sciencegal

There's a professor in our department who I think is going on sabbatical "next year" every year. He talks about it and then doesn't do it for whatever reasons (obligations, etc). While well intentioned, the information you received may not be accurate. It's definitely fair to ask the professor if they will be willing, interested, and available to be advisor for 2 years. Also - another scenario, depending on the prof - one of our profs, when she goes on sabbatical she still mentors her students, she just doesn't teach classes or have any official responsibilities to the school (committees, etc). Some profs do go out of state, country etc so it does vary.

UCSB, hands down. Reputation of the department is much better, academic rigor is also substantially greater. Congrats on your admissions!

I'll echo everyone else, UNC-CH is a BIG player in biostat. Congrats on getting in! I would go there PhD in a heartbeat over the other two master's choices. The opportunities at UNC will be great as far as both theoretical and applied work. While your great aunt Sally might not be as impressed by UNC over the Harvard name, all of your colleagues and potential employers will be very impressed given the department's excellent reputation. At least a few years ago, Harvard didn't fund their Master's biostat students so I'm going to assume that one is an unfunded offer. Not sure if Columbia funds. I definitely think it would be between UNC and Harvard if you're really struggling as both of those programs are consider top programs for biostat. And given that one is a PhD offer and one is masters it hopefully makes it much easier to choose UNC! (UNC! UNC! UNC!)

I don't know *as* much about Yale's program, but Rutgers, again focusing on research, is doing stuff with estimating equations and semi-parametric estimation that is superior to a lot of the programs that made the top 20. I know this is one particular research area, but just to give an example. They have many notable professors. Surprising. I hope this list doesn't hurt good programs. I meet so many students that focus heavily on rankings. Look at placement of students as a better indicator of reputation, or as another indicator of reputation! I'll be interested to see if the rankings differ significantly the next time they do it, or if they modify their metric slightly.

My comment above was more related to class location (i.e., an added bonus to living in the safer north side is closer to grad classes given the posters field). But yes there is definitely some potentially unreasonable anti-undergrad sentiments among grad students. I went to grad school straight out of undergrad too. Even when I was an undergrad I was never much into parties, drinking, and cheap take-out food so all the more reason to like the quieter north side for me. So basically, supposed "cool factor" aside, the south side is wilder, louder, busier, has some of the residence halls, and frat houses. North side is quieter, less food venues & stores unless you go down to Shatttuck, and is closer to a lot of science/math/engineering classes (although not all). If I was just coming to the area I would absolutely not limit myself to just north side. You're very likely to move several times so it's not a terrible mistake if you pick south side of campus and end up hating some aspect of it. I was and still am always more focused on getting a place that meets my needs, and quiet is just one of them. Edit: I realize you don't need most of this info since you are already here, just putting it out there if it helps someone else!!

Yep, the south side of campus is the undergrad side. Especially given your field, most of your classes will likely be on the north side too.

Second this. I've lived in the Oakland right next to South Berkeley (off Shattuck) and in South Berkeley itself and definitely rough around the edges. We actually moved from South Berkeley after our neighbor was mugged 3 houses down from his house and our house. Every week there was a new flyer up reporting a recent mugging or assault. There were other reasons for the move but this was the last straw, it definitely got to the point where I didn't feel safe walking to campus with my laptop in my bag (target). We live in North Berkeley now (HILLS! oh my legs) but North Oakland is also nice. I've always used craigslist to find places and it's worked out rather well. Since it's hard to really know what location is going to work for you I suggest places with month-to-month leases first. I thought 3 miles from campus sounded close enough, but combine it being in a sketchy part of Oakland (didn't know that), the buses not always running on schedule, and annoying/weird/creepy/bad fit roommates lead to a move after 6 mo.

Statistics is a very flexible degree, I'd also disagree that it's hard to get faculty positions in statistics. I don't know relative to finance faculty positions but the statistics departments I am familiar with all recruited for multiple positions this year and last. With a stat PhD, depending on your dissertation and focus you can apply to a variety of departments, not just stat. Only my 2 cents! PS-I'd go with Penn personally if I was indifferent topic wise.

also- Rutgers and Yale not in the top 20 for stat, interesting? Historically they have been ranked in the top 20 and generally have had reputations that warranted that.

