babana

Welp it went down to the last minute (4:54 pm) and time pressure caused me to go with Stanford simply because it's a new environment. Whether it's the right or wrong decision (I really really wanted to work with one professor at Berkeley), hopefully I'll be able to do just as well with someone else. Thanks for all the help guys! Wish you all the best of luck in your pursuits.

Thanks for laying out these questions for me However, even after considering all of these, I feel that I am still unable to lean either way. What should I do now :'(

Almost certain. He's definitely trying to sell Berkeley to me, and he knows I'm interested in working with him... Of course some things are unpredictable and there's always the possibility that the match doesn't work out.

Hmm I didn't realize that my bullet points are all pretty much pointing toward Stanford. I guess internally I am giving a lot of weight to the fact that I'd be getting a PhD in math vs. a PhD in statistics. Also, the biggest thing in favor of Berkeley is that I've already established a relationship with the professor here whom I would like to work with; he's young, extremely active, and well-respected in his field, and furthermore his first PhD student landed postdoc offers from just about all the top places. Not to mention, I like his personality! In terms of classes, at Stanford I have to take the three core first year sequences, two of which are theoretical statistics and applied statistics. I don't think I'll like applied statistics too much, but I might be interested in theoretical statistics. At Berkeley, I can literally take whatever classes I want, as long as I can pass the prelims. It's a pretty unstructured program. In terms of research, I'll probably be doing the same sort of stuff at either place, although I would say that I have more options within probability at Stanford than at Berkeley -- since the one professor I want to work with is pretty specialized.

Well, I like Berkeley's campus and location a bit more, but barely -- they're both in sunny California so I'm pretty indifferent. I'd say one of my big emotional dilemmas is that I've been working toward the goal of doing a PhD in math for the last three years, and it just feels weird if I were to hop off to statistics, even though I would largely be doing math there anyway. In terms of fit, it's hard to say. I think I like the culture at the Stanford stats department a bit more -- it's much smaller and the graduate students get to know each other.

Hi all, With April 15 approaching, I've been hugely unsuccessful in making my decision between these two PhD programs -- Berkeley math and Stanford statistics. I'm quite desperate now, with only a couple days left to decide, so I thought I would give it a shot on this forum. My main research interest is in probability theory, which is an active area in both departments. Here are a list of other details and considerations that will probably affect my decision... I am currently finishing my undergrad at Berkeley, majoring in both math and statistics. So there's the issue of staying at the same institution for ~9 years, or going somewhere new. I really enjoy learning all areas of pure math; however, I'd say I'm less inclined toward statistics (outside of probability theory). Faculty: there's basically only one person at Berkeley whom I would like to work with, and I already know him so it would be easy to have him as my advisor if I pick Berkeley. On the other hand, at Stanford, there's one person whom I would really like to work with, but a couple others whom I would also be happy to work with. Job market: if I go to Stanford and discover that I actually like certain areas of statistics, the academic job market in statistics is significantly better than that in math. Funding: both offers are fully funded for 5 years. Stanford is $27k, Berkeley is $24k (academic year stipend). Berkeley has significantly more teaching duties, though. Rankings: Berkeley math is among the six top tier PhD programs for math. Stanford statistics, from what I've been told, is widely regarded as the undisputed #1 statistics PhD program. Maybe some other factors too that I didn't think of while writing this post. Any opinions would be appreciated!

Stanford, MIT, and Berkeley are three of the top four schools for probability in the U.S. (the other being NYU). If you are already a student at one of these schools, it should be pretty easy to either transfer departments, or simply work with a professor whose work you are interested in. I do not recommend that you reapply, unless you have other reasons for changing institutions.