2018 USNWRRankings (Statistics/Biostatistics)

[GoPackGo89]

https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-science-schools/statistics-rankings

Here are the old rankings courtesy of @Applied Math to Stat
 

STATISTICS

1. Stanford
2. UC Berkeley
3. UChicago
4-5. Harvard, Washington (tied)
6. Carnegie Mellon
7. Duke
8. UPenn
9. Wisconsin
10-12. NCSU, Texas A&M, Michigan (tied)
13. Iowa State
14-17. Minnesota, Columbia, Penn State, UNC Chapel Hill (tied)
18-19. Cornell, Purdue (tied)
20-21. Ohio State, UC Davis (tied)
22-23. UCLA, Florida (tied)
24-26. UIUC, Yale, Iowa (tied)
27-29. Florida State, Rice, Rutgers (tied)
30-31. Colorado State, UConn (tied)
32. Michigan State
33-35. NYU, Northwestern, Pittsburgh (tied)
36-39. George Washington, Georgia, Missouri, Virginia Tech (tied)
40. SMU
41-45. UCSB, Arizona State, Oregon State, South Carolina, UVA (tied)
46-47. Temple, UC Riverside (tied)48-49. Kansas State, Colorado-Denver (tied)
50-52. Baylor, Case Western, Kentucky (tied)

 

BIOSTATISTICS

1-2. Harvard, Washington (tied)
3. Johns Hopkins
4-5. Michigan, UNC-Chapel Hill (tied)
6. UC Berkeley
7. Minnesota
8. UPenn
9-10. Columbia, UCLA (tied)
11. Yale
12. Emory
13. Brown
14-15. Iowa, Rochester (tied)
16. Pittsburgh
17. Boston University
18-20. Medical College of Wisconsin, UIllinois-Chicago, UTexas-Houston (tied)
21. Case Western
22. Medical College of South Carolina
23-25. SUNY Albany, Alabama, SUNY Buffalo (tied)
26. South Carolina, Virginia Commonwealth




Marmle separated the new rankings below

Edited March 20, 2018 by GoPackGo89

[StatHopeful]

^^

Edited March 20, 2018 by StatHopeful

[abstract_art]

@StatHopeful Some of your ties are off for biostats. Here's what I got for the full lists. For reference here were the last set of rankings https://forum.thegradcafe.com/topic/52537-2014-usnwr-rankings-statisticsbiostatistics/.

Stat
1. Stanford
2. Berkeley
3. Harvard, Chicago
5. CMU, Washington
7. Duke, Michigan, Penn
10. Columbia, NCSU, Wisconsin
13. UNC
14. Cornell, Iowa State, Penn State, Texas A&M
18. Minnesota
19. Purdue
20. Hopkins, UC Davis, UCLA, Yale
24. Ohio State, Illinois Urbana-Champaign
26. Rutgers, Florida, Iowa
29. Rice
30. Colorado State, Florida State, Connecticut
33. Michigan State, UC Irvine, UT Austin
36. Northwestern, Pitt
38. George Washington, NYU, Georgia, Missouri, VTech
43. UC Santa Barbara
44. Indiana, Southern Methodist, UMBC, Virginia
48. Oregon State, UC Riverside, Massachusetts Amherst, South Carolina
52. Arizona State, Case Western, Temple
55. Baylor, George Mason, Kansas State, Colorado Denver
59. Kentucky, VCU
61. San Diego State
62. UNC Charlotte, UT San Antonio

Biostat
1. Harvard, Hopkins, Washington
4. UNC
5. Michigan
6. Berkeley
7. Minnesota, Wisconsin
9. Columbia, UCLA, UT MD Anderson
12. Penn, Yale
14. Emory
15. Brown, Duke, Vanderbilt
18. BU, UC Davis
20. Florida, Iowa, Rochester, UT Houston
24. Medical College of Wisconsin
25. Illinois Chicago
26. Case Western
27. Colorado Denver
28. Massachusetts Amherst
29. South Carolina, SUNY Buffalo
31. Kansas, Alabama
33. SUNY Albany, Cincinnati, VCU
Not ranked from last time: Pitt, Medical College of South Carolina

In stats it doesn't look like there are a lot of big changes besides Michigan moving to 7, Columbia moving to 10, and Texas A&M moving to 14. In biostats, once again, not that many big changes besides Hopkins moving to being tied for 1 (which makes sense considering how good their placements have been lately) and Penn moving to 12. For both stats and biostats there were a lot of new programs being ranked.

