Predoc, Strategy (lower Top 10 in Econ)

[abysmal2022]

Hello all,

I would like to ask you what y'all think about going to a predoc program where:

- It is not Top 5 in Economics but a lower T10 (Purple in color haha)

- Only comprised of AP's in Strategy: not my field of interest in the long run (I wanna do dev, exper or trade), tho the AP's are all from Top 5 econ or LSE or Wharton

I am inclined to take this over master's, but since I am aiming for at least BU level after completing this (hopefully Top 15), I wanna know what you all think about this in terms of ROI (?)

My alternative would be going to a year long master's at Uchicago and retrying for higher up predocs.

Please, any comment would be appreciated.

[T5mafia]

- T5 vs T10 doesn't really matter as much as the name of the advisors themselves, and maybe you'll get a marginal bump in admissions at that school at which you did your predoc in.

- It's not great to not be interested in the field of the predoc you're going to do to be honest with you. You need to "go above and beyond" to get into top 15 program nowadays. The places they did their PhD matters less than the networks and coauthors they have. Are they working with big names? That will help you in admissions.

- I don't know much about the UChicago masters so definitely ask around for other opinions but unfortunately I don't think it's known as a great feeder program to top PhD's. My prior (that could be very wrong) is that master's students are simply not a high priority for professors, so getting a coveted letter. But please do more research on placements of the master's program/how accessible professors are to master's students before making any decisions. On the flipside Chicago has a huge amount of predoc positions so you may get lucky that a prof in a class is also hiring predocs you may benefit.