[PeterisP]

What "graduating class"? In undergrad studies, your peers are your classmates, but in PhD studies, your peers are the global community of your sub-subfield. For feeling like you're the best, your competition will be someone across the ocean who happens to work on a topic very close to your thesis, and most of students in your department will be largely irrelevant since they'll work in a different field and interact with different topics, papers, ideas and people.

If anything, being in one of the few labs that work on "top" things in a specific domain pretty much guarantees that you'll be in that 1% of your subfield; and if your lab is weak in that (though possibly world class in other fields), then you won't.

[sndean]

> What "graduating class"?

Many universities have a "College of Science." Many of those universities give out some sort of "Top Doctoral Student" award, with a different name.

And I largely agree with what you say. That would be how any rational person would measure themselves, you would think. But in reality, you're comparing yourself to the people you're surrounded by, not with the smart guy in Iceland.

[dilly_li]

Nice comment. In my opinion, in reality you are not comparing to your peers. Instead, you are your peers. There is a quote, something like, you are the average of your best 6 friends. To some degree, I think it makes sense because they basically serve as your inspiration and collaborators.

Personally I would not want to attend a second-tier school/lab as a PhD student, spending half a decade with some mediocre people. I mean, if one truly wants to stand out among the peers/crowds, isn't it a better idea to do really excellent research rather than lower your peers' quality.

Currently I am in a top research group and I might not be the top 1% of my graduating class; yet, I am confident that I am having my best time to learn from my great peers.