I'm having a hard time deciding. I'd like your help. I need to decide between two places

Place A
-Higher Ranking (QS, Times)
-I did my masters there
-A couple of my Pals also in same department
-Supervisor is known to me, we get along quite nicely.
-A lot of great research that's Tangential to my area
-Full funding

Place B
-ESRC DTC funding.
-Active research group in my area
-Supervisor is quite well known in the field.

What would you do and why?

The area is Economics (fyi).

A: nice to already know you get on with your supervisor and have friends there - it's half the battle.

Plus it's higher ranking, not sure what B has going for it except maybe a change?

,

Well, i'm under the impression the ESRC is a prestigious scholarship and that this could be helpful to me in the academic job market. The supervisor at place A is a lecturer with under 5 publications and has never worked in my area. The supervisor at B has nearly 40 publications and a proven track record of good placements for his students. There are other students there as well working on projects similar to what mine would be. The research is another problem. While the research at B is 'good' and quite useful, it doesn't inspire me at all. At A on the other hand, a number of professors and students are doing things that i think are quite cool.

I guess at the end of the day, i'd like to go to A, (in fact, i'd actually been looking at flats in the city when i heard that i'd been given the ESRC) but i'm afraid of giving up a prestigious scholarship and a chance to work with a well connected individual since these factors would work in my favor after the PhD. I'm concerned that i only prefer A because it's familiar, which doesn't feel like the right reason.

Well I'm in science so not really familiar with ESRC, but I assume it's similar to BBSRC. I don't think being funded by BBSRC confers much advantage in science, so not sure if would be similar for ESRC?

Often younger lecturers push more for publications and have more time to spend with students so can be a positive.

I would still go with A regardless, sounds like that's the one you really want. You can have the best sounding PhD on paper, but if you hated it, what's the point? It's really really hard to be enthusiastic about a project that you are only half interested in, in a place you don't particularly like to be. Trust me.

That's some good advice!! Thank you.

I agree with TreeofLife - if you're interested in the research and there's a good environment and you're happy to be there, then you already have a huge advantage. One thing I would check out (from my own experience) is what your full funding at A entails, just so you know up front. In my case, I had a university scholarship which covered my fees and monthly bursary, but absolutely no money towards the running costs of my research or conferences. People I know who were research council funded had extra money for these things. I wouldn't base your decision on that necessarily, but it is important to know how you're going to pay for study costs - I didn't even realise at the start that there was no money I could access!

I agree with all the previous comments. I would go with A because the list of pros is longer, and the pros of option B do not seem to outweigh them.

I would go with option B if I really wanted a change and/or there were some quite serious problems at my current institution.

As far as I've heard, things like where you publish are more important than who is your funder. But as Chickpea says, it is important to have enough money to support your costs during the PhD - so that might sway me if option A was poor for that (as in didn't offer a stipend or any bits of extra money for conferences etc).

All of this seems to be pointing to option A. In response to what chickpea and Tudor_Queen have said, i'm getting a full ride at A, tuition waiver, stipend at the research council rate as well as Discretionary Funds for conference attendance etc. Plus i actually don't want a change viz city or university, i really really like both. so, yeah A FTW. For those who were wondering A=Edinburgh , B= Glasgow.

Oh, you should've said - Glasgow FTW then! (only joking - Glasgow graduate here!)