 

Edited March 20, 2018 by marmle
comma

[rosebud123]

45 minutes ago, marmle said:

@StatHopeful Some of your ties are off for biostats. Here's what I got for the full lists. For reference here were the last set of rankings https://forum.thegradcafe.com/topic/52537-2014-usnwr-rankings-statisticsbiostatistics/.

Stat
1. Stanford
2. Berkeley
3. Harvard, Chicago
5. CMU, Washington
7. Duke, Michigan, Penn
10. Columbia, NCSU, Wisconsin
13. UNC
14. Cornell, Iowa State, Penn State, Texas A&M
18. Minnesota
19. Purdue
20. Hopkins, UC Davis, UCLA, Yale
24. Ohio State, Illinois Urbana-Champaign
26. Rutgers, Florida, Iowa
29. Rice
30. Colorado State, Florida State, Connecticut
33. Michigan State, UC Irvine, UT Austin
36. Northwestern, Pitt
38. George Washington, NYU, Georgia, Missouri, VTech
43. UC Santa Barbara
44. Indiana, Southern Methodist, UMBC, Virginia
48. Oregon State, UC Riverside, Massachusetts Amherst, South Carolina
52. Arizona State, Case Western, Temple
55. Baylor, George Mason, Kansas State, Colorado Denver
59. Kentucky, VCU
61. San Diego State
62. UNC Charlotte, UT San Antonio

Biostat
1. Harvard, Hopkins, Washington
4. UNC
5. Michigan
6. Berkeley
7. Minnesota, Wisconsin
9. Columbia, UCLA, UT MD Anderson
12. Penn, Yale
14. Emory
15. Brown, Duke, Vanderbilt
18. BU, UC Davis
20. Florida, Iowa, Rochester, UT Houston
24. Medical College of Wisconsin
25. Illinois Chicago
26. Case Western
27. Colorado Denver
28. Massachusetts Amherst
29. South Carolina, SUNY Buffalo
31. Kansas, Alabama
33. SUNY Albany, Cincinnati, VCU
Not ranked from last time: Pitt, Medical College of South Carolina

In stats it doesn't look like there are a lot of big changes besides Michigan moving to 7, Columbia moving to 10, and Texas A&M moving to 14. In biostats, once again, not that many big changes besides Hopkins moving to being tied for 1 (which makes sense considering how good their placements have been lately) and Penn moving to 12. For both stats and biostats there were a lot of new programs being ranked.

 

when you say Hopkins placements have been good lately, do you have any particular examples in mind?

[abstract_art]

@rosebud123 Yeah just go through the last 5 or so years here: http://www.biostat.jhsph.edu/people/alumni/alumphd.shtml

[Stat Assistant Professor]

The new rankings look about right to me, though I would personally rank Yale Statistics higher. It's also worth noting that some of the top statistics scholars in the world are not in Statistics depts but in Operations Research and Financial Engineering, Computer Science, and Mathematics departments (e.g. Jianqing Fan of Princeton and Daniel Kane of UCSD come to mind). I don't see that reflected in the rankings.

[Bayesian1701]

Is there a reason Texas A&M went down?

[BayesianLove]

is it the same methodology than the previous ranking? I heard there's a bias for big schools (like they take into account the amount of research without normalizing for department size), but I don't find this mentioned in the current methodology.

[Cal1gula]

Good to see that some of the newer programs (Duke, Vanderbilt) have finally ranked. The MD Anderson dept. is definitely a surprise addition--don't think I have seen much discussion about it on the forum. I am curious as to why the Pitt biostats dept. is unranked.

[Stat Assistant Professor]

19 minutes ago, Cal1gula said:

Good to see that some of the newer programs (Duke, Vanderbilt) have finally ranked. The MD Anderson dept. is definitely a surprise addition--don't think I have seen much discussion about it on the forum. I am curious as to why the Pitt biostats dept. is unranked.

That's interesting that this is the first time it has appeared in the rankings... not sure why MD Anderson wasn't previously ranked. I think it is definitely top-notch in the area of Bayesian methodology. I applied for a postdoc there and did not get an offer from them (that's okay though, I got other offers). But I think very highly of this place.

