When I say that I work at a third rate university, to clarify.
A first rate school is known already: the Ivies, UChicago, MIT, Caltech, Duke, some of the small liberal arts colleges. The NYT compiled a list of 170 leading schools (defined as a university or college, in America, that has a five year graduation rate exceeding 75%). A second rate school is at least on that list. The school I work at isn’t.
Wait, really? I was under the impression that the econ department there was fairly well respected. Is it just that rationalists respect it?
Also welcome to my former life. I wish I could tell you that it gets better, but it doesn’t. I suggest hanging out at different schools and making friends there.
First rate people doing second rate economics at a third rate university. Tyler has impeccable credentials (his mentor at Harvard was Schelling), but Bryan and Robin publish relatively little. They’re good thinkers, but I think that if I told my econ professors from Oxford where I am now, they would be exquisitely polite and, at best, think I’d sold out. The department certainly isn’t bad, and is unquestionably above the standard of the university overall, but I say that a first rate school is in the top 20, a second rate one top 200, and GMU is probably between #201 and #2,000th best institution of higher learning as defined by median academic quality of students.
I go into the city for dances, the people in the department are lovely and a very rare student may get invited to lunch with Bryan, and I’m managing fine so far. Thank you.