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student12345

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  1. I don't see any particular reason for that. The only prerequisite for the full treatment of Casella is an introductory probability course (which some freshmen take here). As a sophomore having done the full Casella + some of Lehmann, I can say with confidence that there was no point where I felt my background was lacking.
  2. I believe it is not too uncommon to see mathematical statistics taught with Casella/Berger in undergraduate programs. UCSD may be one such program, based on what I saw when I visited. It is a good introduction to statistics, but there are certainly books with the required about of mathematical rigor for research that are not seen until graduate-level programs, such as Lehmann. Although the statistics program is in the applied mathematics department, it is not quite at the level that the rest of the department would appear to be at, based on the NRC rankings.
  3. Wine, those exams look like something our undergraduates would take here in Boston U. I don't believe that passing these exams determines competency at the Master's level, even. Edit: Having taken a closer look, it seems like BU freshmen could easily ace that general qual. And sophomores could do the same with the stats exam. I agree. Red flag.
  4. Cyberwulf, I have some trouble wrapping my mind around the first half of your argument. While the math/stats department at my undergrad offers some PhD-level coursework, we do a significant part of our learning through supervised reading courses or reading groups. I was under the impression that most departments are the same way since few departments have the resources to offer a very wide range of electives. I was thinking that stony brook's program certainly offers "less" classes, but since graduate students in math and stats learn so much through focused readings, I do not see a lack of fixed coursework a detriment, and in fact I would rather go to such a department if it were comparable in prestige to one which offers scheduled courses.
  5. Can I raise again the question of why your boyfriend was interested enough in biostatistics departments to apply to them, if he is so dead-set on quant jobs now? There are financial mathematics programs that would probably prepare him better for such jobs. If he really, really wants to get a job in Wall Street, it seems like the program at SB will not provide an easy path to his goal, as all students who studied under the statistics faculty wound up in biostatistics positions. If he is given the freedom of working with the financial mathematicians and doing his coursework and and dissertation in financial math then I might feel better about saying SB is a better option for him. But honestly, if he absolutely wants to get a job on Wall Street and he is not allowed to switch to financial math, it might be time to consider a different program than what he has to choose from now... Edit: I would just like to add that it should be a very difficult decision to make. There must be some reason for him being interested in biostatistics. If not, then it might be better to apply to financial mathematics programs, but as you know there is no guarantee of admission while on the other hand he already has two funded offers (although in an unrelated field), etc. Please use a significant amount of discretion in deciding to reject the funded offers. Perhaps with the financial market being what it is, it might be better to become a biostatistician instead of a quant. This is well beyond what I am familiar with so please do not take my suggestion as my own recommendation, even I am unsure. But as you know there does not appear to be any record of people entering finance out of the (bio)statistics program at Stony Brook. I would not, personally, rely on the school's name to get a job in a field I did not get my degree in. And in this case, I would consider Stony Brook's degree to effectively be a biostatistics degree and not a general statistics degree. Edit 2: And I should add that I, too, am considering a financial job, although not nearly as much as a professorship. I am considering an internship over the summer with a major bank in financial math, and have specifically asked every department I have visited if there are financial mathematicians at the university (not just the department) that I can be advised by. I would really try to get a good answer from Stony Brook about how amenable they are to switching paths (which is surprisingly common from what I've seen, but it's mostly from math to stats). Your boyfriend would ideally start the finance curriculum if possible. Honestly, I'm not sure what other advice I could provide; maybe you can get Stony Brook to give you the job placements after 2007 or just ask them if they have any stats graduates in finance if they can't switch his track. Hopefully either biostat_prof or cyberwulf (who are biostatistics faculty at top programs and post here somewhat regularly) can chime in regarding the employability of biostatisticians in finance. I really hope you get a satisfying answer but I can't determine which program is better for him if he can't switch to financial math, especially if I don't know what the other programs are. I wish you and your boyfriend the best of luck in figuring this out!
  6. The way I do it is by asking faculty at my department about professors I'm interested in working with. I don't know of any other way, besides finding the H-index of each professor. Some biostats guys do get jobs as stats professors but they tend to come from more mathematical programs, so I've heard. I don't know about non-biostatistical placement outside of academia but I can try to find out if you'd like to know (not to sound like a broken record here, but job placement records will answer this question for you even better than any of us can). Was your boyfriend admitted to the general PhD program at Stony Brook? Would he be able to work with the quantitative finance people there? If he can then he could be right about getting a quant job after graduation. But if he's absolutely locked into the statistics track and faculty aren't willing to advise him on a non-biostatistical project then it might be better, again, to decide based on job placement. I keep drilling that one point because I am statistically minded; I don't mean to pressure you since I realize you cannot obtain such a thing at this time of day if it wasn't already available to you.
  7. This is absolutely correct. There are advisors at Ivy-league departments that are less-known than the faculty at, say, Florida. The institution by its own right does not say too much about the quality of the individual; there are many factors that determine this, but a strong advisor is more important than a strong department. What this says about your boyfriend's dilemma is that it seems like he will be doing biostatistics at either school. And biostatistics research does not necessarily lead to quant jobs on Wall Street, but neither does a statistical background. I would ask your boyfriend to spend some time thinking about whether either degree will let him get the jobs he seems to really want. Job placement records will help tremendously with that.