I guess my initial surprise/gruff reaction comes from a research perspective. As a science person using new methods developed in stat/biostat some programs chugging along on the same tired out dated methodology are ranking highly (higher than previous). I also researched and visited a lot of these places as I considered these fields for graduate school when I applied a few years ago, and have friends in the various departments. I understand that previous and current innovative highly regarded research doesn't necessarily mean you won't get outranked on a list like this, and really, once I broke it out into the separate lists it wasn't as jarring. For the most part I didn't see any school I would have moved up or down more than 5 places, and you can't really expect more than that I guess (especially with all the ties). I agree about UW, I don't know what it'll do to their rankings but I was shocked to hear about their crazy funding issues this year. Who were they able to get? Last year I had friends getting great packages from them in stat/biostat. Packages that were 10K better than other publics & privates offered them!

I did this super quickly so hopefully no heinous mistakes but I separated them by stat and biostat through scores 3.5 just because I was curious as to the separated lists. I echo the above sentiments about using the rankings as just one piece of the pie. Especially when a large portion of the score is based on a survey sent to academics and their opinion of other programs: http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/best-graduate-schools/2010/04/15/the-science-rankings-methodology.html STAT 1. Stanford 4.9 2. UC Berkeley 4.7 3. Harvard 4.3 3. University of Chicago 4.3 3. UW 4.3 6. Carnegie Mellon 4.1 7. Duke 4.0 8. NC State 3.9 8. Texas A&M 3.9 8. University of Pennsylvania 3.9 8. University of Wisconsin 3.9 12. University of Michigan 3.8 12. University of Minnesota 3.8 14. Iowa State 3.7 14. Pennsylvania State University 3.7 16. Columbia 3.6 16. Cornell 3.6 16. Purdue 3.6 16. UNC-CH 3.6 20. Ohio State 3.5 20. UCLA 3.5 20. University of Florida 3.5 BIOSTAT 1. Harvard 4.6 1. UW 4.6 3. Johns Hopkins 4.4 4. UNC-CH 4.0 5. University of Michigan 3.9 6. UC Berkeley 3.8 7. University of Minnesota 3.6 8. University of Wisconsin-Madison 3.5

I'm not done yet (graduating in 2011), But I'll also echo especially points 6,7, and 9. (6) I got super lucky that my famous mentor for my PhD is also an AMAZING mentor but I would gladly have traded for better mentoring over fame, easily. Getting quick responses to emails, being pushed in a positive way, being allowed to pick my topics and forge my own questions have brought me to a potential I never thought I had. My master's mentor sucked in this regard, I did my whole master's thesis without her, she never answered emails, I met with her once and had one phone call and waited almost 2 months just for her to sign a form. Talk to current students if you have the option to choose your mentor (i.e., your admittance wasn't conditional on a certain lab). They will be honest with you, I always am. I'm careful in my criticisms, but they can read between the lines. (7) Yes! Balance. I got a dog my second semester. And then, unexpectedly, a boyfriend, who with his laidback style made me less workaholic and OCD, and wow, I was still incredibly productive. I definitely needed to learn that balance. (**9**) I would probably stress this one the most. I was constantly comparing myself to others (and sometimes still do, eep!). I wanted to make sure I was on track or doing the right thing or not letting my advisor down. Well, it turns out a lot of the people I thought were all-stars weren't, and paving my own way was the right thing to do. I just wish I had done it with some blinders on so I wasn't as anxious all the time. If you're worried about pleasing your advisor, set concrete goals for meetings, set up deadlines when things will be done (be realistic!!), prioritize jointly with them what should get done first. Then you will have objective criteria to measure your progress, instead of guessing based on, "oooh I heard student Sally talk about this paper she's almost done/conference she got accepted to/award she got."

Wow. These rankings are pretty bizarre to me. For people intimately familiar with these programs, departments, and the field will likely disagree with a lot of the placements. The problem with rankings, of course, is what they use to calculate the score. For so many of these programs their research innovation is practically zero and yet they are in the top 10 or 20.

Without knowing more about your interests and going just on reputation I'd say Wisconsin.

Wow, yours was even targeted at women's issues! Crazy. That's really surprising. We're both from top universities too (but I believe we are supposed to be enemies, haha)! Yeah I thought I had a good shot because my project is really innovative and emerging in the field and my advisor is the top guy in the entirety of the field -- my recommendation from him should have just slaughtered (I know the kinds of things he says in these letters). I do some women's-y stuff -- also in a male dominated field -- but really thought the strength of my project would shine through. I wouldn't have bothered to PAY to apply otherwise. If we both got tossed at the beginning for whatever random reason that's frustrating as I spent so much time on this app - those essays were long and had to be written differently than others (laymans terms, etc). Although finding out you were *this close* might be worse, haha. I'd be super pissed if it was because they didn't receive my materials. I sent them with tracking but it would be nice if they would confirm! Good luck on your NSF!