Ryuk

I was in the stats department at TAMU as an undergrad. I can't answer much regarding technical details like coursework, placements, etc., but I can talk about most other things. The department seems pretty social, with lots of events that anyone can attend. The professors seem accessible through things like that, even big names like Carroll. I once asked a professor about their qualifying exams and they said that they virtually never use them to kick people out. Its seems like the stakes are pretty low and you only have to worry if you've been a terrible student. The stats department shares a building with the math department, so it was extremely easy to take graduate math coursework and talk to math professors. I would assume that the same would hold for grad students. The CS department doesn't seem to be as close, but it was still super easy to access. Not sure if location is important to you, but it is kinda in the middle of nowhere. That being said, it isn't some tiny village. The population is almost 300,000, so you'll still have a lot of options when it comes to food and entertainment. It gets both very hot (43 Celsius) and very cold (-13 Celsius). They gave me all the tools needed to get into elite PhD programs. I imagine a PhD student in the department would be similarly well-suited for the job market. Let me know if you have any question you think I can answer!

@StatB He was asked to defer?? So they suggested that he take a year off? I didn't think that was possible.

@DanielWarlock Thanks for the input! My main concern is it seems that Berkeley has a strong reputation in ML and a close relationship with the CS department, while attending Harvard would require me to take a bit of a gamble. If I want to do anything with deep learning or theoretical machine learning, I will have to reach out to the CS department, which doesn't seem to have a close relationship with the stats department. I will also be counting on some of the new hires to be good research fits. I am definitely attracted to Harvard, but the reasons I just listed make me nervous about research there. To what extent do you agree with my analysis? @MathStat I spoke with a few current students who said that there is one Harvard PhD student with a co-advisor at MIT, but he also got his masters from MIT. I'm not sure how feasible it is for the average student.

@MathStat You're right that only a few people at Harvard do what I'm interested in. I guess I'm wondering how much I should force it if it's a place I really want to be. A quick glance at your profile seems to tell me that you are currently at U Chicago. I also have an offer from them. If that's true and you really were in a similar situation as me, why did you pick Chicago over Berkeley and Harvard?

@MathStat Thanks for the reply! I know that Berkeley is a better fit for my research interests and I know that research fit is one of the most important parts of choosing a PhD. However, I also hear people say that you should choose a place that you would enjoy and fit in for the next 5 years. I think I would enjoy my time at Harvard more. In addition, Harvard grads seem to do extremely well on the job market. There are young faculty at Harvard with similar research interests as me, but obviously there are many more options at Berkeley. I am having difficulty comparing my desire to live in Boston and be a part of the Harvard community with the exact research fit at Berkeley.

I have been admitted to the statistics departments at both Harvard and Berkeley. I applied to 24 schools, so I've also been accepted to virtually all of the top 20 stats programs, excluding Stanford. My academic interests are pretty broad, but I'd like my research to be more theoretical and in the realm of probability or machine learning/deep learning, if possible. I'm also not sure if I will try to go into academia or into a research team at Google, Microsoft, Facebook, etc. I am mainly considering these two because Berkeley is so good at ML, but Harvard is a better fit in every other way (culture, location, etc.). Any advice would be appreciated! I am also happy to provide any more information.