What's an economics major to do? :)

philosophking

Hey all, I really need some help. I am currently an sophomore at a low-to-middle tier 2 school (I'm going there on full scholarship). I'm double majoring in Economics and Mathematics, and want to go to a good grad school for either subject (preferably economics).

I'm trying to keep my gpa high, but I'm in an honors program here that is pretty difficult (relative to the status of the school), so right now I'm standing at a 3.7. After cores are out of the way, it'll probably jump to a 3.8 (the trend is that I get A's in my major courses and subpar on everything else heh). I took a practice GRE and almost scored a perfect on the math, and a ~650 on verbal.

My question is this: what are the main things I have to do if I have my goals set on MIT, Princeton, etc. for graduate school? Should I start doing independent research, and if so, how many papers would you recommend? What else, besides gpa and GRE scores (also, I'll be taking the Putnam the next two years) are needed?

I know doing math research is difficult at the undergraduate level, and I'm really not sure what I could write papers on in economics, although I'm sure I could find things. Thank you for your help!

theFuture

Research, recs and "statement of purpose" are crucial. Find a professor who does interesting work who's willing to let you work with him.

philosophking

Thank you very much.