Hi everyone. I have two very good offers for PhD programs, one from a top 2 biostat department, the other from a top 10 statistics department (most people would probably say in the 5-8 range). I am trying to weigh the pros and cons of choosing one over the other and was hoping that you could shed some light on the problem.
The offers are materially the same in total (though biostat is an RA while stat is a TA), although even if they were different I would not be so concerned about it. I am really wondering more about whether or not I would be limited in terms of career choices, especially in academia, if I chose the biostat program. I prefer the location of the biostat program, but probably wouldn't suffer in either place. In terms of coursework, the biostat program is probably a bit more targeted towards applications, but it is flexible enough that I could (and would) be able to take the standard theory courses that I would have in a pure stat program.
In terms of my research interests, I love statistics. If I had to choose an area of application, which is something that I think would be important for me to do even if I ended up doing research in theory and methods, it would probably be biostatistics. With that said, I am a very intellectually curious person, so I am sure that I would probably enjoy other applications as well.
Thoughts? Thanks for the help!