 

1 hour ago, BayesianLove said:

is it the same methodology than the previous ranking? I heard there's a bias for big schools (like they take into account the amount of research without normalizing for department size), but I don't find this mentioned in the current methodology.

I think that may be true, but these rankings are mostly accurate even after accounting for size.

 

4 hours ago, Bayesian1701 said:

Is there a reason Texas A&M went down?

I tend to think of it more as "tiers" rather than specific rank. Stanford, Berkeley, Harvard, and Chicago are certainly the top schools in statistics, but you could easily interchange the schools in 5-9 (I would personally rank Michigan and UPenn Wharton right below the four aforementioned schools, but a case could be made for the current USNWR rankings too).  Once you get to 10-20, you could make the case for interchanging a bunch of the programs in the ranks; similarly for 20-30, etc. etc. 

Lastly, I feel that it has already been said, but it bears repeating. Rankings are useful, but not the most important thing for getting a job after. For industry, the *most* important thing is to be good at hacking/programming (my current program has PhD grads who are currently working at Amazon, Google, JPMorgan, etc.). For academic jobs, the *most* important thing is to have good publications and excellent recommendation letters. While my current program is not the highest ranked, it also has very strong academic placements. 

[Laoceberg]

32 minutes ago, Applied Math to Stat said:

That's interesting that this is the first time it has appeared in the rankings... not sure why MD Anderson wasn't previously ranked. I think it is definitely top-notch in the area of Bayesian methodology. I applied for a postdoc there and did not get an offer from them (that's okay though, I got other offers). But I think very highly of this place.

 

I think that may be true, but these rankings are mostly accurate even after accounting for size.

 

I tend to think of it more as "tiers" rather than specific rank. Stanford, Berkeley, Harvard, and Chicago are certainly the top schools in statistics, but you could easily interchange the schools in 5-9 (I would personally rank Michigan and UPenn Wharton right below the four aforementioned schools, but a case could be made for the current USNWR rankings too).  Once you get to 10-20, you could make the case for interchanging a bunch of the programs in the ranks; similarly for 20-30, etc. etc. 

Lastly, I feel that it has already been said, but it bears repeating. Rankings are useful, but not the most important thing for getting a job after. For industry, the *most* important thing is to be good at hacking/programming (my current program has PhD grads who are currently working at Amazon, Google, JPMorgan, etc.). For academic jobs, the *most* important thing is to have good publications and excellent recommendation letters. While my current program is not the highest ranked, it also has very strong academic placements. 

Do school names and ranking matters for academic/industry jobs?

[Stat Assistant Professor]

23 minutes ago, Laoceberg said:

Do school names and ranking matters for academic/industry jobs?

It matters a little bit, but not as much as programming/hacking skills (for industry) and publications/recommendation letters (for academia). For academic jobs, the job talk during your on-campus interview is also very important. There are some exceptions (e.g. some hedge funds may screen out anyone who didn't get a PhD from an Ivy League school), but for the most part, if you can get the job done for industry, then most companies aren't going to pay much attention to where you got your PhD. For academia, the most important thing is to have quality publications and show evidence of independence and productivity (i.e. a number of first-author publications, stand-out recommendation letters, etc.). As long as these are clear in your application packet, then no academic search committee is going to be like, "Oh, this person DIDN'T go to Berkeley/Stanford/Harvard? They're no longer on our shortlist!"

For reference,  my department hired a new faculty member this year who got a PhD from University of Cincinnati. I haven't heard much about the Statistics program at Cincinnati, but this incoming faculty member did a very prestigious postdoc at a top school and he had first-author papers in top journals. In his job talk, he outlined his seven-year plan which included being co-investigator on some federal grants and culminating in aiming for a NSF CAREER award. This job candidate ultimately got picked over others who may have had more "prestigious" pedigree. Judging from my personal conversations with faculty who have served on search committees and who have been hiring postdocs, the place you got your PhD is of far lower importance (in statistics and biostatistics, anyway) than your publication record and your potential to sustain a productive research career, obtain grant money, etc..

Edited March 20, 2018 by Applied Math to Stat

[BayesianLove]

18 minutes ago, Applied Math to Stat said:

It matters a little bit, but not as much as programming/hacking skills (for industry) and publications/recommendation letters (for academia). For academic jobs, the job talk during your on-campus interview is also very important. There are some exceptions (e.g. some hedge funds may screen out anyone who didn't get a PhD from an Ivy League school), but for the most part, if you can get the job done for industry, then most companies aren't going to pay much attention to where you got your PhD.

