What's the best way to figure out the research strengths of a dept?

[kingsdead]

Hi, as the title indicates, I'm curious about the best way to determine the research strengths of a given department. Some are fairly obvious, e.g. Duke and Bayesian, but with others it's hard for me to tell. E.g. I've heard things about how Washington has a very strong theoretical bent, but how would you know that just by looking at Washington's department website? I don't really know any statistics professors to ask about this, which is how I suspect most students get a sense of research strengths and where to apply to. Any advice on how to figure these sort of things out? For what it's worth, I'm interested mostly in biostatistics, and just want to get a sense of what the different departments specialize in so I can begin forming a list of schools to apply to.

[Warelin]

I think the easiest way to do this is to take a look at what professors list as their research interests. Usually, there are themes that you'll start to notice. After looking through research interests, see if you can find a list of previous courses offered during the past few years and see if that helps you gain an understanding of how strong a program is in a certain department. If you notice that the professors at various schools you're interested in graduated from the same school, take a look at that school's program as well.

[insert_name_here]

Talking to people in the field and reading papers from professors (although it's more time consuming) are the best ways to do that. Realistically, you may get a crude sense at application time, and a far better sense when you actually go and visit. FWIW, I'm surprised you've heard Washington has a strong theoretical bent - they're great at applied stats, have tons of biostats going on.

[cyberwulf]

The reality is that it's hard for prospective students to gauge exactly what a department's strengths are. Probably the best indicator is to look at what recently graduated students are working on, and where they got jobs. If graduates in a particular research area got jobs at good places, that's likely an indicator that the institution they graduated from has some strength in that area. Of course, with such small numbers involved, this isn't an exact science.

[kingsdead]

Thanks everyone for the advice! @insert_name_here, huh, could have sworn I read that something about Washington being known for theory somewhere on this site, but thanks for the info!