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Any advice???


Anthrogeek

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Hey Guys!

I've been able to pretty much narrow my list down to three schools, but am having trouble choosing.

School A: Around #15 ranked department, with PERFECT advisor, but no one else really doing directly relevant research (though Mr. advisor says he often shares students with his colleagues at other institutions who do other such relevant research - such as person at School C).

School B: #1 Ranked program in the field, but without any faculty doing exactly what I want to. Though there is flexibility to go beyond individual faculty's specific focus.

School C: Generally Top 5 ranked program, with LARGE faculty and multiple people who kind of overlap with my research interests, and potential advisor says he collaborates with people who have my exact research interests (such as person at School A).

Any thoughts??

Thanks, guys!!!!

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Going to school B would be silly. I'd go to other factors beyond the advisor to decide between Schools A and C. What's the funding like? The potential cohort? Is the student atmosphere what you'd like? Course offerings? Place where you'd be living? External funding record for students (Fulbright, NSF-DDIs, etc)?

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You're probably right about School B...

Both schools have excellent record of students obtaining external funding (A even claims their record is the best in the field). Both also have very good records of graduate job placement.

C Pros: broad course offerings, cohort of students doing more like-minded research. Still waiting on funding.

A Pros: Lots of research opportunities, guaranteed full funding, location with nice weather :). Offers more specialized classes in tutorial format as opposed to normally offered classes, since its a smaller program (not really a pro or con).

I am currently leaning towards A... I'll think on that for a couple more days while I'm waiting for funding info from C.

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Have you visited either campus? Have you talked about issues of advisor accessibility, particularly when you're in the fieldwork stage? Maybe it comes down to a factor like required coursework, number/sequence of comprehensive exams, or... weather?

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Yet another question you should consider involves comprehensive/qualifying exams. Some of the top schools in certain fields have an unfortunate tendency to take on more students that they really need and then weed out up to 35% of them on a terrible exam during the second year. I understand that the MIT physics department does this a lot. I also know people who have failed these things at schools that are not as fancy as well. Maybe it is not as a big a problem is the humanities and social sciences (I am not sure here), but it can become an issue in engineering and the physical sciences.

Overall, I might tend to lean toward School C, provided that you could get some funding. It seems to be a nice compromise between the other two. At the same time, I do not know all of the details well enough to be able to make a definite decision. Since all of the schools are pretty good, your choice should not be that hard to make.

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Placement stats do indeed favor B, though both A and C actually have very good records in this regard as well. Financial package looks to be similar from all, adjusted for differences in cost of living. I guess it comes down to really knowing what I want my research focus to be and making the best choice I can based on that.

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