Advice on Transferring from MS program, possible PHD in the future

[fireuponthedeep]

Hello everyone!

I hope you are all doing well during these trying times. I have a bit of a dilemma on my hands and wanted to see if anyone had some sage advice for me.

I am a current 1st year MS student in the UMN biostats program. I've been somewhat unsatisfied with the program, specifically how little some of the faculty I've had in class seem to care about the students, Masters in particular. However I've enjoyed reaching out and meeting other faculty, and the research/career opportunities were plentiful and interesting before the pandemic. I've had little luck securing a RA/TA position, coming supeeeeeer close twice, but I am currently paying full price, with no guarantee of getting funding next year (although it is common for most if not all MS students to get funding the second year). This is something I was comfortable doing before the pandemic as I receive in state tuition and the cost at UMN is fairly low. However, the pandemic now makes me reticent to take out more money in loans since I am not sure what the job market will look like in 2021 when I graduate. And I don't know whether I might go back to try and get my PhD. 

My mother works at North Dakota State University, and I decided to apply to their MS Applied statistics program since I have no clue what the fall looks like and wanted to be safe. They immediately accepted me and gave me a TA offer that waives tuition and pays $450/month, so I'd be making money while living at home for free, and I believe about half of my credits would transfer (the stat theory/regression coursework I've taken), but I don't know if I'd graduate 2021 like I would for UMN. However, NDSUs program isn't as well known, so I'm not sure what my outlook for jobs would look like afterwards. And I'm also interested in a PhD (particularly if the job market is very bad, but if not several years down the road), and I know an MS from there would make it harder to get into PhD programs elsewhere.

Basically, I can either go to UMN for ~20k with a decentish chance of getting an RA/TA position one of the two remaining semesters, or go to NDSU and get paid, but I don't know if my job/PhD prospects will be damaged by going there. I also don't want to leave UMN, but it hasn't been what I was hoping for. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

TLDR; MS student considering transferring from well known school to lesser known due to financial issues, pros and cons for both, need some advice and perspective

Edit: Probably important to mention too, but I was given a deadline of May 7th to accept the TA offer from NDSU, which I am going to ask for an extension on due to the pandemic, but no guarantee I get that, so I might have to choose sooner rather than later.

Edited May 1, 2020 by fireuponthedeep

[StatsG0d]

Pretty difficult situation here because you're comparing a very good biostats program with potentially no funding vs. a funded offer from an unknown program. If you're really determined to do a PhD, I would be tempted to stay at Minnesota for two reasons: (1) the pedigree of the school is better; and (2) it might look strange to the adcoms to see that you went from a prestigious program to a non-prestigious one. For (2), I guess you can indicate financial hardships on your personal statement, though it's unclear how much that will be taken into account, and I'm sure this varies heavily by department.

I also think it might help if you posted your full profile (undergrad degree / gpa , etc. ) so that we can understand how strong of an applicant you are irrespective of the grad program.

[fireuponthedeep]

7 minutes ago, StatsG0d said:

Pretty difficult situation here because you're comparing a very good biostats program with potentially no funding vs. a funded offer from an unknown program. If you're really determined to do a PhD, I would be tempted to stay at Minnesota for two reasons: (1) the pedigree of the school is better; and (2) it might look strange to the adcoms to see that you went from a prestigious program to a non-prestigious one. For (2), I guess you can indicate financial hardships on your personal statement, though it's unclear how much that will be taken into account, and I'm sure this varies heavily by department.

I also think it might help if you posted your full profile (undergrad degree / gpa , etc. ) so that we can understand how strong of an applicant you are irrespective of the grad program.

Yeah, I'm definitely not sold on pursuing a PhD since I've gotten pretty drained by coursework after this first year, but that's more due to external circumstances + two really really bad professors. But I've also really enjoyed the (little) research I've been able to do, which I hadn't honestly anticipated. Probably 50-50 chance of pursuing a PhD. 

My undergrad GPA was 3.76, Mathematics BA. Mostly theory based, but didn't take Real Analysis. GRE was 164Q, 168V, 4.5W (I think).

Current UMN GPA is a 3.89, but it'll probably drop to a 3.72 after this semester, gonna get a B/B+ in a core stat course cuz #pandemic. I think I'd probably be okay getting into lower ranked schools? I'd want to stay somewhat near family if possible, which restricts my options to the Midwest.

It just feels like UMN opens my options up so much more, but damn, I really don't want to have another 20k in debt if the job market is super bad. 

[bayessays]

It's a tough choice and think basically should come down to what you think will make you happier.  I'd probably lean towards the option with lower debt, personally but that's just my personal preference on money issues.  Is it really only a $20k difference, or is $20k tuition + UMN housing + $450/month difference?

