Success in high energy theory - supervisors' thoughts

[spaghetti3451]

This question is directed to all the professors who have supervised PhD students in high energy theoretical physics.

What attributes have you noticed (during your years as a supervisor) among PhD students who later went on to have great careers in high energy theoretical physics and made a name for themselves in the field? Let me start off the list: being able to form collaborations on your own, writing at least eight or nine papers as a PhD student, if not more, ... ... ... .

Given your years of experience as a supervisor, do you now know (to some extent), after having seen a PhD student for one or two years, if he/she will be successful in academia and make a name for him/herself?

 

[Crass_Oscillator]

I'm not a supervisor, but probably the overwhelmingly highest impact attribute is starting your PhD before the 70's, which, if I heard correctly, is roughly when HEP funding across the board (especially in the US) started to go seriously south.

There is probably an order of magnitude difference in predictive power between that particular trait and any other.