I'm not so sure this is great advice for PhD students. Junior faculty maybe. You should fix a lot of other things first (in particular, prefered methodology an

I'm not so sure this is great advice for PhD students. Junior faculty maybe. You should fix a lot of other things first (in particular, prefered methodology and advisor) and then, after fixing those things, choose applications toward the left-hand side. A few reasons: 1. If you're doing it for hype alone you will be miserable. Ph.D. students tend to be out ahead of pretty much everyone in terms of the nitty gritty details, so they often hit the trough of disillusionment right around the time everyone else is at the top of the hype curve. 2. A Ph.D. is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be paid (sometimes comfortably) to work on (mostly) whatever you want. If it's not at least a little self-indulgent, you're wasting a great opportunity. 3. You'll have the rest of your life to chase the next sexy thing.