internship in audit or ER?

Title says it all.

Currently set to work in audit this summer, but recently got a chance to do an internship in research at a mid-sized AM firm. Choice to go for ER internship seems obvious, but the biggest problem is my location.

I'm in a MM city where 90% of paths to TAS and M&A groups are through accounting firms, and partners want people who "did their time" in audit.  
So while the research role would likely be a better experience, it might limit my options afterward. 

Any advice? 

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Not sure of specifics of your situation but I’d take ER internship personally. I think it will be more relevant work, better for your CV, and more interesting.

You say MM city and post is tagged Canada so I guess you mean Vancouver, Montreal, or Calgary. I don’t think ER would hurt you in any of these markets vs audit. If any smaller market I would suggest leaving unless that’s unfeasible for some reason.

If you get FT ER role then that will be easier/quicker to use to lateral to M&A as long as you’re fine relocating to a bigger market. I think only way it would make sense to do audit over ER here would be if you are extremely risk averse + for some reason are likely to be unable to leverage the ER internship into either FT ER role (low gpa, non-target school, the MM AM doesn’t give FT offers to interns, etc) or a different role that is more relevant than audit.

Some details that are not known but relevant:
-Is your GPA good? Do you go to a target or semi-target?
-Does the MM AM have a history of giving return offers to their ER interns?
-How many years of UG do you have left?
-What’s your risk tolerance?

 

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