I assumed (without much data to back this up) that companies may place some weight on the overall University reputation. For example, if the stats department is highly regarded but the university is not so well known overall, a company may not know the idiosyncrasy of stats/math and may discard the candidate. Especially when you have some human resources fellow doing the screening, right?

[Stat Assistant Professor]

10 minutes ago, BayesianLove said:

I assumed (without much data to back this up) that companies may place some weight on the overall University reputation. For example, if the stats department is highly regarded but the university is not so well known overall, a company may not know the idiosyncrasy of stats/math and may discard the candidate. Especially when you have some human resources fellow doing the screening, right?

Very true. But I think this is just one piece of the overall puzzle. I imagine that a PhD graduate from a more regional university that is not well-known may have a slightly harder time getting a job. But most flagship public universities seem to be fine. I looked up the job placement at University of Kentucky out of curiosity, and see some of their alumni working at Intel, Deloitte, etc.

[Stat Assistant Professor]

Interestingly, I just looked at the USNWR rankings in mathematics, and it gives separate rankings by specialty (e.g. Analysis, Applied Math, Geometry, etc.), but no such breakdown exists for the Statistics rankings.

https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-science-schools/mathematics-rankings

I think that would be interesting to see a breakdown by specialty (e.g. methodology, financial mathematics, probability, Bayesian statistics, etc.), as there are some programs that are not ranked as high overall but are very strong in particular specialties (e.g. in financial mathematics, UCSB and Rice Statistics depts are pretty strong). 

Edited March 20, 2018 by Applied Math to Stat

[Taheel]

On 3/20/2018 at 8:57 AM, BayesianLove said:

is it the same methodology than the previous ranking? I heard there's a bias for big schools (like they take into account the amount of research without normalizing for department size), but I don't find this mentioned in the current methodology.

Here's what they say about methodology: 

" Rankings of doctoral programs in the sciences are based solely on the results of surveys sent to academics in biological sciences, chemistry, computer science, earth sciences, mathematics, physics and statistics. The individuals rated the quality of the program at each institution on a scale of 1 (marginal) to 5 (outstanding). Individuals who were unfamiliar with a particular school's programs were asked to select don't know. Questionnaires were sent to the department heads and directors of graduate studies at each program in each discipline." 

There were 109 institutions surveyed for statistics/biostatistics with a response rate of 35% (roughly 76 respondents if the questionnaires were sent to two people from each institution).

To me, the most important takeaways from this are A. the rankings say virtually nothing about reputation/outcomes for industry as academics are not likely aware of this, B. while a difference in average score of 0.1 or 0.2 can significantly affect ranking (e.g. #27 is a 3.6 but #37 is a 3.4) the 0.1/0.2 difference is likely meaningless given that response rate was 35% and we don't know who actually responded, and C. the rankings don't directly account for student outcomes, size of program, research production, or any other objective metric.

That being said, I think it's really impressive that Stanford got a perfect 5.0 and the next highest rated school (UC Berkeley - solo) received a 4.7.

[Gauss2017]

Not sure how Stanford could have a 5.0 rating since they do largely theoretical statistics and probability   They also have a reputation as being very sexist.  Only around 10 per cent of their professors are women.  A minisicul amount of their grad students are women and virtually all of their grad PhD students appear to be international. Who are the people doing the ratings?

[GoPackGo89]

Not sure how Stanford could have a 5.0 rating since they do largely theoretical statistics and probability

They have a badass biostatistics group too.

A minisicul amount of their grad students are women and virtually all of their grad PhD students appear to be international

 I don't see how international students should hurt a ranking (I actually see this helping)

Edited March 21, 2018 by GoPackGo89
Seems to be confusion as to what I was saying

[Gauss2017]

48 minutes ago, GoPackGo89 said:

They have a badass biostats group too. I don't see how international students should hurt a ranking (I actually see this helping)

When you get federal, state and local tax breaks as well as a large share of your income comes from the federal government at least 50 per cent if not significantly more of your students should be domestic.  The percentage shouldnt hover around 10 per cent.

When you say they have a "badass biostats group too" is that meant to imply they violate title 9 and Brock Turner is their hero?