  8. At this point I don't feel that I can tell you which program is better unless you have a good list of job placement out of both programs; and this is something that your boyfriend and you can look at for yourselves. There are some pros/cons to both (although Ivy-league background does not mean stronger faculty). You have strong reasons to prefer the other program but job placements will say for sure.
  9. You mentioned that the other program he is considering is a biostatistics program; is it at a ranked or unranked biostatistics department, or is it, again, a part of another non-dedicated department? (Not that there is anything inherently wrong with this, as Boston U's reasonably strong statistics group is in the mathematics department as well; it just makes it harder to compare the relative strength of each quickly.) Would you be willing to give the name of the other school? I am hesitant to comment on the marketability of the Stony Brook name; again, it is certainly not Ivy, in a region relatively rich in Ivy-educated students. Having a PhD in statistics does not grant him the ability to have any kind of job "lined up" after graduation, especially since it sounds like his research will have to be in biostatistics regardless of the program he chooses.
  10. I was told while visiting some programs that first-years mostly take the same courses that an MA student would take. Having directed reading afterwards in lieu of potentially irrelevant courses in different kinds of applied regression does not sound like a downside to the program on its own. Having seen the work being done by the statistics faculty at SB (it is all biostatistical), I would say that, if the other program has better job placement in the types of jobs your boyfriend is interested in, then he should attend the other program.
  11. I would not personally consider "self-learned" mathematics to be any less rigorous than "lectured" mathematics (especially if it is directed by a faculty member). In fact, directed reading tends to be far more productive for mathematics students than lectures... OP: I would suggest that your boyfriend ask the two departments what their (entire/recent) record of job placement is for their doctorate students.
  12. I don't think that Washington University has a statistics program (or rather I haven't heard of it before), and you hardly ever hear of Princeton's since it is tucked away in a different department. Are your uncle and father statistics Ph.D.'s? I know that in other very close fields, such as mathematics, it would be suspicious to hear of a program with no difference between MA and PhD coursework (in particular since a pure math MA isn't very common), but in biostats/some stats I feel that this is the norm. I could be wrong about that, but this is just what I've seen at the various departments I've visited. In particular, since SB has only biostatistics faculty, that it is at the very least understandable why they do not require more mathematically rigorous coursework for their doctorate students.
  13. Courses are not a very important part of a Ph.D. program. And it is certainly not uncommon to be able to graduate in three years or less if one already has graduate-level coursework completed. I was told at UF (ranked 22 on US News) and at UConn (ranked 40) that it might be possible for me to graduate in three years or less, even though I'm only about to complete my BA. This is because I have already taken measure-theoretic probability and Master's/Doctorate-level mathematical statistics at my undergraduate institution. Departments often have qualifying exams both at the end of the academic year and at the very beginning, before classes begin. This is (partly) so that students entering the program have the chance to skip many of the courses that they have already taken at a different Ph.D. / M.A. / B.A. program. And keep in mind that at most of the programs I've seen, the PhD coursework consists of just Master's level courses, except sometimes with higher standards for passing the quals (say, answer 4 questions correctly instead of 3 for MA students, like at my undergrad institution). The only thing that really matters for a doctorate is getting research done. Passing quals is somewhat of an obstacle to the primary goal in a sense; and taking courses is certainly not a big concern to doctorate students. I'll also add that reading courses are very common among mathematics departments, and it certainly does not convey any sense of uneasiness in me that Stony Brook is touting their openness to such courses. If your boyfriend would prefer a program with more structure, or he thinks he'll learn better in (slightly more) formal courses, then he should look at another program that can offer him that. Stony Brook is certainly a reputable university and they would not offer a "fraudulent" Ph.D. I do not believe that any statistics students spend 80+ hours a week "slaving away," even at highly competitive programs like Stanford. I certainly do not plan on spending 80 hours a week at Carnegie Mellon. To explain what I mean in a way that may reassure you, some of the programs in my signature (UNC and Carnegie Mellon in particular) only require a year's worth of courses. "More advanced" courses tend to be irrelevant to the specific research topics that students will prefer to spend their time on. What happens is that interested students begin reading books recommended by faculty of interest and if they like the material they've seen in the specific field they've been directed to read then they'll begin research; at least that's how it happens at my undergrad, but as I understand it, this is basically the same process at any other school. One thing that I've noticed from looking at SB's page is that all of the statisticians are doing biostatistical work. So basically, if he decides to only work with the statisticians, it seems like he will be studying the same topics that he would have seen at any biostatistics department. If the other program he is considering is relatively stronger in biostatistics, it may be worth going there instead. He could try to work with non-statistics faculty at SB but he cannot be sure that they are going to take him as a student until he asks them. In a nutshell, SB's program may not offer scheduled courses in some advanced topics, but this is probably because students there decide to learn them on their own (topics such as measure-theoretic probability) or these topics are simply not useful to the students (especially since SB's department claims that its statistics research is biostatistical; no biostats program I've heard about makes its students take measure theory). SB is certainly not Stanford but it is not "fake."
  14. As far as I know, you may have to be a citizen to be preferred. This is because some grants (like one I was offered from NSF, by UConn) are only for qualified US citizens. These are grants given to departments for US citizens to do research.
  15. I definitely preferred the last school I visited. I'm not sure if it altered my opinion enough to convince me to commit to a school without visiting the others (especially when all of the visits are absolutely free), but it certainly made me think about the certain school more. Or it could be a consequence of my poor memory...
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