What to consider in choosing a phd offer

[statenth]

Hi, congratulations for all who got the offers for this Fall semester. If there is anyone who've made the decision for this year's cycle, I'd like to ask your experiences or ideas that affected your decision. Or if you are working to figure out which offer is better, please share the aspects (like pros and cons) you are considering now.

Edited March 5, 2021 by statenth

[BL4CKxP3NGU1N]

I made my decision already, so I'll give some input on what factors were the most important for me.

1) Work-life balance. Obviously, it's important to enjoy life for the next 4-5 years, which may be difficult to do if you have to spend excessive amounts of time on school. All PhD programs will take a significant amount of time and effort, but there are definitely some that will take more time and effort than others, depending on who you are. Since I am married and planning on starting a family during my PhD program, I didn't necessarily want to choose a program that I thought would consume my life. However, since I tend to be kind of a workaholic, I probably would have chosen a more intense and time-consuming program if I were single.

To judge work-life balance, I looked at things like coursework requirements, average time spent on GTA type work, the qualifying exam process, etc. You can get a good idea about a lot of this stuff from most departments' websites, but you may also need to talk to current grad students to get a better idea of what it's like.

2) Program fit. Make sure you do some research into department culture. How do the professors and students interact with each other? Is the department one you would like to be a part of? A department that has a great culture where you fit in well will certainly make your life better than a department that isn't a good fit for you, even if there is a disparity in program ranking.

I made sure that every school I applied to had plenty of potential advisors with whom I would like to work if I ended up going there, so that is something to consider in choosing a school as well. If you go somewhere with only 1-2 potential advisors working on some hot topic you're interested in, you may have to compete with a lot of other students to be able to work with that advisor.

As a part of program fit, program size may be an important factor to consider. I am currently at a university with a large number of statistics undergraduate students (we have over 500 undergrad statistics majors right now). Thankfully, I have had a lot of great interaction with professors even though we have a large department; however, I have heard that this is not always the case at other universities with large departments, so it's one thing I've kept in mind. Large departments can be great for their resources and research opportunities, but it may also be easy to get lost, and you may have to compete with a lot of others to get time with professors.

There are plenty of other factors to consider like location, funding, job placements, etc. All the programs I applied to are in places that I would enjoy living in for different reasons, so this wasn't a major concern for me. The monthly stipend amount (and summer funding availability) is also pretty important, but all the offers I received would have been plenty to live off of in each area, so funding wasn't really a huge deal for me either. Job placements are important, but since I'm 90-95% sure I want to go into industry, I don't think it really matters where I go for my PhD since everywhere seems to do well in terms of industry placements.

Good luck on your decision!

[Bayequentist]

The points mentioned by @BL4CKxP3NGU1N are all good. Additionally, you should also find out if your potential PhD university has a strong grad student union or not. Having a strong grad student union comes with many benefits like good health insurance, emergency fund, annual contract bargaining with the university etc... These "small" things make your life as a grad student (potentially 5+ years) much easier.

[statenth]

3 hours ago, BL4CKxP3NGU1N said:

I made my decision already, so I'll give some input on what factors were the most important for me.

1) Work-life balance. Obviously, it's important to enjoy life for the next 4-5 years, which may be difficult to do if you have to spend excessive amounts of time on school. All PhD programs will take a significant amount of time and effort, but there are definitely some that will take more time and effort than others, depending on who you are. Since I am married and planning on starting a family during my PhD program, I didn't necessarily want to choose a program that I thought would consume my life. However, since I tend to be kind of a workaholic, I probably would have chosen a more intense and time-consuming program if I were single.

To judge work-life balance, I looked at things like coursework requirements, average time spent on GTA type work, the qualifying exam process, etc. You can get a good idea about a lot of this stuff from most departments' websites, but you may also need to talk to current grad students to get a better idea of what it's like.

2) Program fit. Make sure you do some research into department culture. How do the professors and students interact with each other? Is the department one you would like to be a part of? A department that has a great culture where you fit in well will certainly make your life better than a department that isn't a good fit for you, even if there is a disparity in program ranking.

I made sure that every school I applied to had plenty of potential advisors with whom I would like to work if I ended up going there, so that is something to consider in choosing a school as well. If you go somewhere with only 1-2 potential advisors working on some hot topic you're interested in, you may have to compete with a lot of other students to be able to work with that advisor.

As a part of program fit, program size may be an important factor to consider. I am currently at a university with a large number of statistics undergraduate students (we have over 500 undergrad statistics majors right now). Thankfully, I have had a lot of great interaction with professors even though we have a large department; however, I have heard that this is not always the case at other universities with large departments, so it's one thing I've kept in mind. Large departments can be great for their resources and research opportunities, but it may also be easy to get lost, and you may have to compete with a lot of others to get time with professors.

There are plenty of other factors to consider like location, funding, job placements, etc. All the programs I applied to are in places that I would enjoy living in for different reasons, so this wasn't a major concern for me. The monthly stipend amount (and summer funding availability) is also pretty important, but all the offers I received would have been plenty to live off of in each area, so funding wasn't really a huge deal for me either. Job placements are important, but since I'm 90-95% sure I want to go into industry, I don't think it really matters where I go for my PhD since everywhere seems to do well in terms of industry placements.

Good luck on your decision!

Thanks so much for sharing your story. 

I guess workloads for TA appointments are not so different between schools, but I am also a workaholic and hope to be a faculty in the US in the future. So I'm also considering RA opportunities or students' research history as well. I'm currently contacting a graduate from the department who's doing a postdoc to learn more about the culture. There are several professors who study the areas I am interested in. I've not considered the program size, thank you for adding a new view.

Hope you and your family can successfully begin your life there!!