Rank v/s interest

[clairedare]

I am genuinely confused, and would appreciate any help/opinions. I have offers from well-regarded biostat departments (UNC, Minnesota) and a good stat department (NCSU). 
I also have an offer from Brown biostats. I have a very strong interest in what faculty at Brown do ( particularly record linkage) which is not really represented in those other departments. 
My question is, is it worth giving up on rankings and going to Brown simply because I’m more interested in what they do? Or would it be wiser to choose higher ranked places and pursue other research directions?

If it’s relevant, I plan to work in industry after my Phd, but don’t want to completely shut the doors to an academic career.

Edited February 13, 2020 by clairedare

[bayessays]

I would say the difference between Brown and Minnesota is negligible at best, really. Brown is a solid up and coming department and I think plenty of people would choose it over those other 3.  If Brown feels right, go there.  I'd think about a couple other things that are as important as research fit, like size, location and funding. NCSU is really huge and would be a totally different experience than a small department like Brown. 

Even if you wanted to go into academia, I think it could make sense to go to Brown. In industry, it won't matter (some people might even prefer the ivy name).

[likewater]

Disclaimer: I'm a current applicant.

In terms of industry all of those departments will set you up equally fine in all likelihood, they don't tend to care about fine distinctions between department rankings.

In general, I think choosing to not pursue your interests is probably ill-advised; a PhD is a long, tenuous commitment after all. Spending 4-6 years on something that's not your true passion seems rather painful. Plus, while UNC and Minnesota are ranked higher on the biostat ladder, Brown is no slouch either and has some powerhouse researchers. I don't know enough about stats to comment on that front. For academic positions departmental ranking does matter, but not as much as your publications/letters/advisor which may (or may not) be better if you were to do research in something you are very interested in.

Additionally, UNC/Minnesota/NCSU are all rather large departments while Brown is one of the smallest, maybe something else to consider that might help you make your decision.

[Stat Assistant Professor]

Agreed with the above that Brown Biostatistics is a great department. If you are interested in industry, Brown University's proximity to Boston is also a plus. Boston have something like a thousand biotech companies, ranging from start-ups to huge pharmaceutical companies.

Brown is certainly good enough to land you academic jobs, provided you have a record of achievement. For academic jobs, the CV (namely, the publications) and the recommendation letters are truly the most important factor for landing interviews/jobs. This past application cycle, I saw some folks with PhDs from schools like University of Illinois at Chicago and University of Cincinnati (which are great schools but not "elite") getting interviews for TT jobs at R1's because they had strong CV's with a at least one or two publications in top journals. A strong pedigree is certainly helpful -- I won't deny the correlation between publication record/strong recommendations and institutional reputation. But it's not the *only* thing that matters.

[clairedare]

Thanks y'all. Really appreciate the help. Some quick questions,

@bayessays, are there any specific disadvantages of going to a large department (other than being a small fish in a big pond sort of of a thing)?

Also, if I want to work at non--pharma/biotech places like Amazon/Apple etc., would a PhD in biostats (rather than stats) be a hindrance?

[bayessays]

It's so dependent on the individual department, but generally classes are bigger, you probably won't know most the faculty in a large department, there may be more competition for advisors.  For instance, some advisors at NCSU have 10 or more PhD advisees, whereas the whole Brown biostat department has 20 PhD students.

As for non-bio/industry positions, absolutely not.  A biostatistics degree will be just as good (and arguably better since you may have some more collaboration/applied stats experience).

[AM61]

I'm in a similar situation at the moment, so thank you to all above for the helpful advice.

I might submit my own thread on my personal predicament soon, but since I think it's very related to the topic here: does anyone have an opinion or knowledge about the gap between UNC's STOR dept. and UT Austin's SDS dept.? UNC seems large, very established, and highly ranked, while UT is smaller, newer, and more specialized but I'm just as (and perhaps more) interested in the research areas at UT. How significant is the difference between the two?

I am looking to go into government/policy research (areas in which I think UT has some specific connections) but I want to keep the door open to both industry and academia as well. There are some other important factors in my decision (UT offered me a generic fellowship with more funding, while UNC STOR offered me a longer "Royster" fellowship with more professional development and other perks), but the differences in department ranking and interest is what I'm most concerned about at the moment.

Edited February 29, 2020 by AM61

[Stat Assistant Professor]

1 minute ago, AM61 said:

I'm in a similar situation at the moment, so thank you to all above for the helpful advice.

I might submit my own thread on my personal predicament soon, but since I think it's very related to the topic here: does anyone have an opinion or knowledge about the gap between UNC's STOR dept. and UT Austin's SDS dept.? UNC seems large, very established, and highly ranked, while UT is smaller, newer, and more specialized but I'm just as (and perhaps more) interested in the research areas at UT. How significant is the difference between the two?

