toomanygoodthings

Thank you both for your responses! @rising_star Both professors established their labs recently enough that neither has graduated students or published as last/senior author, and have similar publication records before this. Personality-wise... I'm not sure. I definitely got to know B better on a personal level, and she is a fabulous person, but I know I would enjoy both working with and generally getting to know A also. At any rate, both have made clear that they want to work with me to define a mutually interesting project and support me in whatever my eventual career goals are. @virionoftomorrow I guess my issue is that, insofar as I can define my subfield, B's research wouldn't really fall under it, and I'd be /really/ excited to work on what A is thinking about. That's not to say B's research isn't promising, just that before now I'd have seen it and thought, "I'm excited to see what comes of that line of research!" rather than "I'd be excited to get my hands on that kind of work!" But I am more sure that she will make the time to be a good mentor that she "relates well to students," as you put it. Thinking about it some more, I think maybe I'd have more general opportunities for academic/personal growth at B's school, but I don't know how much that should influence my decision. At this point I might just need to base it off of something relatively arbitrary. I can't help but feel bad that in the end I'll have to turn one of them down... had I heard from only one or the other each would be a trivial choice.

I'm torn between two great opportunities for a PhD in an engineering discipline. One is a top 5 engineering school, the other an Ivy League, both are in great cities, I'll be funded at both, I really like the general campus/department culture at both, so I know I can't go wrong with either. My uncertainty lies in which advisor + research topic combo to choose... Both are young and energetic professors with new labs who seem to be working on relevant and exciting problems in their fields. But there are a few differences... A: This professor's research is right up my alley - I couldn't have come up with a better way to combine all of my (fairly varied) research interests, and I was psyched about every potential project he proposed. He and his students were very friendly and I felt we clicked personality-wise, though I didn't get to talk to them all that much. B: This professor is super excited to have me join - she and her students went out of their way to make me feel welcome and have us get to know each other. For what it's worth, I think I would find it really valuable to have a female research mentor, and I'm sure she would be a great one. Her group's research, while it sounds promising, is pretty far outside of what I'd been thinking to do, and I feel sort of underprepared for it (honestly didn't really understand a big chunk of the projects she described) but I think this adviser would try her darnedest to make sure I succeed. So which will be better in the long run? I'm really not sure. I'm sure after I make the decision I'll be convinced I made the right one, but for now it feels like a big deal.