UCLA Statistics vs Penn State Statistics vs Texas A and M Statistics

[ducky500]

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to get a comparison between UCLA's PhD Statistics program, Penn State's Statistics PhD Program, and Texas A and M's PhD program.  Would really appreciate any thoughts on which program, people think is best to go to. 

Are Penn State and Texas A and M objectively "better" because they are higher ranked than UCLA? I'm split whether I want to do go to industry or academia after graduation. Are Penn State and Texas A and M better places to go to for landing a tenure-track position at let's say a top 40 statistics program? Would it be hard, graduating from UCLA's PhD program to land a professor job.

Again, I'm split on whether going to industry or being a professor. My research interests also lie in probability, machine learning, markov chain theory, stat learning. Which school is best for this? ucla seems to have good machine learning courses. I'm particularly interested in markov chain theory.

[Stat Assistant Professor]

Have you checked the professors who could act as potential advisors and their job placements? I'm not familiar with any renowned faculty from TAMU in the area of Markov chain/stochastic process theory, but UCLA has Qing Zhou. 

[ducky500]

@Stat PhD Now Postdoc thanks, i looked through before for professors that could act as potential advisors. i'll look again since it was awhile ago. Generally, how would you compare the three schools in terms of professor placement. Doesn't seem like many students from UCLA place in tenure track positions., which is my worry.

[bayessays]

I think academic placements are not always the best barometer sometimes because of selection bias. Someone who chose UCLA over TAMU probably puts higher value on living in California or a big city or good weather and might not be willing to go wherever for a professor job - especially in California, many people decide they would rather just not move and decide to go into industry or get whatever nearby job they can find.

UCLA is a great department, but from my (limited! biased! I could be totally wrong) perspective, I think of them as having less big names than the other two.

Penn State has Murali Haran - if you're interested in MCMC stuff, I'd say go there.

Is location important to you? TAMU has a couple good profs I can think of that have good placements, but if you don't want to work with them, are you willing to live five years in College Station over LA?

[ducky500]

Hi @bayessays thanks for the valuable info. I probably prefer UCLA over the other two schools. what would you say the advantages of going to Penn State and TAMU over UCLA. If it’s not too much bother could you help me list the pros and cons of each school, I’m trying to be really careful. I know UCLA has better weather but when I search up UCLA statistics on the gradcafe, I have read some negative things about it. In one thread UCLA vs Penn State, a poster said Penn State hands down. Someone said the department was “poorly run” but this post was back in 2013-2014. Have things changed since then? 

[yuizu221]

3 minutes ago, ducky500 said:

Hi @bayessays thanks for the valuable info. I probably prefer UCLA over the other two schools. what would you say the advantages of going to Penn State and TAMU over UCLA. If it’s not too much bother could you help me list the pros and cons of each school, I’m trying to be really careful. I know UCLA has better weather but when I search up UCLA statistics on the gradcafe, I have read some negative things about it. In one thread UCLA vs Penn State, a poster said Penn State hands down. Someone said the department was “poorly run” but this post was back in 2013-2014. Have things changed since then? 

would you attend UCLA's visiting day next month?

[ducky500]

@yuizu221 unfortunately I cannot attend UCLA’s visiting day on Mar 15th since Penn state’s is on the same day. Let me know how it goes though!

Edited February 19, 2019 by ducky500

[bayessays]

13 minutes ago, ducky500 said:

Hi @bayessays thanks for the valuable info. I probably prefer UCLA over the other two schools. what would you say the advantages of going to Penn State and TAMU over UCLA. If it’s not too much bother could you help me list the pros and cons of each school, I’m trying to be really careful. I know UCLA has better weather but when I search up UCLA statistics on the gradcafe, I have read some negative things about it. In one thread UCLA vs Penn State, a poster said Penn State hands down. Someone said the department was “poorly run” but this post was back in 2013-2014. Have things changed since then? 

I don't have any inside insight into the department. Have you seen any professors there who match your research interest? I wouldn't put too much stock in coursework - the research is what matters in the end. 

[ducky500]

@bayessays thanks, so I looked through the professors at UCLA and Penn State and I have found roughly 2-3 professors at UCLA who do research in fields in areas that I would like to do research in.  At Penn State I found 5 professors who do research in fields in areas I like. Many of UCLA's faculty seem to have joint appointments with biostatistics, history, anderson business school, and psychology, which are unfortunately not interests of mine.