I am looking to go into government/policy think tank research (areas in which I think UT has some specific connections) but I want to keep the door open to both industry and academia as well. There are some other important factors in my decision (UT offered me a generic fellowship with more funding, while UNC STOR offered me a longer "Royster" fellowship with more professional development and other perks), but the differences in department ranking and interest is what I'm most concerned about at the moment.

I saw that UCLA Department of Statistics hired an Assistant Professor recently who got his PhD from UT Austin SDS. His PhD advisor was James Scott, I believe. I do not believe there should be a huge disadvantage in the academic job market coming from UT Austin vs. UNC-CH if your publication record and your letters of recommendation are solid -- those are the main thrusts for academic hiring at research universities. Nowadays it also really helps to do a postdoc to make your CV more competitive. 

[Cavalerius]

@AM61

I was in a similar position to you last year. I've included a link to a thread that I started last year which might prove helpful to you. It's certainly a difficult decision to make, and I'd be happy to answer any additional questions.

 

[AM61]

@Cavalerius Wow, that's extremely helpful. Thank you very much for the link! It's good to see that others have struggled with the same questions and made it through the process (alive!). Your past threads seem to touch on a lot of my current concerns, actually, so thank you for unknowingly laying some groundwork for my decision process!

@Stat PhD Now Postdoc Thank you--Dr. Scott is actually one of several people I am interested in working with, and that helps give me some useful context.

 

[clairedare]

On 2/28/2020 at 10:25 PM, Cavalerius said:

@AM61

I was in a similar position to you last year. I've included a link to a thread that I started last year which might prove helpful to you. It's certainly a difficult decision to make, and I'd be happy to answer any additional questions.

 

May I ask if you chose UT Austin in the end and are happy with the decision?

[clairedare]

On 2/28/2020 at 9:42 PM, Stat PhD Now Postdoc said:

I saw that UCLA Department of Statistics hired an Assistant Professor recently who got his PhD from UT Austin SDS. His PhD advisor was James Scott, I believe. I do not believe there should be a huge disadvantage in the academic job market coming from UT Austin vs. UNC-CH if your publication record and your letters of recommendation are solid -- those are the main thrusts for academic hiring at research universities. Nowadays it also really helps to do a postdoc to make your CV more competitive. 

About recommendation letters --- how important is the stature of your advisor? Say he is a late assistant/early associate professor, will there be a *significant* disadvantage in working with him over, say a full/distinguished professor?

[StatsG0d]

IMO, it is not wise to choose a department based on one research area without having a backup. I have changed my interests probably at least twice since I have been in graduate school. I came in wanting to do ML, and was sure I did not want to do Bayesian statistics. Now, I am doing Bayesian statistics :).

If you have some prior experience (no pun intended) in the research area you like at Brown, then go for it. However, to make a decision based on something you think you'll be interested in is dangerous. At Minnesota, UNC, and NCSU, there's a wide variety of reserach interests among faculty.

[clairedare]

Yup. I'm going in with a master's, and do have some experience in record linkage/missing data stuff. Which is why I'm thinking Brown is a good match.

[Stat Assistant Professor]

1 hour ago, clairedare said:

About recommendation letters --- how important is the stature of your advisor? Say he is a late assistant/early associate professor, will there be a *significant* disadvantage in working with him over, say a full/distinguished professor?

Letters from famous/distinguished professors usually do carry a lot of weight. Working with an Associate Professor is usually okay as well -- a lot of job candidates who get academic positions were supervised by Associate Professors. One of my postdoc PI's is an Associate Professor, and one of his PhD students got interviews at all the top schools in Biostats this spring (Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Michigan, Columbia, you name it) -- and got a job offer from Johns Hopkins. If you want to work with an Assistant Professor and are interested in academia, I might suggest being co-advised by an Associate Professor or a Full Professor, as they are more likely to be well-connected.

Also, I wanted to add: while on the job market this past spring, I saw that there were PhD students and graduates from schools like Rice University and UC Davis getting campus interviews at Cornell, UPenn Wharton, and the like. So even at Ivy League schools, they're not *only* inviting Stanford, Berkeley, Harvard grads to interview for TT positions. It is certainly the case that a higher percentage of Stanford PhD's (and PhD's from schools of similar tier) will be viable academic job market candidates than those from lower ranked schools. But a lot of PhD's from lower ranked schools probably aren't interested in academia anyway. And if the grads from the lower ranked schools have strong CV's and strong letters, then they can certainly compete with the best of them.

Edited March 4, 2020 by Stat PhD Now Postdoc

[StatsG0d]

On 3/4/2020 at 12:08 PM, clairedare said:

Yup. I'm going in with a master's, and do have some experience in record linkage/missing data stuff. Which is why I'm thinking Brown is a good match.

In that case, I would say follow your heart. It sounds like Brown would be a good fit for you, and Ivy League prestige never hurts.