matcio

Hi gtg387y, I applied to a lot of schools to be reasonably sure that I could start a phd in the US. Stanford required GRE subject (which I haven't take); both schools were simply too much for me however.

I applied to the Statistics PhD Program and my status is still "under review". I have to admit that I am a bit disappointed! If I had heard before from UToronto I would have strongly considered an acceptance there, but now even if the acceptance should come is far too late... the April 15th is getting closer and closer! As an international student it would be late for me to arrange a visit in Toronto and I am already making a final choice between two other schools.

Thank you very much guys for your helpful comments and for the very nice words! I confess I am leaning a bit towards CMU, although UChicago is soooo appealing. To take this final choice is such a difficult task!

Dear all, a colleague of mine at my university would like to continue his studies in a statistics master's program. He wants to move to the UK, get a degree there and then enter into the job market. At present he doesn't have plans about pursuing an academic career. We were talking about what school might be a good school for him in the UK, but I know very little about statistics programs there. My guess is that University of Warwick and University of Kent are both very good. What about programs at top schools like Oxford, Cambridge or University College London? Do you think it is way too difficult to get in? I think programs that have good connections with major private companies or organizations would be the best for him in general. Thanks!

Thank you very much to both for your kind and useful replies. There are lots of pros for both schools, I'm finding it quite hard to decide. I went again through the faculty webpages of both schools and it looks like there are really no problems of finding an advisor working in the fields that I am interested in the most. One of my concerns is that I would feel more confident if I could take at least one more year of theoretical courses in probability, measure theory, stochastic processes and mathematical statistics; with regards to this aspect UChicago seems to provide a stronger training. @ANDS!: yes, my long term goals are academics indeed.

Thank you very much for your reply ANDS!. It's just that after the visit at CMU I was like "hey, this is the place for me!". Then I went to UChicago which somehow didn't click with me as CMU did, although I had a great time there as well and I felt like the overall quality of the university is higher. I think my dilemma is more in the following terms: "do I prefer joining a department that (almost) surely matches my interests and in which it seems I would feel more comfortable or joining a more prestigious (perhaps?) and larger department where my first impression was not quite as exciting?". Of course I see that I shouldn't make this kind of choice on the basis of first impressions, but I guess it isn't easy to totally ignore them as at least they play their role at an unconscious level. Another plus for UChicago is that I feel I would benefit a lot from receiving a little more of tough theoretical training and they definitely provide that during the first 1-2 years. Buridan's ass died essentially because he had not coins or dice... should I randomize my choice?

Dear all, I was accepted both at the University of Chicago and at Carnegie Mellon University in their PhD Program in Statistics. These two programs are actually my favorites in the pool of those to which I applied. I participated to the visit days and had a great time at both places; now it is time for me to try and make a final decision between and I am really having a hard time in choosing between the two universities: I enjoyed very much CMU's balance between theoretical and applied stats and also their focus on machine learning, nonparametrics and bayesian (these are all topics that very much appeal to me); also I had the feeling of a very nice department where there is a lot of interaction between graduate students and professors. On the other hand Chicago impressed me with a program that gives students a strong theoretical background during the first year with sequences in stochastic processes, probability theory and mathematical statistics (plus some applied statistics as well). Both schools are excellent and students have excellent placements. My impression, after the conversations I had with professors and students, is that UChicago is somehow slightly more theoretically-oriented while CMU is more concerned with applications, but this impression might be not completely correct and possibly biased by the particular set of professors with whom I had the chance to talk. No doubt that there's a big difference between the campuses and the cities are completely different (Chicago is probably more attractive!), but those are aspects which I don't want to weight too much when making my decision. Advice, comments or suggestions are most welcome! Thanks