Most of our students go on to work in a such fields as management, management consulting, investment banking, teaching, and economic research. Others go on to graduate study in business, law, public policy, and economics. About a fourth of our graduates ultimately go on to business school, but top business schools strongly prefer that students work for a few years before applying.
Students planning to go on to graduate school in economics are strongly encouraged to get a strong mathematical background, and to consider doing a double or joint major in mathematics. Students who would like to go on to graduate school in economics often work for a couple of years as a research assistant in an economic research institute before applying for graduate work in economics. It is more typical for students planning to go on in law or public policy to apply directly from college.
A review of alumni records of all Middlebury College students who earned a bachelor's degree in economics from 1988-89 (the "1989" graduation year) to 1993-94 indicates that fewer than 16 percent of our majors enter graduate or professional schools within six years of graduation. Yet, over 40 percent of the degree recipients in economics between 1980 and 1988 have since completed an MBA, law, public policy, or some other advanced degree. (Another 5.8 percent are currently working toward a post-graduate degree.)
The proportion of students in this same reference group (economics graduates from 1980 to 1988) who earned an MBA was 24.7 percent. About 7 percent earned a Doctor of Laws degree. Of the 582 alumni records on economics majors from 1980 to 1988, only five graduates earned a Ph.D., four earned a degree in medicine, two a degree in dentistry, and one earned a master's degree from Yale University's Divinity School.