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[msparticularity]

Also, as someone mentioned on another thread, in many programs it is perfectly acceptable to pick a more junior (and less overloaded) person in the field to co-chair, or at least to provide substantial support.

[dr_prephd]

Presumably if he is a superstar he is also good at handling a lot of things all at once.

But that's a big presumption.

[the_hanged_man]

HM, Congratulations.

Why not just accept the advisor you've been assigned and wait to see how things fall out as the time to start on the diss draws closer? See what your contact with the superstar advisor, and other potential advisors and/or committee members, leads to.

Thanks all.

This is probably what I will end up doing. Fortunately there are a few other professors in the department that share my interests so I may have some flexibility later on.

[polly_mer]

I wouldn't think of making any decision before you get to know them much better and see the chemistry between you. Some other advice on choosing a graduate adviser you can find here:

Dear Janice_h,

It's still basically spam to keep pointing us to your site--which in this case has a whopping three replies--from a year ago--the first reply of which says to come to this site to browse.

We weren't interested in your site the last time someone tried to sell it to us by starting a thread.  I seriously doubt that we will migrate en masse this time through your little breadcrumbs that appear to have a logical link, but still suffer from the problem of too few people who blog instead of discuss.

[wsr88d]

I was told in my program when I initially started that I should wait a year or so before considering selection of my committee, though I was already assigned a chair member (standard), my overall committee was entirely up to me. However, I was encourage to wait until year 2 was complete before corresponding with faculty to serve on my committee...this was due to the fact that through coursework I would be exposed to several professors in my related fields of study and become familiar with their work/research to see how and if would parallel to my own.

I had one or two hiccups along the way though...one faculty position on my committee was cut due to funding, so I had to replace that person and the other one was a good selection at first, but because they got lazy and flaky, the professional relationship/rapport was suffering and I was being pushed to support hu's ideas and mirror them into my work and initial research proposal without taking a stance and position from my own perspective. Hu wanted to control my topics and areas of research - and it was steering from my main goal and purpose, so therefore we did not see eye to eye anymore- so I dropped hu from my committee (which was my right and choice)....and found a replacement that I could collaborate and converse logically and professionally.