where people might sabotage others and whatnot?
In the sciences it depends on the school. Some of the top schools are well known for a cut throat environment, and I know people at these schools that will confirm it. The environment at Duke (around top 10) is not very cut throat. But there is intense compition between a few of the labs. We also get a 1-2 bad people each year that will try to make it cut throat. Fortunately we dont have tons of bad apples here, so grad school has been fairly collegial so far.
