UBC Statistics vs McGill Biostatistics

[Casorati]

I am fortunate to have been admitted to UBC Statistics PhD and McGill Biostatistics PhD and I am having a hard time deciding between the two. So I would like to seek out advice from you guys. My goal is to attain a faculty position. It seems that 60% of graduates from UBC went into academia while McGill did not post their data. UBC has wider range of research than McGill but McGill is a better research fit as they have a group of people doing cutting-edge research in causal inference. Also, what tier of schools in the US would be comparable to the above two schools?

[Stat Assistant Professor]

I would ask the Graduate Coordinator of McGill Biostatistics for a list of their most recent placements. I think  any of the top 5 universities in Canada (University of Toronto, UBC, McGill, McMaster, and University of Montreal) are quite solid, and schools like UBC and Toronto should be comparable to programs in the U.S. in the rough tier as NCSU-Minnesota (i.e. right below Michigan and Duke). I am not sure about McGill though. But I have seen several faculty with PhDs from these five schools do very well in academia (e.g. Yves Atchades who was at University of Michigan and is now at BU got his PhD from University of Montreal).

Academic hiring in Statistics/Biostatistics is also not just about where you did your PhD though, but involves a lot of moving parts (e.g. what your publication record looks like, who your advisors are, what your research is on -- sometimes a department may just not be into your research or is prioritizing hiring someone in another specific sub-area, etc.). Do good work where you feel you will be most productive and in a good position to land good postdocs, and you should be fine.