"I'm curious--if accepted would you even bother going? " Yes I would. There are some ultra awesome professors there I'd love to work with. And the atmsphere an

"I'm curious--if accepted would you even bother going? " Yes I would. There are some ultra awesome professors there I'd love to work with. And the atmsphere and facilities at Stanford would be much better (than my present situation in Bangalore) to do research. My focus wouold be to work with and learn from them, not to become a fulltime academic. If I get my PhD I'd like to be the author of a few awesome research papers and have no intention of getting into the tenure track rat race and so on. "It sounds like merely getting in would satisfy all of your goals." My immediate goal is to get and admission. Why should meeting that goal satisfy all my goals? Once you jump over one bar you reset it higher and try again. If I were to get admitted, I'd set a goal of doing some stunning research, ace the classes and so on (which would be quite a challenge given the calibre of my fellow students).