I've got a question about epistemic positions in the decision-making process.
Let's suppose there's a candidate who was admitted to several excellent programs. Near the end, their decision has come down to NYU, MIT, or Rutgers. For some of us, this would be an obvious choice. For others, this would be an excruciatingly difficult choice to make.
In cases like these, is there a way that an onlooker could reasonably predict which choice the person makes? Certainly there are big/obvious factors, like interest fit, faculty they'd like to work with, location preference, and so on. However, it seems that there has got to be a sizable gap of information that onlookers can't really gauge. This is basically the position of any very curious waitlistee.
If you were in a position akin to that of the admitted candidate, do you have certain dealbreakers that would sway you one way or another? Or do any of you have anecdotes regarding either having made this decision, or being in the process of making a decision like this?