biostat2015

It's not full time though. It's two courses per semester and there's the added benefit the GW allows him to transfer 24 credits from his masters, which UMD will not.

Why don't you try pressing GW a bit? Tell them you have an offer with a ta-ship and tuition benefit at a different school, but you are still interested in their program and you need more information. Try to lock them down on the likelihood of the position working out and the details of when it would start etc. Maybe playing a little hard ball would make them come forth with specific details faster.

I've got to agree with footballman2399. I think you give the work experience was less credit that it is worth. Yes, it's 35 hours a week, but that's 35 hours a week of experience that you can use to your advantage later in your career. Since you're still unsure if you want to work in industry vs academia, that experience would surely put you leaps and bounds ahead of the normal post doc in industry, and it would surely make you more experienced and mature in the eyes of any position, both academic and industrial. By the time you graduate you will have X years experience of graduate school plus X years work experience, which makes you twice and matured as a typical post doc. Furthermore, the salary plus tuition remission is definitely better than the stipend at UMD. I would definitely look into biostatistics center position further. In my opinion that seems like the better move for you interests set. GW is also a statistics focused program, while UMD is not a strong statistics school. I think the combined focus on your interests (stats), plus the added bonus of extended work experience with an additional sizable salary makes GW the stronger contender.