Doing a different research from your proposal

[borednow]

Essentially I have two researches in mind:

i. A research idea that recently came to me, which is not very well-developed at the moment. However, I am pretty certain that this is the research I want to pursue.

ii. A well-developed research idea with a comprehensive proposal, but I no longer think it is appropriate for my PhD research (it might work as an MA thesis though).

 

The idea is that gaining admission into grad school will allow me to spend the first 2-3 years developing research (i), but for application purposes research (ii) will be a much stronger proposal. Is there an issue of 'dishonesty' with using a proposal that I know I won't be pursuing (at least for my PhD)? I spoke to a few people and they don't think it's much of an issue, since many grad students end up doing something completely different from their initial proposal anyway.

 

 

[TakeruK]

What program are you applying to / what field? Maybe people in these fields can give specific advice. In my field, we do not propose any research at the application stage. You figure out what your dissertation will be after a few years in grad school, not at the application stage.