flabbergasted

Does anyone have any last minute comments or insights? April 15 is right around the corner, and I'd really like to make my decision as soon as possible in case there's anyone on the waitlist, but I cannot decide for the life of me. Every time I feel like I'm leaning one way, something happens to make me doubt my choice. At this point it seems like I might just go with my gut decision as April 15 comes to an end, but I'm really trying to avoid that.

Yea, he's definitely leaving Chicago. My friend was considering their Stats program, and he told me that when he visited, a professor told him that Lafferty is going to Yale next year. He was really disappointed because he wanted to work with Lafferty.

Thank you for the kind words. I'm actually not sure I would have done that well with math programs. I have friends and classmates who have subject test scores above 90th percentile, great GPAs, and generally are extremely intelligent in math, and they couldn't even break into the top 5 math programs. Math programs are incredibly competitive, and I'm very grateful to have applied for Stats programs instead. My professor actually told me he was worried that my subject test score would be too low to get into the top programs (which thankfully did not happen), but I did spend some time debating on whether to submit my scores or not. As for my graduate classes, I actually didn't do terribly well on them, which I hear is a death sentence for your applications. Thankfully that didn't turn out to be the case either.

Thanks for the offer! I'll message you with a few questions later if you don't mind.

Well, I'll be a little vague so that I can't be identified, but I went to a top 5 undergrad university (if you believe the US News rankings... Hint: It's the one that doesn't have a dedicated Statistics department). I had a good GPA, not exceptional (greater than 3.7) and majored in Math (hence why I'm more into the probability theory type stuff). I was really planning on applying to Math Ph.D. programs, but someone convinced me that Stats Ph.D. programs would be less competitive and that I would still be able to focus on the type of research that I'm interested in at a Stats program. As for GRE, I got 170 quantitative, and >90th percentile the rest. I also took the Math subject test (required for Stanford) and got around 800 (80th percentile). That test was a lot more difficult than I thought it would be... My score is actually below the average subject test score listed for Stanford's Ph.D. program! That's part of why I was so surprised when I got my acceptance. Other than that, I don't know whether I did anything that would really make me stand out. I worked as a research assistant, did two Math REUs over the summers... the typical stuff that a Math major interested in graduate school should have. My recommendation writers were mostly math professors who I took a few classes from, but they didn't know me too well. I did have two graduate math courses that I didn't completely bomb, if that helps.

Never in a million years would I have expected that both of these amazing schools would accept me. I got my Stanford Statistics Ph.D. acceptance in early February and nearly had a heart attack. I was completely sure I'd end up there until I got my Berkeley acceptance a few days later. I've been deciding back and forth between these two schools for weeks now, and I honestly still can't make up my mind even though we're weeks away from the April 15 deadline. I've talked to friends, family, professors, etc., all who have given me various pieces of advice, mostly in support of Stanford. Some of my friends are telling me I'd be crazy for turning down Stanford: It's the number 1 ranked Statistics program and has the name-brand recognition that Berkeley doesn't quite have. Some of my professors have been telling me the biggest-named Statisticians are there (Tibshirani, Diaconis, Candes, etc.) and that I wouldn't get such a huge exposure to cutting-edge research in Statistics anywhere else. It seems crazy for me to not go there. ... However, I've been set on pursuing my Ph.D. at Berkeley since entering college, and it has been my dream school for years. I think turning down Berkeley's offer would hurt me just as much as turning down Stanford's. I'm very into Stat theory (stuff like random matrices, random processes, etc.), and I think Berkeley's program is known for being (slightly) more theoretical. I don't have much interest in applied statistics (you can tell I'm much more geared towards academia than industry). My gut instinct is to go to Berkeley, but that would go against the vast majority of the advice given to me. And honestly, I can't give a more compelling reason why I want to go to Berkeley except for my gut instinct that I can't explain. I visited both schools and had an amazing time at both, so the visits didn't really make me lean towards any particular program. I know I can't go wrong either way, and I think I'm mostly just writing this post to let off a bit of steam. If anyone is familiar with the two programs (even with the smallest things that I may not have even considered) and could offer any information that could either convince me that I'm crazy for not going to Stanford or convince me that I should go to Berkeley like my gut instinct is telling me to, I would very much appreciate it. (I also have offers from UPenn and Michigan Statistics, but I think I will be turning those offers down very soon in case there are people waiting on their waitlist decision... Unless someone can convince me that I should go to one of these schools instead?) Best of luck to the rest of you as you're making these very tough decisions!