<p>For those of you who have been fortunate enough to be confronted with the decision between accepting one of multiple offers- what factors were key for you? How large of a role did program infrastructure (resource cores, professional development workshops, training grants) play in your choice? How did the coursework or teaching requirements sway your decisions? Did anyone just 'go with their gut' and make the decision based on a really great research project? Did cost of living determine anything? I met a current graduate student who negotiated her stipend to a higher salary, did any of you do this?</p>
<p>What field?</p>
<p>This is an excellent question! I'm inclined to choose based on research projects, since research will make up such a large part of the experience. In any case, I'd be really interested to know what everyone else is doing.</p>
<p>If I will have to choose, one factor that will greatly influence my decision (apart from the program or research stuff) is the job market for my spouse in each location.</p>
<p>Cost of living, unfortunately, ruled the day. I'm super happy with my department, however. It all worked out.</p>
<p>My decision-making process was not much of a model, but here are some thoughts of mine on each factor, now that I'm a third-year.</p>
<p>Coursework. Ideally, you'd like to choose a program that lets you get all of your courses out of the way ASAP. You will probably lose all interest in attending classes and doing pretend research papers and projects once you're actually in a lab. In my opinion, the less required coursework, the better, but maybe I'm just a cranky third-year with one half-class still to take.</p>
<p>Program structure. It's useful to be in a program that makes the qualifying exam a useful exercise (e.g. by requiring you to write a preliminary thesis proposal and defending it, rather than by requiring you to write a proposal outside your intended research area). It's useful to get your qualifying exam over with ASAP (second year) so you can focus on your research without the exam hanging over your head.</p>
<p>Teaching requirements. It's nice to teach at least once, as having teaching experience on your resume can be a plus for jobs in the future. Being required to teach twice or more is going to cut into your research time, and being a TA is a big time sink.</p>
<p>I don't feel that my department's administrative resources have been useful to me after my first year (although our administrative staff are very friendly and helpful), but maybe others feel differently. For me, the lab I joined is the single most important factor in my grad school experience -- I don't see others in my program very often, and I'm not even on the same campus as most of the classes for my program, but I see the other members in my lab all day, every day. Nothing is as important as a lab that makes you happy, though it can be difficult to choose a school on that factor alone, of course.</p>
<p>I fully agree with everything Mollie's said here. No need to restate any of it.</p>
<p>Besides these things, I ultimately chose a program that had a solid department in my subfield (with close to 50 labs associated with it, most other schools had at best 10-20) giving me more options to find that great lab that Mollie mentions. It also helped that the students I interacted with at that campus also chose that school for the science. They were there because they loved the work being done and the environment in which they were able to do it, not because they liked the beach nearby or because their boyfriend went to the same school. Cost of living does obviously play a role too, but you can usually find ways to live off the stipend you're given. It's just going to mean the difference between sharing an apartment potentially far from the school vs buying a townhouse depending on the schools you are looking at. </p>
<p>It can be a tough choice, but I think after all the interview weekends one usually rises above all others for most people. Sometimes it's just about where felt the most like home. Good luck!</p>
<ol>
<li>Research (lab rotations, number of faculty in your field)</li>
<li>Cost of living vs. Stipend</li>
<li>How is the department performing for the past couple years? e.g. #15 in 2004 --> #25 in 2008 is not a good sign.</li>
<li>What's your hobby? e.g. snowboard / surf / night life</li>
</ol>
<p>This is how I am planning to make a decision. The reason behind it:
