestern, on the other hand, there is an active workshop program to provide forums where graduate students are exposed to new ideas and have a chance to see each other regularly. A centerpiece is the Tuesday night student- faculty seminar, where students present both early and finish versions of their dissertation research, with a substantial cross-section of the faculty attending regularly to provide advice and criticism. Research seminars in macroeconomics and labor, in applied micro economics, industrial organization and in mathematical economics (in collaboration with faculty members at the Graduate School of Management) meet regularly for presentation and discussion of papers by faculty, students, and visitors. These seminars are not only a major channel of communication between faculty and students, but are also an important method of intellectual interchange among faculty members. In addition, there is a regular visiting speakers program, in which well-known faculty members from other universities are invited to Northwestern to present talks on their research Evanston’s location also facilitates additional informal seminars by visitors who are traveling through the Chicago area.

Particular Strengths

Although the Economics Department teaches graduate courses in all of the major fields of economics, it has particular areas of strength in which faculty members are currently making a major research contribution:

Microeconomic Theory
Mathematical Economics
Econometrics
Theoretical and Applied Macroeconomics
Labor Economics
Public Finance
Managerial Economics and Industrial Organization
Transportation and Urban Economics
Economic History
Medical Economics
Economics of Population and the Family

Faculty and Student Accessibility

Faculty-student contact is unusually good at Northwestern for a number of reasons. Although the classes in economics theory in the first quarter are fairly large, since some management school students are required to attend, for the remaining two quarters of the first year the theory classes typically contain only 25. Second-year class enrollments are often in the range of 5 to 10, allowing a workshop atmosphere and considerable faculty attention to the individual student term papers and research projects. Most of the faculty live close to the Evanston campus and typically hold open cocktail parties in their homes after seminars by visiting speakers. After the Tuesday night faculty-student seminar, both students and faculty regularly adjourn to a local pub (this never happens at M.I.T., Harvard, or at other departments where faculty residences are located in distant suburbs). Many third-and fourth-year students have offices adjoining faculty offices and see their faculty neighbors regularly during coffee breaks. Another advantage promoting easy interaction is the relative youth of many of the tenured faculty, in contrast to the older “stars” at some other departments who spend more time consulting in Washington than talking to their students.

Easy contact among students is even more important than faculty-student contact in the first year, when students need to get to know each other and form into small study groups. This is facilitated at Northwestern by a graduate student lounge in the basement of 1922 Sheridan Rd. (the main economics building), where coffee is available and students are encouraged to study or talk between classes. Another convenience is the Library, completed in 1970 and about a 3-minute walk from the main department building. A special feature of the uniquely designed library is the divisional arrangement of books and journals in three research towers, one for the social sciences. On each of the circular levels of the research towers, ranges of books in specialized journals are placed in a radial pattern. At the periphery of each circle surrounding the collections is a repeating series of carrels, typing rooms, graduate and faculty studies, and seminar rooms in close proximity to the main body of printed materials needed by the various disciplines. (The computer center is also a great advantage, as it is relatively well-run and provides fast 15-20 minute “turnaround time” except in peak weeks at the end of the quarter).

Faculty and Courses in the Graduate School of Management

Although other universities also have business schools, of course, Northwestern’s provides a particular asset because of its unusual orientation toward economics and because of the unusually close contact between members of the Economics Department and the Management School. Economics topics covered in Management School courses include optimization theory and techniques, decision-making under uncertainty, models of production and technology, models of financial decision-making, and others. Management School courses are open to economics students, and dissertation committees often include Management School members.

Research Centers

Several “centers” headed by Department faculty members support and encourage research in their areas, provide offices and secretarial help, and arrange seminars by resident faculty, students, and visitors. Research Centers have been established in mathematical economics, transportation economics, and urban affairs.

III. ADMISSIONS AND FELLOWSHIPS

The formal admissions procedure is described in the “Graduate Program” pamphlet. Prospective applicants should note that they are required to submit scores from the Graduate Record Examination only for the verbal and quantitative aptitude tests and not for the advanced test in economics. This is consistent with our desire to encourage applications from those who have not chosen to major in economics as undergraduates. Our interest is in finding motivated, intelligent students with enough quantitative aptitude to understand economics theory and enough curiosity about the world around them to do creative economic research.

