anonymo

OK. A friend of mine in the industry recommended that I do this but I wanted a second opinion. It did not seem very different from transferring, or dropping out, after receiving a MA, which I thought that this was not uncommon. Right? Or am I kidding myself? Much appreciated

How can you tell if a professor is "strong" or not?? Thanks!

I came out of undergrad with really excellent credentials, but, unfortunately, my experience,coursework, and research had all been in outside of the applied statisticsfield that I eventually decided to pursue for graduate school. I think it's because of this that I did very poorly in this year’s application process, and only got into my safety school. There was one school I interviewed at where I connected very strongly with a couple of the professors on staff. There is work I could do at that departmentthat I'm afraid I can't really do most other places, including the department where I was accepted. So I'm strongly considering building up my resume bydoing a year at the school I was accepted to, and then reapplying again as an entry level PhD student. My concern of course, is for the department I'd be transferring out of. They would essentially be paying me to take classes (In their schedule I’d dovery little research my first year) and then I'd be leaving instead of contributing back to them by working as a RA. Is this highly uncouth? Would I be making enemies in a small world? Would grad programs not want to accept a defector? It seems like the smart thing to do, but somewhat dirty. Are there better options? Thanks very much everyone...