- Number 1 thing is having ~2-3 plausible advisors that you can see yourself working with (by all means fall in love with just one, but keep some optionality)
- Most physics departments allow for 'rotations' during your 1st or 2nd year (while you are taking classes and studying for the qual). Check if the 2-3 plausible advisors will take you as a rotation student
- Check if the grad students are (relatively) happy, especially the 4th-5th years during your open house. Ask them how much help the are getting in career search (good departments take care of their senior grad students)
- I personally didn't care to optimize for locale very much. Don't regret it. PhD is a grind,
you won't have too much time to yourself... and with what you have, I think you can have a vibrant social life at almost any university
- There is some funding anxiety right now (NIH, but surely NSF is not far behind). I would make sure that the labs you are in are well funded. Stanford is better in this regard.
- I would max out your applications to GRFP, NDSEG or whatever the in-vogue PhD fellowships are. It increases your chances of getting into a competitive lab
- You didn't say theory or experiment? If experiment, find out if you are going to spend time in the fab, and make sure you check out the fab. Berkeley nanolab was a shockingly functional shithole (at least when i visited, and i know it caused misery to many friends)
I like his articles, but the artificial constructs sometimes drive me up the wall. After reading through a fairly rudimentary strawman about outcomes defining the difference between obstinacy and persistence, we reach the last paragraph that trades a poorly defined word (persistence) for five poorly defined words (imagination, focus, energy, judgement, resilience)
persistence is also defined by flexibility in thinking, appetite for risk/comfort with uncertainty, low ego. equally useless
This is a good explanation of “price discovery” on the consumer side.
The added benefit is also that there is price discovery on the Advertiser side. A bulk of advertising is auction based, which allows the advertiser to express their willingness to pay for a given audience.
So in theory, both sides of the transaction can be optimally priced.
- Most physics departments allow for 'rotations' during your 1st or 2nd year (while you are taking classes and studying for the qual). Check if the 2-3 plausible advisors will take you as a rotation student
- Check if the grad students are (relatively) happy, especially the 4th-5th years during your open house. Ask them how much help the are getting in career search (good departments take care of their senior grad students)
- I personally didn't care to optimize for locale very much. Don't regret it. PhD is a grind, you won't have too much time to yourself... and with what you have, I think you can have a vibrant social life at almost any university
- There is some funding anxiety right now (NIH, but surely NSF is not far behind). I would make sure that the labs you are in are well funded. Stanford is better in this regard.
- I would max out your applications to GRFP, NDSEG or whatever the in-vogue PhD fellowships are. It increases your chances of getting into a competitive lab
- You didn't say theory or experiment? If experiment, find out if you are going to spend time in the fab, and make sure you check out the fab. Berkeley nanolab was a shockingly functional shithole (at least when i visited, and i know it caused misery to many friends)
TL;DR - Stanford if research fit is there.