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<p>I am referring to all of the doctoral programs connected to the business school. Tal Ben-Shahar, the example I used before, is basically a psychologist. He’s a graduate of the Organizational Behavior PhD program. </p>
<p>[Organizational</a> Behavior - Degree Programs - HBS Doctoral Programs](<a href=“PhD Programs - Doctoral - Harvard Business School”>PhD Programs - Doctoral - Harvard Business School)</p>
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<p>My point is that, generally speaking, PhD programs at business schools tend to be more generous than are PhD programs not in business schools. The PhD program at the Yale School of Management, for example, guarantees 5 years of fellowship funding for all students, with TA/RA salary being added on top of that. I don’t think any other program at Yale can say the same (that is, while some Yale PhD students surely get fellowship money, I doubt that any of the other Yale programs can boast of providing guaranteed 5-year fellowships for all their students.) </p>
<p>Which leads to my other point, which is that if your interests span to anything that the business school has to offer, you may well be better off doing the program within a business school, and that span is far broader than merely economics. Again, Ben-Shahar is a psychologist. He has nothing to do with economics. One could argue that David Ager, another graduate of OB, is really a sociologist and in fact, right now is at the Harvard Department of Sociology. One could argue that Hannah Riley Bowles is really a sociologist, as her work was on the role of gender on negotiations within the social context. She graduated from the doctoral program in General Management.</p>
<p>[Harvard</a> Department of Sociology](<a href=“http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/soc/faculty/ager/index.html]Harvard”>http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/soc/faculty/ager/index.html)</p>
<p>[Harvard</a> Kennedy School - Hannah Riley Bowles](<a href=“Page not found | Harvard Kennedy School”>Page not found | Harvard Kennedy School)</p>
<p>What I am saying is that business school PhD programs tend to be far more flexible than many people seem to think they are. Economics is just one subset, and frankly, a declining subset as the research community has recently realized the increasing importance of the other social sciences such as sociology and psychology in explaining business performance. </p>
<p>The bottom line is that, given the choice of pursuing a PhD in pure sociology or pure psychology, or pursuing a Phd through a business school - whether it’s the OB program at HBS or the Stanford Graduate School of Business or the MORS program at Northwestern Kellogg or similar such program - I think it’s fairly clear that, from a financial standpoint, the business school option is clearly better. Note, you still have to ensure that your research interests align. But I think there is little dispute that B-school funding is clearly superior. </p>
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<p>First off, you’ve neglected the fact that there are 12 Houses, and there are 3-5 resident tutor positions per house. </p>
<p>Secondly, I agree that many applicants are indeed highly qualified - but frankly, you have to be highly qualified yourself to even get into a HBS doctoral program in the first place. Hence, I don’t think you should have anything to worry about on that front.</p>
<p>Thirdly - you said it yourself - lots of people (probably most) don’t want to live with a bunch of undergrads anyway. That vastly reduces the pool of competition, given that you are willing to do so. </p>
<p>But I think most importantly of all, a lot of people simply don’t even know that this option is even possible. I continue to encounter Harvard grad students - many quite advanced- who have never even heard of this option. Generally, the ones who know are the ones who themselves went to Harvard as undergrads, for they would have then naturally encountered the resident tutors as part of the House experience. But, frankly, if you didn’t go to Harvard for undergrad, you probably don’t know about this program, and it certainly isn’t widely advertised.</p>
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<p>Well, I don’t know about that. Since you want to talk about the bus-ec PhD program at HBS, I would argue that I don’t think they are any more “marketable” than are, say, the Harvard PhD students in the economics department. Believe me, plenty of them also end up going to Ibanks, hedge funds, and consulting firms. But the bus-ec’s get access to B-school funding. The PhD students in the econ department do not. </p>
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<p>Look, nobody is trying to say that getting into a Harvard doctoral program is easy. </p>
<p>What I am saying is that this strategy I have posited can be generalized to all business schools, few of which will be as selective as Harvard. There are a lot of business schools offering PhD programs out there.</p>