Perfect Advisor vs Perfect Research

[itriedtorotate]

I'm considering two schools right now. One school has the perfect advisor for me, but the research is not really what I want to do. I find the research interesting, but am not passionate about it. The other school has the perfect research for me. I've already talked to the advisor about working on an idea that I had, and he loves the idea. Unfortunately he is a hands off advisor because he is so busy, meaning I might not get the advising and mentoring that I need. That doesn't include all of the details, but what do you guys find more important and why?

[bgk]

For me, in my situation, the advisor was most important. I was changing research areas and having an advisor who could point to interesting problems, and steer me away from ones that were too difficult was immensely rewarding. It's also nice to have time to talk to someone who has been through the entire process before, who can make course suggestions etc.

If you're new to research/graduate life I think it can be dangerous to tie yourself down to a particular research area to start. After 6 months you may find it wasn't actually what you hoped for and now you've got a busy advisor and a project you're not interested in.

I've heard good arguments for hands-off advisor vs hands-on too. So it's definitely a personal thing.