A Break

The administration will announce its "final decision" in early June. Until then we will refrain from posting admission related articles since we do not want to have a negative impact on PhD admission chances of the applicants. We sincerely hope that the outcome will satisfy everyone !

2010-2011 Admissions: Don't Waste Your Years

This year the graduate program of finance started sending invitation letters to students in regular masters programs. They probably think that, in relatively challenging programs such as "Master of Quantitative Finance", "Master of Economics and Finance of Aging" there are good students with a solid background in finance.

It seems that the department has difficulty in attracting students. Perhaps they are not satisfied with the quality rather than number of the applicants.  So how come UvT cannot attract successful graduate students? Aren't they the number 23 in the world (according to their own rankings list) ?

The Economics department has not started "recruiting" students by e-mail yet. Though it is not hard to predict that they will soon start doing that. Out of 25 second year research masters (formerly known as Mphil) students, they admitted only 6 (SIX) students to the PhD program. They claim that there are still 4 available positions so we might expect a total of 10 admissions this year. The attrition rate turns out to be 60%. Now who wants to waste 2 years of his life with 60% probability?

Attrition rates are always high one might think. Are they as high as 60% in other universities as well? This article, estimates two year attrition rates of US Econ programs:
Tier 1 programs: 13.6 %
Tier 2 programs: 17.4 %
Tier 3 programs: 32.6 %
Tier 4 programs: 39.4 %
Tier 5 programs: 37.9 %
Tilburg University: 60 %
Go figure.

All in all, after 2010 it will be fairly easy to be admitted to the graduate programs of UvT. However it will be even easier to be dropped out. Remember: they now require an A for thesis AND an average of 8 (A) from courses! Even if you fulfill these criteria there is a good chance that they will make it even harder while you are making plans about your future. Please read this article to see how unreliable and incompetent UvT graduate school  administration is.

What you see is what you get

Tilburg... The city of some houses, a church and a cinema. This nice article describes difficulties that international students encounter after they move in to their rooms. A story of used condoms, and a negligent International Office:

"The International Student Barometer shows that 51 percent of the international students at Tilburg University are satisfied with the accommodation office. This is 15 percent below the Dutch average and 26 percent below the satisfaction levels worldwide. Roos Hogenkamp of the International Office explains they are well aware of the problems."

They have been doing these surveys for the last 10 years. How long will it take to understand that international students are being tortured by bad food and medieval-style low-quality accommodation? Thank you Roos.

UvT is probably in a huge financial crisis!

and it refrains from announcing this fact. It offers scholarships and paid assistantships to prospective students. It might be too late when you realize that UvT is broke and cannot pay your scholarship/salary. Please read The Art of Misinformation and Alluring Students.

Do not let them steal your years!

What is it all about?

It is about the informing the prospective students about the Economics PhD  program of Tilburg University. Simple as that.