1. Career
2. Can I live a comfortable life (financially)?
3. The progress / improvement of the dept's itself
4. Relaxation.
The order should vary depending on your values. For some ppl, #2 & 4 may not even be a factor. </p>
<p>Hope this helps!</p>
<p>There were several factors that led to my decision, I'm not sure exactly what order they came in. The first and most important was faculty, but that mostly determined where I applied, and only in one case crossed a school off of my list post-application.</p>
<p>Location was relatively important, and one of the tie breakers between my two top choices. </p>
<p>My impression of current grad students was extremely important, as I figured that they would be my friends for the next several years. Different schools have different grad student vibes, particularly on the number of married/committed relationships in students. Coming right out of college, I wanted other students who I could relate to and who were in the same general place in life. </p>
<p>I didn't really take classes into much thought, as most of the schools had relatively similar requirements. I would want classes to be done within the first year though. I also didn't really consider stipend, as the difference between stipends wasn't huge (26k to 31k), and most of the grad students seemed to live relatively fine in all places, and at this point in my life I wasn't too concerned with being able to afford my own apartment but am happy with roommates. My parents were also willing to help out if I really needed it. </p>
<p>The final consideration that I had was how complicated the program was. I wasn't a huge fan of schools with multiple campuses as it seemed hard to get between them. You get more faculty options, but it makes your life a bit more complicated and the department more spread out. I was a fan of a smallish department (with a decent number of people that I wanted to work for)</p>
<p>I think that after a couple of interview weekends you start to figure out what you actually want, and I am at a program that I initially wasn't even seriously considering due to the odd structure of the courses/rotations, but I am very happy with my decision and I can tell by the experiences of my friends in other departments that I was considering that I made the right decision for me.</p>
<p>I'm going entirely on gut feel. This may sound stupid. Once I hear back from everywhere I'll read up and research every place I'm accepted over again. Then after taking everything in again I'll make a decision. Making a formula to aid in my decision doesn't make sense to me. I feel that once I've gathered all the facts it'll be pretty clear on what place is best, and that is where I will go.</p>
<p>Well, I guess your gut does have neurons after all.</p>
<p>I'm going based on: reputation of the program/school, PI choices (at least 4 I would be excited to work with), quality of education, overall living conditions, etc.</p>
<p>I would base my decision on how excited I am about the research in the school. If I am excited, it is very likely I will be motivated to finish my project with a professor in the school. This single factor can win my heart over. Then, the next factor is the people in the lab of interested PI: can I get along with the people, can I see myself comfortable cooperating with them on projects. The last factor is the location and city conveniences.</p>
<p>Crap, I am making a return to the forum boards and resurrecting this thread because now I have two almost identical programs to choose between. I am choosing between UNC and Duke. These have virutally the same location, they share journal clubs, the labs have identical research topics, identical superstar faculty, identical numbers of grad students in the departments, identical stipends and benefits, identical departmental culture, same campus feel (at least as far as grad biomedical sciences go), similar course requirements, identical professional development resources etc. Any insight or differences between the two programs that anyone can provide would be greatly appreciated. It seems silly to make a decision on something as unimportant as parking or campus landscaping but I feel that is what the decision is coming down to. Any thoughts?</p>
<p>Ask each DGS about placement rates, and about where recent students have been placed. Depending on your own goals, the answers should help you with your final decision.</p>
<p>Congratulations!</p>
<p>Do you want to live in Durham (medium-sized city) or Chapel Hill (more traditional college town)? Find out which campus offers a better social environment for you and your family.</p>
<p>Not to detract from what tenisghs is saying too much, but honestly that still doesn't really tip the scales any which way in practice. You can easily live in Durham and go to UNC or vice versa. Depending on what side of town it is we're talking a 5-10 minute drive either way.</p>
<p>You're really just going to have to look at the programs harder I think. They are very similar (I'm assuming Duke CMB vs UNC BBSP) but maybe one had slightly more labs doing things you could see yourself doing. Double check (if you haven't) that your top choices for labs at both schools are taking students next year. If your list of 5-6 quickly dwindles to 1-2 due to poor funding that might help decide where to go. I faced nearly the same decision last year, a lot of the things I loved about UNC were the same things I loved about Duke (though it was admittedly an easier choice for me based on labs) so if you have more questions or want to bounce things off someone feel free to PM me about this. Good luck and congrats!</p>
<p>Chapel Hill and Durham are not 5 minutes from each other. The two places are 10 miles apart. To some people, that is significant. That's roughly the same distance between Northwestern and Univ of Chicago. Both campuses have different surroundings. </p>
<p>I say lab quality, professor quality, grad placements (what percentage get good jobs, post-docs, etc.) and location (remember, you have to live there for at least 4 years!) are the most important factors.</p>
<p>belevitt, listen to your gut feeling!</p>
<p>The campus of UNC is 8 miles from the campus of Duke. Without traffic, these two campuses are less than 15 minutes from each other. I met a number of grad students that attend one and live in the other. Thus location is pretty positive and commute times cannot be beat.</p>
<p>All of what you say is true- grad placements, faculty quality, lab quality are of utmost importance. The crazy thing is that the labs I am interested in have published the same number of articles in the last five years and in the same exact journals. Many collaborate between the institutions as well as within the department. Post doc placements seem to vary by lab, but the labs I am interested in at both seem to place postdocs in prestigious labs and those individuals have gone on to publish quite a bit in their own rite.</p>
<p>I wish I had a gut feeling about this. Thank you both for your thoughts.</p>
<p>EASY!
go with your us news ranking.</p>
<p>Ask some questions to the profs in each school about their research interests, and what possible projects you could join once you are in. This could help you decide which school has more projects you are interested in. Sometimes, professors' websites are not up to date, so asking them what they are currently doing may be a good thing to do.</p>