statistican

The rankings are really quite random based on coversations I have had post acceptances.

When do people tend to start rejecting offers if they have made a decision? I am on the waitlist a few places and was wondering when I may hear final decisions. Do schools sometime come back even after the April 15 deadline?

I am deciding between joining a statistics PhD at CMU vs Berkeley. I am very confused at the moment and wanted to get thoughts from the forum. The current factors in my decision: Berkeley: Considered/ranked one of the top two programs in the country More "big-name" faculty (Jordan, Wainwright, Yu) Greater emphasis on theoretical stats/probability vs applied stats Majority of students seem to have one advisor and you make a commitment early in the program as to your research area CMU: Strong connections to the ML department, which is generally ranked number one overall A bit more focus on applied stats Younger faculty who may be easier to access and get involved with research-wise Easier to work with multiple advisors and move across research areas My research interests are in foundational topics in machine learning (robustness, optimization, etc.) and possibly time series. I want to focus on developing new methodology and honing my practical skills by using the techniques on interesting real world datasets. Is there anything I am missing here? The main issue I am struggling with is just the fact that Berkeley is consistently ranked higher, but CMU generally seems like a more flexible program.