All available criteria are used by the Admissions Committee (myself and a few colleagues) to evaluate each applicant — undergraduate grade record, letters of recommendation, the applicant’s score on the Graduate Record Examination, and special factors. No arbitrary boundaries are established for grades or GRE scores. Applicant should encourage those writing letters of recommendation to be as specific as possible, a process which can be facilitated if applicants confer with the letter writers regarding their strengths and weaknesses. Applicants who have any unique qualifications or wish to explain “soft spots” in their grade record are encouraged to file supplementary statements with their applications.

Since first-year calculus is essential and second-year calculus is extremely useful for the study of economics, prospective applicants who have not yet taken these courses for credit are urged to do so at some time between now and their arrival at graduate school (wherever they choose to attend). The summer before arrival is an excellent time to take an extra course, and second-year calculus should receive top priority.

The selection of fellowship winners—for both university and department fellowships—is made by the Admissions Committee shortly after the admissions decision. A number of fellowships are also available under a Rockefeller-sponsored Northwestern Program in the Economics of Population and Household Behavior. To maximize their chances of receiving support, applicants are urged to apply for several of the fellowships awarded by outside foundations, businesses, and government agencies. Do not despair if you do not receive the fellowship, for there are several other alternatives. Most obvious is the student loan program, through which students can borrow money to cover most or all of their tuition (for details, see the Northwestern Graduate School Catalog). A substantial portion of the loan funds is available at three percent interest, which in these days of inflation represents a negative “real” rate of interest. Remember also that inflation reduces the real value of the principal to be repaid. Other sources are part-time academic year jobs, research assistantships for faculty members (usually reserved for students in the third and fourth year), and support from parents and/or spouse (now that women have been liberated, the Ph.T. Degree—“putting hubby through”—has been supplemented by the Pw.T,—“putting wife through”). We do not at present normally award teaching assistantships to first-year students.

IV. LIVING IN EVANSTON AND CHICAGO

Evanston

Evanston is the first suburb north of Chicago along Lake Michigan, and the Evanston-Chicago boundary is located 9.5 miles north of the Chicago “Loop.” Despite its proximity to Chicago, Evanston’s aesthetic attractions are immediately apparent when one crosses north over the city line. All of it streets are lined with unusually grand old shade trees; street lights are old-fashioned; the downtown shopping area is free of overhanging neon signs and decorated by city-maintained flowerbeds; and the lakefront is lined with the bicycle path, parks, and beaches where swimming is safe in unpolluted water.

With a population of about 80,000, Evanston is about the same size as Berkeley and Cambridge and shares their advantage of combining the convenience and call of a relatively small self-contained city with the entertainment and cultural attractions of a large urban center. Its residents include not only students and professors, but also sizable numbers of lawyers, architects, and other professionals who help to support groups and organizations in music, politics, and other areas. Student housing is available both in private and university-owned buildings (see the Graduate School Catalog for details), and most students are able to live within a short walk or bicycle ride from Northwestern’s lakefront campus.

Evanston’s downtown shopping area begins immediately south of the campus, with a group of books stores located across the street from the main university administration building. Shopping opportunities are unusually diverse for a city of Evanston’s size, with several branches of downtown department and specialty stores, large supermarkets and small “gourmet” food shops, and a variety of shops selling both standard and esoteric clothes, furnishings, and other items.

Transportation within Evanston is easy whether or not students own cars. Parking is available on side streets and in public parking garages downtown. Since most side streets are relatively free of traffic, many students prefer to rely entirely on bicycles for travel within Evanston. The public transit fare is subsidized by the City Council at 25¢ for travel within Evanston on four bus lines and on the rapid transit stations which shuttle at five-minute intervals along a north-south axis which skirts the western boundary of the campus and continue south to the Chicago border and on to downtown Chicago  (see below).

Many Evanston residents formerly lived in the Hyde Park and South Shore districts of Chicago—adjacent to the University of Chicago—but moved north to escape the South Side crime problem. Evanston is fortunate in its low crime rate, less than half the rates recorded in Berkeley and Cambridge in the 1970-73 period, and is a place where both students and faculty feel perfectly free to walk out at night. The only noticeable disadvantage of life in Evanston is the climate between November 15 and March 15, when the average daily high-temperature is about 35 degrees (i.e., five degrees colder than New York). Average annual snowfall is a bit more than in New York and a bit less than in Boston. The weather during the rest of the year similar to that in the northeastern quadrant of the U.S. Over all the weather is obviously no match for Berkeley, about the same as Boston and decidedly better than Madison or Minneapolis.

