PVC00

Hi everyone, I am an international student and I have been admitted to a few American PhD programs in statistics: Duke, UT Austin, UMich and Cornell. I am having a hard time making up my mind. I feel like my top choices would be Duke and UT Austin, because they have strong faculty members that do research in Bayesian statistics, which is the topic I am interested in at the moment. However, my knowledge of statistics is not very broad, so I would like to have the chance to explore other fields of research. Moreover, I am under the impression that UT Austin could be a better place to live in, because I am afraid that I might get tired of living in a small college town like Durham. Finally, at the moment I don’t see myself pursuing a career in academia, so I would also consider which university offers more opportunities in terms of industry placements. What is your opinion? Are there any other factors you think I should consider? At the moment I lean towards UT Austin, but I fear that I will regret it, because Duke’s department is more prestigious. Does this make sense?