What do you want to do if you don't get a PhD?  I'm not saying a UMN degree won't be more valuable for some purposes, but I'm skeptical of just how much it will help in certain fields.  It's  a good department, but not a name that's going to jump off the page like Harvard and get you an automatic interview at big tech companies.  Having a top biostats degree will help if you want to go into pharma companies probably.  But I know plenty of people with degrees from totally unknown schools who got well paying data science-type jobs.

For the PhD admissions, that is tougher.  I do think there is a bias for degrees from top schools, but you can always explain in your SOP -- I've had a somewhat rocky graduate school path myself and I don't think switching programs will be a devastating blow to your app.  Do you think you might be able to form closer relationships with professors at NDSU?  If you can get better letters from that program, that might even things out a little.

[bayessays]

Also, I want to give NDSU some credit here.  It's not like this is some unknown directional state university.  They are a PhD-granting department.

[fireuponthedeep]

On 5/1/2020 at 1:35 PM, bayessays said:

It's a tough choice and think basically should come down to what you think will make you happier.  I'd probably lean towards the option with lower debt, personally but that's just my personal preference on money issues.  Is it really only a $20k difference, or is $20k tuition + UMN housing + $450/month difference?

What do you want to do if you don't get a PhD?  I'm not saying a UMN degree won't be more valuable for some purposes, but I'm skeptical of just how much it will help in certain fields.  It's  a good department, but not a name that's going to jump off the page like Harvard and get you an automatic interview at big tech companies.  Having a top biostats degree will help if you want to go into pharma companies probably.  But I know plenty of people with degrees from totally unknown schools who got well paying data science-type jobs.

For the PhD admissions, that is tougher.  I do think there is a bias for degrees from top schools, but you can always explain in your SOP -- I've had a somewhat rocky graduate school path myself and I don't think switching programs will be a devastating blow to your app.  Do you think you might be able to form closer relationships with professors at NDSU?  If you can get better letters from that program, that might even things out a little.

The cost would mostly be a wash other than tuition since I can get higher paying jobs (I have one rn) in Minneapolis UMN that will earn enough for rent + the $450, basically tuition vs no-tuition.

If I don't get a PhD, I would like to work at a medical device company or a hospital doing clinical trial work. And even if I do get a PhD I would still like to do work in clinical trials. I actually had a biostat internship for this summer at one of the big med device companies in Minneapolis, but they cancelled all internships due to covid ? And I had an interview with Mayo Clinic for another clinical trial internship that I was super excited about, but they cancelled too. And I got those opportunities solely from being a UMN student, came from alumni. If I knew those opportunities would still be there next spring I'd stay with zero issue, I just don't know and I'm fairly risk averse, one of the reasons I chose biostats. 

It's hard to say, since I would be at NDSU a year, maybe 3 semesters max, and it might be online next fall. But they are a small department so that would help to develop closer relationships for sure. 

On 5/1/2020 at 1:40 PM, bayessays said:

Also, I want to give NDSU some credit here.  It's not like this is some unknown directional state university.  They are a PhD-granting department.

Yeah, it seems like rankings matter much unless you intend on going into academia and want go to a larger university, a PhD is a PhD as long as the school prepares you well and I don't have any reason to think NDSU wouldn't do a good job in that regard. But the issue is that NDSU isn't really focused on what I want to do (clinical trials), they're more traditional statistics program, some cancer research but not much in the clinical trial field. And I know it would be far more likely I stay in the Fargo area with an NDSU degree, and there aren't many of the biostat jobs that I've been able to find in past research. 

[StatsG0d]

5 hours ago, fireuponthedeep said:

Yeah, it seems like rankings matter much unless you intend on going into academia and want go to a larger university, a PhD is a PhD as long as the school prepares you well and I don't have any reason to think NDSU wouldn't do a good job in that regard. But the issue is that NDSU isn't really focused on what I want to do (clinical trials), they're more traditional statistics program, some cancer research but not much in the clinical trial field. And I know it would be far more likely I stay in the Fargo area with an NDSU degree, and there aren't many of the biostat jobs that I've been able to find in past research. 

I still think pedigree matters for industry jobs (although I wish that it did not). Professors from top departments have lots of industry connections and can easily help their students get jobs. Obviously, the better the program, the more industry connections there will be.

Moreover, note that even students from lower ranked programs can get pretty good academic jobs if they work with good professors. For example, UF Stats is not a very highly ranked department, but their faculty is stacked and indeed they send their students to some great post docs (e.g., UPenn, Sloan Kettering) and recently even sent a student to a tenure track AP position at Minnesota Stats (although this is an outlier).

TLDR: it's not necessarily true that pedigree matters for only academia and not for industry. The converse is also false. In general, it's easier to get a good job to attend a higher ranking school