Sorry to butt in, but I have to say, based on only 2 WEEKS of grad school I would NOT EVER join without being able to rotate. Not in this field. It takes so long to get a PhD and you can be pretty miserable if you get it wrong.
Example: I met with a professor I thought I wanted to work with. They look good on paper, we even got along really well. However, when I met with her grad student, she let me know some of the drama that had transpired in this laboratory AND about some of the negative aspects of the faculty's personality. Then a couple other students said they had heard some stuff about her mentorship abilities. Now, this is not to say you should trust everything you hear. But you SHOULD take some pause and think if those things might be serious problems for you. If you talk to 3+ independent people and hear the same things, it is very likely true. Also, if you were to ignore the warnings and rotate in the lab (which I may very well still do. My school has 4 rotations.) you're only wasting 1 rotation, NOT 5+ years of being miserable. So all in all, faculty members know how to sell themselves and know what you want to hear. I would heavily warn against going into a program where you've already committed to a lab.
@jumbo1177 When deciding between two programs at the same university, I would ask the program administration directly what restrictions they have regarding the faculty with whom you will be able to work. With that being said, I would be surprised if the two programs you mentioned have distinct and exclusive faculty.
You are right on target with your decision to choose a program based on the research being done. Set a threshold for the number of faculty a program needs to have in your area of interest in order to be a viable option, e.g., a program must have at least five faculty studying cancer cell metabolism in order for it to be an option.
I would also be cautious when choosing a program that only caters to a specific field and that restricts its students from pursuing other research. You don't want to join a program that only studies cancer biology to later find out that your true passion is in neuroscience.
Good luck!