 

[Gauss2017]

12 minutes ago, tnb_nanashi_w said:

Perhaps GoPackGo89 should not have included the word "too" in his sentence about their biostats group, but Stanford can still have esteemed/influential/productive biostats professors, whether or not they are sexist. There was no reason for you to mention Brock Turner.

Also, I'm not familiar with the situation at Stanford, but why do you think at least 50% of their students should be domestic? Don't you think they should be recruiting the most qualified and promising applicants, regardless of country of origin? International students make a big decision to come to the US for their education, contribute to the school and local economy, and often get jobs/internships here in the states as well.

If the professors are sextist and violate title 9 they are not esteemed and need to be fired immediately .  They are disgusting human beings. At least 50 per cent of the students should be domestic because taxpayers are giving huge breaks to Stanford as well as the federal government providing huge amounts of research funding.  Also I dont believe that 90 per cent of the best students exist outside of the US or that virtually all of them are male.

FYI there is a huge battle going on at UC over this issue

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-uc-audit-admissions-20160328-story.html

 

 

[tnb_nanashi_w]

10 minutes ago, Gauss2017 said:

If the professors are sextist and violate title 9 they are not esteemed and need to be fired immediately .  They are disgusting human beings. At least 50 per cent of the students should be domestic because taxpayers are giving huge breaks to Stanford as well as the federal government providing huge amounts of research funding.  Also I dont believe that 90 per cent of the best students exist outside of the US or that virtually all of them are male.

FYI there is a huge battle going on at UC over this issue

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-uc-audit-admissions-20160328-story.html

 

 

I agree with the sentiment that sexist individuals aren't the greatest human beings, but I think it's possible to separate one's professional and personal life, especially when it comes to contributing to an academic field. One can be esteemed in his/her field but also be sexist. They are not mutually exclusive.

Stanford may have an admissions issue and 90% of the best students are probably not international either, but I don't think that the funding professors and institutions get from the country they reside in should impact the students they admit.

[moxis]

1 hour ago, Gauss2017 said:

When you say they have a "badass biostats group too" is that meant to imply they violate title 9 and Brock Turner is their hero?

 

Obvious troll. On the fact that Stanford is theoretical and probability focused, it is important to note that all tenure-track positions in mathematics are only 15% female. I don't see you claiming the entire field of mathematics is sexist. (Also, a good plurality of women in math are international, which you think are sub-human, so maybe the ratio is even lower).

31 minutes ago, Gauss2017 said:

At least 50 per cent of the students should be domestic because taxpayers are giving huge breaks to Stanford as well as the federal government providing huge amounts of research funding.

 

Research grants are designed to produce the best quality research, not to satisfy some US-supremacist wet dream. Are you a nationalist? You sound very xenophobic and hateful towards people who didn't happen to be born in this country.

I'm also not sure where you're getting the information that those students at Stanford are international. I see many East Asian style names, but they could very well be U.S. citizens. What is with this racist assumption? That sounds very much like a statement from a disgusting human being to me.

If you hate Asian people so much, you will struggle to find a place in a stat department.

Edited March 21, 2018 by moxis

[insert_name_here]

 

[Bayesian1701]

@Gauss2017 Stanford’s private and yes they do get federal money they aren’t a public institution.  Yes, the Turner insident was wrong and awful I don’t think that had anything to do with their stats department.     Domestic and Female students do have an advantage.  If I was an intentional male with the same stats (including a US degree at my current institution) there is no way I would have gotten the offers I did.  No women or domestic student is going to get rejected just because they are female or domestic.  Duke has great admission statistics that show women and domestic students are more likely to be admitted there even though their department has more male than female students and more international than domestic.  I would assume this would hold at other places.  

Also, I don’t think you can tell if a student is domestic or international.  Americans can have enthic names and international students can have American undergraduates.  I don’t think domestic/international ratio matters unless the domestic and international students tend to be cliquey and not interact with each other but that only happened at 1 out of 4 department’s I visited. 

[Gauss2017]

@moxis  I am not a nationalist. Sorry to disappoint you.  I am about as Blue as you can get.  Sorry to burst your sexist bubble. It is called the #metoo movement.  And yes I do believe if the people of the US are paying for a large portion of Stanfords budget then  most of the benefits should go to domestic applicants.  Your bullying and name calling tactics will not scare or deter me if that was your goal.  You were wondering how nationality can be determined.  It is called websites and linkedin.  You may want to look into those concepts.  Best of luck to you.