Cavalerius

It seems that certain institutions (e.g., Duke and UT-Austin) are heavily Bayesian. I suppose that if one were to attend one of these institutions, then one's research would be Bayesian in nature. Has anyone with little experience in Bayesian statistics and uncertainly as to whether they wished to adopt a Bayesian perspective attended any such institution? If so, were you ultimately satisfied with the research and methods?

All right, thanks for the info, bigdata and orchidnora, and congrats on your acceptances! I guess I missed out on the fellowship nomination, then. Although I am thrilled to have received other offers, I was very much hoping to get into Texas A&M.

For anyone who has been accepted by Texas A&M, do you know when the visit day will be held, or does anyone know when the visit day has been held in the past? A&M is my top choice, so I want to make sure that I am able to attend the visit day if I am admitted. @ducky500, have you heard back from A&M yet? The website states that admission is rolling, but I am not sure what that means for admissions notifications, especially if one hopes to obtain a fellowship.

No way, Ohio's visit day is also the 22nd! As statisticians, I don't think that we can ascribe that to randomness. Well, it is convenient that you are in the research triangle area already. Good luck with your visit to Ohio and with deciding on a program!

Congrats, mathstat! The UNC visit day looks to be scheduled for the 22nd of Feb. I assume that the program has one visit day for all admitted students. They have to know that theirs is the same day as NC State's, right? Also, mathstat, you applied to nearly 20 schools? Your profile looks excellent. What led you to apply to so many? How will you decide where to go? (I ask because one of my advisers suggested that I apply to just two schools (!), although I did end up applying to more than that. Already, though, it is becoming difficult to decide which to attend next year.)

Hey, for those accepted to UNC, into what program were you accepted? Also, if anyone was accepted into both NC State and UNC, what are you doing about the visit days being the same for the two programs?

Thanks for the info, tropicannie! Would you happen to know what the starting cohort size generally is for the statistics doctoral program at NC State? Also, what is your opinion of the graduate advising at NC State? I know that it is a large program, so it seems that it might be easy to get lost in the shuffle.

Does anyone know whether there are threads anywhere for people who've been accepted to specific programs to chat? I am not on facebook, but I guess that that seems to be a place where such things might happen. Also, is there any moratorium on discussing the details of acceptances? From what I can tell, none of the information I received proscribes such discussion.

Okay, thanks for the advice, Bayesian! I also have an additional question related to my previous one about prestige, one that touches on another recent post about the prestige of an individual department versus the prestige of an institution. One of the things that I noticed when looking at different programs was that at certain schools, many of the departments related to statistics--such as departments of math, comp sci, econ, industrial engineering, etc.--received higher rankings than did the statistics department itself. Some of these programs, moreover, feature interdisciplinary seminars and dissertation advising across the departments, with a few even having specializations that directly combine the two graduate programs. What is the general opinion of such programs, especially if the particular area of statistics that one wishes to study has a direct interface with a higher ranked program at the institution? I know that every institution is different, but in general, would this be something that should affect one's decision in choosing a program?

Thanks for the advice, Bayesian! I am sorry to hear that you are having a tough time in your chosen program. Interestingly enough, it seems that you and I had very similar approaches to the process of selecting programs, so your insight is particularly germane to my situation.

How are you reporting the grade? Most of my applications are under review at the moment and give no indication of how to upload or send the previous fall's grades. The school should be able to see that you were taking analysis last semester on account of the transcripts, and I would think that anything that was missing or desired would be requested by the schools during the review process--though I could be wrong.

Thank you all for the responses, which have been immensely helpful in illuminating the significance of prestige in choosing a doctoral statistics program. It still seems strange to me when people make judgements based purely on rankings, such as expressing consternation at being accepted by higher ranked programs and rejected by lower ranked ones. In general, however, I can now see why, ceteris paribus, a higher ranked program might be preferable to a lower ranked one. I especially appreciate the detailed and measured responses of cyberwulf and Stat PhD.

In anticipation of the receipt of application decisions, I have a question concerning how to regard the prestige of a school versus the value of research fit. To begin, I think that I am a fairly strong candidate for most doctoral statistics programs. To determine the schools to which I applied, I searched for schools where at least three or four faculty members were engaged in a line of research that I would be interested in pursuing. Accordingly, the list of schools to which I applied included a number of schools not ranked in the top tier of schools—at least according to comments that I have seen on people’s applicant profile evaluation posts—although they are, by virtue of my selection process, schools that are a solid match for the research that I would like to do. While I have been told that once you enter a program, you can attempt to dictate the course of your research even if your research interests are not exactly concordant with those of faculty at the school, I am nonetheless skeptical of this advice; however, when I read comments on this board saying that a certain school should be beneath the consideration of an applicant given the strength of the applicant's profile, I wonder whether it would behoove one to prioritize the reputation of an institution above all. Has anyone else experienced this dilemma? If so, assuming you were admitted to both, which did you choose—the more prestigious school with a weaker research fit or the less prestigious school with a stronger research fit?