I heard some recent conversations among faculties about why they should not take the very top students because they might go somewhere else in the end.
WTF
If even you do not think you are the best, how could you make others believe in you?
I think I am as good as anyone out there, so my strategy is very simple: take (as my internal students) only those who are so good that I will regret for not taking. If they deflect to other places in the end, fine, because I will likely at least keep some of them. And even in the worst case I get no students, I can just single author SIGGRAPH papers. (I seriously miss the fun.) Or spend some time away living in Nepal. All these beat wasting time on not-so-good people, or worse, thinking I am one of them.
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