advice for deciding between two schools?

[3jane]

I'll be starting a PhD in Comp Sci in the fall and I'm having an incredibly hard time choosing between two schools. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

School A:

- small group (2 potential supervisors)

- known as experts in a specific area X that I *think* I'm interested in

- close ties with my home (current) university (this is a positive for me)

- I'm more interested in the research being done by people here than at school B

 

 

School B:

- much more supportive environment for graduate students

- greater number of faculty working in a broader characterization of my area of interest

- some people working in specific area X, but definitley not kown to be experts in the area (though they may be soon)

- the university just hired a lot of top faculty (already established) from other universities in my area of interest

- much more oppourtunity for collaboration, greater breadth of interests and expertise than school A

- I really connected with several faculty at this school and have several potential supervisors who are already collaborating with one another

 

The cities are comparable, funding is slightly better at school A, but not enouch to sway my decision.

 

So I guess in summary, the research being done at school A is more appealing to me, but I got a really great feeling from the people (students and faculty) at school B and would have potentially more support if I wanted to explore topics outside the specific area school A focuses on. My fear with school A is that it'll turn out that I actually don't want to focus on area X, and won't have many people with outside perspectives to work with/talk to. That being said, school A is doing really cool stuff and if I do want to be known in the area X this is probably the place to do it.

 

Help?