u/TrueCAMBIT

So I’m in a spot where I have had a couple of years of research experience with a professor at my uni (T20) and am co-authoring a macro paper with him (we have a working paper ready).

I have a couple other professors who I have taken advanced classes with that can write strong letters for me as well (PhD micro and my honors thesis seminar).

Given this, I am not sure that a predoc would help my application all that much (unless I’m with Chetty or something).

What exactly is the value-add (with regard to admissions) of a predoc in my case? Is it significant enough to forgo applying to phds at all for this year? I’m sure it’s hard to say without knowing my profile but any guidance is helpful.