lidon

My guess is that it's reflective of the fact that companies want to hire interns that will subsequently become full time employees, not those that are jumping to PhD programs after the summer ends. As has been suggested above, if money is your primary concern, you could spend a very rewarding summer doing something non-statistics related: camp counselor, working at a national park, etc.

Though this may be true for a limited number of employers in industry, I think you'll find that (1) Most within the statistics community will be aware of the reputation of the individual department. The fact that Harvard is Harvard will mean nothing when trying to get a job (particularly in academia). Those industry employers that would be impressed by the industry name generally wouldn't be too picky about where you get your doctorate anyway. (2) When developing the tools needed to be a successful researcher, the lack of research exposure and rigorous coursework that you'll get as a PhD student there will do you more harm than any benefits you might have just from being at Harvard.

I think you'll find disagreement over the top tier as well. Based on conversations I've had with faculty, I would probably list the top five (pure stat) as Stanford, UPenn, UC Berkeley, UChicago, and Washington. In particular, UPenn appears to be very underranked and Harvard appears to be very overranked. But how do you really assign a single number to an entire department anyway?

From the perspective of someone who has a few acceptances, it's very difficult to decline offers until campus visits have been made. It's amazing how the perspective of a department's strengths and fit can change drastically by visiting in person. Most of my departments have their visits in the first week of March. I will (and I encourage others to do so as well) turn down offers as soon as I am able, but recognize that this may not happen until early to mid-March. I certainly won't wait until mid-April.

Biostatistics programs tend to be more lenient on the math requirements than statistics programs.

I think the best thing you can do is wait until you attend CMU's visit day. You may fall in love with the place or you may find it's not for you, but I think most people are surprised at the impact a department visit can have on your decision.

Agreed. Though I've only visited Pittsburgh a few times, I do like the city. Out of those Rust Belt cities in the Midwest and Northeast that were hit by manufacturing decline some decades ago, Pittsburgh (in my opinion) has done a remarkably good job cleaning itself up and shifting to a tech/service based economy.

I'm not sure. Harvard's statistics department isn't nearly as strong as the overall brand of the university, and I think many people (especially international students) apply there just because of the name. They have a few strong people (e.g. Samuel Kou) working in some very narrow areas, but there are a number of other places I would take over Harvard for a graduate education (Stanford, UPenn, UChicago, Berkeley, Washington, to name a few).

March 7, according to their website.

NC State sent out some results on January 10 (very early!). They appear to be the only one so far though.

Unfortunately I don't know very much about most of these programs. As you said, most are very new and so there aren't any data on placement, save for NC State.

NC State has the oldest and one of the best programs.