Hi all,
I now got two unconditional phd offers which I find difficult to choose from. My area is in social science. There are many factors I have considered in making my decision, but overall the scale is still quite balanced, like the two university has similar rankings, and although Supervisor A's faculty seems to be stronger, supervisor B appears to have more academic achievements in the area. And I have taken skype interviews with them both and they both strike me as sensible and easy-going people (I am aware though that half an hour of skype interview cannot tell much), although supervisor A is quite critical in my RP while supervisor B just says that my RP is very good.
So now I think of factors that really help me make decisions.
1. I am the kind of person who enjoy working independently and has the ability to do so. As I already have ten years of working experience, I dare say this is quite a fair evaluation of myself. So I prefer a supervisor who gives less interference to my research rather than a bossy one, even if the former may offer me less support and advice.
2. I really hope to spend many days (like 3 months in a year) outside the UK during my phd study. That's largely because I am an international student and I want to accompany my mom in my home country, who fully supports my phd study financially and mentally, but would be really alone if I am away. I am quite confident that going back to my own country would not affect my study.
So now I am thinking about what I can do to check who is more compatible with me. Is it approapriate to simply send them emails and simply tell them about my concern and ask for their attitudes?
Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you in advance!

Hi there

It is definitely best to consider these two important things. Re point 1: can you get any feel for which of the two supervisors is less into micro-management? If you end up with a supervisor who micro-manages, I promise you, your PhD will be an utter misery and you will regret it! It is hard to ask someone - are you a micro-manager? Could you make a judgment based on the nature of the feedback on your research proposals?

I was in a similar situation to you at the start of my PhD (and I made the wrong decision lol - hence my strong advice now!). I already had a funny feeling that Supervisor A was more wanting to hold my hand and micromanage by the way she commented on my drafts and managed that early part of the relationship. I should have chosen Supervisor B who was more like "yes, this is great" and not bothering to pick little holes in it that were of no great consequence. But I thought Supervisor A sounded like she was more thorough and had more time for my work - and because I was a little uncertain about what the world of PhD was going to hold - I chose her. And, of course, I regretted it!

Regarding your second point. I don't think I would even say explicitly what you intend to do. I think I'd just make it clear that you have family abroad and travel often, and that this has never impeded your ability to work before and you don't see why it should now. Perhaps a negative reaction to this would be flashing lights warning of micro-management! And then you should go with the other supervisor.

Hope this is a bit helpful! Go with your gut feeling and never make a big decision like this based on fear or uncertainty!

One minor point: if you need a tier 4 visa your travel plans may not be compatible with the monitoring measures used by universities to check visa compliance eg regular signing in and supervision meetings.

I think it tends to be manageable... my friend from South Korea basically used to disappear for what felt like months at a time (maybe it was weeks?) very often during her PhD. She did used to have to come back for the sake of paperwork stuff but still seems more often away than not!

Tudor_Queen and bewildered. Thank you very much for your advice. I now seem to know what to write in the emails of enquiry to the two potential supervisors.

All the best!