Salty_Jelly

If you are writing this for your SOP, then I would heed gilbertrollins' advice. I would, if I were you, look up a professor at the university that you are interested in attending that is in a field that you think you may like (economic history, for example). Read through two or three of his/her published/working papers. Then insert a couple of sentences into your SOP of why you liked his/her paper(s) and that you are very interested in working under this particular professor.

I think that, for CS at least, MIT/Berkeley/Cornell/U Washington far outrank Harvard. Harvard does well (top five) in a lot of fields. But computer science is not one of them. Goto U Washington.

To Ranter: Could you please elaborate? Some ranking systems put San Diego ahead; others' say that Cornell dominates UC San Diego.

Thanks TheCakeIsALie - that was insightful.

Thanks Kechemukwa. I'm not sure if there is much information available online beyond the research that I have done already. Hence, I am hoping that a current student/teacher or alumni can shed some light on the programs. I would much prefer the school that is a slightly better match. If they were perfectly matched, then I would go to the one with the best stipend and weather.

Hi there, I have been accepted into the Economics PhD program at Cornell (stipend + tuition) and UC Davis (no word on funding at the moment). I am also waiting to see my result for UC San Diego. Assuming that I get into San Diego as well, I am hoping that current students at Cornell and UC San Diego can help me decide on which school is a better for me. My goal is to eventually become an academic. I really enjoy microeconomic theory. My undergraduate background is mainly in theoretical economics and mathematics (mainly analysis). I would much rather live in San Diego than Ithaca. However, I'd rather attend Cornell if it were a better fit for me than San Diego. I have not researched either university beyond browsing the two websites, reading a few working/published papers, and finding out the schools' locale through Youtube and Google Maps. From what I have been told, both Cornell and UC San Diego strictly dominate UC Davis. Therefore, I am not considering UC Davis unless someone convinces me otherwise. Any comments/criticisms is much appreciated.