Chicago

From the Northwestern campus the center of Chicago is 25 minutes by car via Lakeshore Drive, and is almost easily accessible via rapid transit trains which stop twice at the western edge of the campus and reach the “Loop” in 30 minutes during rush hours, and about 40 minutes at other times. These times overstate the duration of travel to many restaurants, theaters, and clubs, the majority of which are located on the North Side of the city, i.e., between the “Loop” in the Evanston border. Trains run all night, and at most hours their frequency is every five to ten minutes.

Until six years ago I had never been to Chicago and had an irrational fear of the unknown Midwest, which may be shared by some prospective applicants from the East and West Coasts. My years of sampling Chicago’s attractions have converted me, and perhaps you will be interested in some personal opinions and comparisons:

• • The main aesthetic attractions are (1) the Loop and Near North Side, containing some of the best urban architecture in the world, in (2) the 20-mile bicycle path along the lake front, which is a continuous band of parks, beaches, and yacht harbors.
  • The major museums are all very large and among the top two or three in the country, including the Art Institute, the Field Museum of Natural History, the Planetarium, the Aquarium, and the Museum of Science and Industry, the latter having special appeal for any economist interested in the history of technical change and in “how things work.” There are smaller art galleries as well, and a local “school” of modern art, which I saw exhibited in Mexico City as “La Nueva Escuela de Chicago.”
  • In New York visiting concerts of Georg Solti with the Chicago Symphony have become, according to the New York Times, the “most eagerly anticipated musical events since Toscanini.” The Symphony plays three concerts a week during the academic year at Orchestra Hall in the “Loop” and frequent concerts during the summer at the Ravinia Festival in a suburb a few miles north of Evanston. The Lyric Opera presents a three-month season in the fall and shares with San Francisco the top rank among US opera companies outside of New York. There are several local chamber music groups and a long list of touring concert artists, including the major New York ballet companies, which perform throughout the year. There are also three full-time FM classical music stations.
  • The “club scene,” both night clubs and coffee houses, is unsurpassed among cities outside of New York, and the blues and folk music offerings surpass New York. Each Friday a free newspaper, the Reader, lists about 150 blues, folk, rock, and jazz acts appearing in local clubs.
  • Speaking of newspapers, the Chicago Tribune has dropped its conservativism of the Col. McCormick days and was recently named one of the country’s 10 best by Time. Its local news and features are excellent, although it still can’t compare for national and international news with the New York Times (the latter is flown in daily for purchase at Evanston newsstands or for home delivery).
  • In the restaurant category Chicago ranks after New York, San Francisco, and perhaps New Orleans. Its best are not as good as in those three cities, but that doesn’t matter much for students who can’t very often afford $50 French dinners. More important and interesting is Chicago’s strength, the hundreds of inexpensive “storefront ethnic” restaurants, many of which are in the north part of Chicago close to Evanston. Take your choice among German, French Provincial, East European Italian, Cantonese, Mandarin, Korean, Thai, Japanese, Indian, Mexican, Cuban, and Peruvian.
  • Cheap entertainment is available at the student-run film societies at Northwestern, other colleges, and the Art Institute, and at a number of commercial theaters on the north side of Chicago which only charge $.75 or $1.00 for a double bill of second- or third-run features.
  • While the quantity of live drama is no match for New York, there is a surprisingly broad offering by two accomplished professional repertory groups, a number of “off-Broadway” and experimental groups, and both pre- and post-Broadway touring shows. In recent years a number of shows have “graduated” to New York after starting here.

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Obviously the preceding notes will only begin to answer your questions. Write me for any additional information you need. I’ll respond without delay if I know the answer or else I’ll find a colleague who can advise you. I can also arrange for a current graduate student to provide more information on student reactions.

Source: M.I.T. Archives. Records of the Department of Economics. Box 3, Folder “Quality Rating.”

Image Source: Robert J. Gordon at First Bank of Japan Monetary Conference, June 1983. Detail from picture with James Tobin.