Goliath15

They fund pretty much all their domestic masters students, and a proportion of international ones. They need so many "Graduate Student Instructors" that students from other departments (e.g. Biostats in Public Health) are being funded through TA positions.

I published 1 conf paper and 2 journal papers in applied stats in two years. I pretty much had zero extracurricular activity beyond coursework, TA, and research. You pretty much want to start research asap. Most people in my program didn't want to do research. Those that did usually started too late (summer after year 1).

I would say CMU is very strong in Stats, especially since Machine Learning is merging with the field. My rankings for Stats (with top to bottom gradient in each tier): Tier 1 Stanford, Berkeley, CMU (Stats + ML), Harvard Tier 1.5 Columbia, Duke, Washington, Wharton, Chicago Tier 2 Michigan, UW Madison, Yale (tiny program) Tier 2.5 UCLA, UNC, NC State, Cornell, Rice Tier 3 Penn State, Ohio State, Minnesota, and a lot of others

Michigan's MA almost guarantees TA funding for domestic students

I've seen a lot more people from Harvard Stats AM in trading and finance than from Stanford Stats MS. So your interest in "business / consulting sectors" suggests Harvard over Stanford, imo. Of course, both programs in general are stellar. You might find yourself happier in Stanford's culture than Harvard's. That's more personal.

I agree with footballman2399. If you're gunning for Wall St., then go to Columbia. But London is a tier 1 financial center too. I would guess Oxford and LSE carry the weight over there. Wouldn't advise that you bank that you're getting accepted into a particular group. To that end, Stats and IEOR departments > Math.

kgbfan, I assumed that in the "FUNDED!!!! $$$" point for Johns Hopkins. And during my M.S., I got fully funded + stipend from TA-ing and RA-ing.

Kinda late to the one-man party, but here are my several cents: I've read a lot about being a quant, on WSO, QuantNet, Nuclear Phynance, Quora, etc. I ultimately gave up that path, but here's what I learned: 1) Johns Hopkins - PhD! If you really really want a PhD, then you've got your opportunity here. - FUNDED! $$$ Though consider opportunity cost of work experience and compensation, since you know you don't want to stay in academia. - It's a PhD program. If things don't work out, leave with a Masters and do yo thang. 2) Stanford - THE BEST STATS PROGRAM IN THE WORLD: Think about your peers and the network potential with the best MBAs - THE BEST BRAND NAME IN THE WORLD: Brand name can opens doors like crazy, especially Stanford's, and especially compared to Hopkins' lackluster Wall Street representation (short of med-related groups). Stanford is currently the best brand in the world (among everything), and probably for the far future. - Quant trading is pretty meritocratic. You eat what you kill in the market. And a Master's gives you 3-4 years of prime killing time in your 20's. - The Stanford environment makes anything feel possible. You may decide you want to join a startup afterwards. I've even seen LinkedIn profiles of people starting quant funds (see Dev Nag and Seldon Capital). I've also seen Venture Capital funds hire data scientists / quant analysts. - Wall Street goes to Stanford to recruit. Hopkins? Not so much. - If you really really want a PhD, apply again with a Stanford M.S. - Bay Area vs Baltimore? Not even a contest... 3) Quant Trading vs Quant Research - Getting a Phd will bin you as a Quant Researcher. That is, generating ideas and testing them, but leaving the traders to implementing them on the market. This is a support role, with little P/L exposure. Many Researchers want to move to the Trader position. - Getting a M.S. keeps all Trader positions open to you, as quant funds hire even hire quality B.S. candidates for this role. - Common concern is a M.S. can distract you into quant developer roles. I've personally seen this for several PhDs too. This is a slight but equal risk for both programs. 4) Your goal: Become a Quant Analyst - PhD: research things and publish, publish, publish, 24/7. Depends on advisors' interest. Hopkins isn't known for finance research. - M.S.: don't do research, but build a quant system or portfolio in your free time. Test it for 2 years, get academic feedback and recommendations, write about it on a blog. This looks VERY VERY good if you put in the effort. So, you can see that the above comments are more enthusiastic toward Stanford, and for good reason. Of course, this is just want I'd think if I had a huge desire to be a quant analyst.