forthorn

Just discovered this forum now, but I was accepted to University of Michigan biostats PhD on 1/12 by email and a bit earlier by a faculty phone call. I don't know if they've sent out all acceptances yet.

I’m a rising senior applying for PhD programs this fall, and I’m really worried about rec letters and not sure whom I should ask. Somewhat embarrassingly, this literally keeps me up at night. I know people say to ask whomever knows you best, but I’ve also heard that it’s important to have more senior/famous people write for you or that you shouldn’t ask people you’ve only taken a class with. I’m applying to statistics/biostatistics PhD programs, but I’m asking her because this doesn’t seem too specific to any field in particular. Of the 4-5 professors below, who might be good to ask? I need three letters total. 1. My thesis advisor (assistant professor), working on a topic in my field of interest. I’m pretty certain I’ll ask him. 2. Professor from last semester who is one of the top researchers in the subfield I’m interested in. I took his grad school class (in subfield of interest) and got an A, and he sent me an email at the end saying I had done very well on the assignments over the semester. I don’t know him that well yet, but I’ll likely meet with him a few times this summer to talk about my research and future plans. 3. Biostats professor from last semester who is very well known, but doesn’t work in the same subfield as I want to. I took his undergrad class and got an A, and he said at the end that I had been a very good participant in discussions. 4. Political science professors (two) I’m RAing for this summer, both assistant professors. The research I’m doing with them is fairly quantitative, so I think it’s still relevant to the programs I’m applying to. I’ll have met with them/done more work directly with them than most of the other faculty above. I'd really appreciate some help/advice, thanks in advance!

I am applying to stat/biostat PhD programs this fall and looking for programs where I could work on causal inference. I know Harvard biostats and Berkeley are good for this, but where else would be good to look into?

I'm a junior at a top-5 US university studying applied math. It's been a dream of mine for a long time to move to Europe or Quebec, and I also want to go to grad school in stats. I don't know how strong of an applicant I would be for US PhD programs, because my GPA (3.90) isn't super high, and I don't have much research experience (although I will hopefully have some by the time I apply in the fall). Therefore, I am looking at the masters programs in stats (or biostats) at UdeM and McGill. I'd also be interested in a masters in Paris, but it's hard for me to tell which ones are good. I'd have to find a way to pay for it through some sort of fellowship/scholarship. How would going abroad to Canada/France be looked at by top US PhD programs? Would it be seen as necessarily a "step down" from a US university? If I ended up getting a PhD there, would it be significantly harder to get an academic job in the US? Does anybody know more about these programs than I can find on their websites, especially the one at UdeM?