"Very, very few of the people you interview with in a research group will ever tell you that your academic career is a waste of time and that you should just le

"Very, very few of the people you interview with in a research group will ever tell you that your academic career is a waste of time and that you should just leave, even if it's true." It's true that they'll rarely say this explicitly. Ultimately, it's the potential grad student's responsibility to dig and find out what kind of a culture a research group has. This is a difficult thing to do, requiring considerable self-confidence and tenacity. Still, in my opinion, if someone is not willing to do this, then they really should consider some path other than academia. "(2) Iterate until you find a group that looks excellent, or until you discover that all the excellent groups have a waiting list, at which point you need to either quit grad school, apply for a personal fellowship and win it, or work for whoever has the grant money to pay you." You seem to be implicitly assuming that the world owes you a position in a good group. It doesn't. If you can't find one, then you shouldn't work for whoever has grant money to pay you. You should go and do something else - like start a company.