And I know everyone thinks they did but boy did I. I am at MRM but should have been at an HRM. Anyways...
I underplaced for my PhD
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Underplaced Eurobro here. Went to a programme with decent placements in Europe. Could have easily gone to a top-50 in the States. But I'm not very interested in US academia. Also wasn't aware of how important rankings and placements seem to be relative to education and your own input and ideas. Still hoping that people on EJMR are just a ridiculously status-obsessed subsample of the population of economists. None of my intelligent peers thinks like the people on here.
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I wonder how you reach the conclusion of being "underplaced"?
Unless you are nearing the end of your PhD and have produced significantly more and/substantial researchy than your peers, how do you know that you are better than them?
Just getting good grades in coursework does not mean you will be a good reseacher.
During my first PhD year at my Euro LRM program, I was the best student of my cohort (in terms of grades), felt I understand the material much better than the rest of my cohort and firmly believed I should be at a HRM place. Later, I found that I don't have more interesting research ideas than my peers and now think that I probably am were I ought to be.Admittedly, I sometimes find myself thinking "If I had chosen a different Master program, put more effort to find a good RA job, retook GRE, etc., I could be at MIT/Princeton/Stanford/...". But in the end of day, that are just periods of hubris.
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well OP, lucky for you the star of an MRM place places as well as the median guy (or lower at MRM). That's precisely because research ability is incredibly hard to predict and so every year there are high-ability people that fall through the cracks. The job market corrects that easily. Of course, that is if you actually are under placed, and not one of the 100 whiny crybabies. Report back with your eventual job placement!
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well OP, lucky for you the star of an MRM place places as well as the median guy (or lower at MRM). That's precisely because research ability is incredibly hard to predict and so every year there are high-ability people that fall through the cracks. The job market corrects that easily. Of course, that is if you actually are under placed, and not one of the 100 whiny crybabies. Report back with your eventual job placement!
If you are capable of being a star at an HRM and getting an HRM placement, then you are probably being held back by being at an MRM. It is hard to be a market star from an MRM.
If you are simply a top MRM student who could hack it as a decent HRM student, then this is right. Your path to be in the mix for R1 jobs is not that much harder.