UGA vs Georgia Tech (Biology PhD)

[genes]

Over the past few weeks I've been pulling my hair out trying to decide between these two great schools! 

Research Interests: Developmental biology and genetics (and potentially evolution)

Career Goal: I would love a career where I could balance both teaching and research. I have experience teaching at the college level and have had training in pedagogy. I want to develop myself more as a teacher and also as a scientist. Regardless if I end up in academia or industry, I want to be teaching to some degree.

Funding: I will have guaranteed funding at both (don't mind TAing)

Faculty: Regardless of where I go, I intend to do rotations. I value a great mentor more than specific research focus. Both schools seemed to have faculty that would be great mentors, and also have interesting research. 

Here are my perceptions of the benefits of each school (correct me if I have any faulty perceptions):

UGA: Larger and more developed biology program. More developmental biologists. I got the impression that biology education is valued here and that the grad program encourages students to develop teaching skills if that's what they desire. Talked to many current grad students extensively and they loved the school. Interview experience was top notch and they sold themselves very well. I felt like the faculty and students were more cohesive here.

Georgia Tech: Smaller biology program and less dev. biologists (most of which are new and young faculty). It seemed that they were more research heavy here and do not support pedagogical training as much as UGA does. Given that GT is a highly ranked engineering and STEM school, they appear to be pushing their quantitative biosciences more. I do not have a strong computational background, but anticipate that I would get more training in that if I pursued a PhD here. Not many grad students to talk to during interview weekend. A few colleagues I've talked to think GT has better name recognition and that this could potentially open up more doors for me. Seems like it might be more cutthroat here. 

Hope you can help me with this! I've talked to friends and colleagues about this decision and they are also divided!

[genes]

Shameless bump

[Zedonger]

Both seem like great options for you - Congratulations!

My understanding has always been that for positions in academia, the reputation of your Ph.D. granting institute is really important. This is coming from the perspective of another prospective Ph.D. student, with knowledge just based on conjecture, for what it's worth.

With that in mind, I would say try to figure out where you would fit the best and have the most success. Personally, as an introvert, I would prefer a smaller program to be able to maximize my interaction with the faculty and other students instead of feeling lost or overwhelmed in a large program. It also sort of comes down to who specifically is doing research that interests you most and again maximizes your chances at success. Maybe find a couple of people you are interested in working with and reach out to them to gauge general interest? I am not sure if these programs have lab rotations, but that will be a great time to test out what it is like to be in a lab with a potential advisor after you choose which school you're going for.

If anyone has any corrections or expansions on this short (hopefully helpful) advice, feel free to add!

[genes]

2 hours ago, Zedonger said:

Both seem like great options for you - Congratulations!

My understanding has always been that for positions in academia, the reputation of your Ph.D. granting institute is really important. This is coming from the perspective of another prospective Ph.D. student, with knowledge just based on conjecture, for what it's worth.

With that in mind, I would say try to figure out where you would fit the best and have the most success. Personally, as an introvert, I would prefer a smaller program to be able to maximize my interaction with the faculty and other students instead of feeling lost or overwhelmed in a large program. It also sort of comes down to who specifically is doing research that interests you most and again maximizes your chances at success. Maybe find a couple of people you are interested in working with and reach out to them to gauge general interest? I am not sure if these programs have lab rotations, but that will be a great time to test out what it is like to be in a lab with a potential advisor after you choose which school you're going for.

If anyone has any corrections or expansions on this short (hopefully helpful) advice, feel free to add!

Well that is the toughness of my decision, figuring out where I would fit best and get the most success. Although UGA's program is large, they are split into different departments, and then further split into subgroups called interdisciplinary groups. So I think I wouldn't be overwhelmed. You may be able to tell I'm leaning UGA, but I'm torn because GT seems to have a better reputation in general (although UGA is supposedly ranked higher in biology). I'm not sure if reputation will matter if I don't fit in as well. I've already talked to people I'm interested in during interviews, but I don't know how I can figure out if they're the right adviser from such a short meeting. Both schools encourage or require rotations.

Thank you for your input!