Choosing a school with rotations vs PI lined up?

[tschlich]

Here's the scenario, boiled down:

 

School A:

I have one school that has a potential dream situation going on: Fantastic program, I'd be working with a big name in the field, well-funded, whose interests intersect precisely with mine, and all of the grad students there love him as a mentor (he has a fairly small lab)

 

The problem is, this school does rotations, and I'm not guaranteed a spot in his lab.  I may be the only one doing a rotation with him, or I may be one of three or so people competing for a spot, who knows.  He has stated that he generally looks for 1-2 students to add per year.   The other professors in the department certainly catch my interest, and I think I could be happy in such a scenario, but the research doesn't quite fit and I'd be potentially looking at a very different career path.

 

School B:  

This school has a young assistant professor who's really pushing for me to come there, and him and I got along really well.  Funding lined up, frequent correspondence with the PI, happy grad students, the research is great fit but not a perfect one. 

 

Do I risk it, have faith in my own abilities, and shoot for the dream situation at school A or play it safe with school B?

[Bruin4Ever]

Go for school A, don't be afraid of the rotation lol.

[rising_star]

Devil's advocate: How will you feel if you go to school A and you don't get to work in your dream PI/lab? If you think you'll then regret not going to school B, just go to school B now and avoid the potential drama. You can always try for a postdoc at school A in dream lab later.

 

On the other hand: what if your interests shift slightly? In that case, it would make more sense to go to school A because you'd see/experience more options due to the rotations....