Comparing offers

[statsfrog]

I was fortunate to receive 10 admission offers this cycle, so I have a lot to consider. Right now, I am trying to decide between the following offers:

• UCLA- biostats PhD
• UNC- biostats PhD
• UC Irvine- stats PhD
• UC San Diego- biostats PhD
• University of Southern California (USC)- biostats PhD

I am interested in learning about how these programs differ. What are some of their strengths/weaknesses? How well do their graduates perform in industry and/or academia? Are students able to participate in a lot of research? How strong is their coursework? Any advice is appreciated!

[stat_guy]

Congrats on your offers! I'm also a stat/biostat PhD applicant this year. I have one common offer with you, UNC biostats PhD though I've declined it. Below are some opinions of mine. Hope that helps!

If you're sure you want to do biostats - I would say UNC is the best one among other biostats offers from an academic perspective. It ranks right behind the big three in biostats (Harvard, JHU, UW) by US News. I'm not saying ranking should be the most important factor to consider, but it is definitely a reflection of their academic strengths. UNC biostats is a large department so it covers many research areas, from methodology to application, or a combination of the two. It's relatively easy for you to find an advisor of interest. But one thing to notice is their funding issues. Seems like they like sending out unfunded offers and let students themselves go find advisors to get funding. 

If you're still deciding between stats and biostats (like me, I applied both but lean towards stats program), I think UC Irvine would also be a good place to go. I don't know much about stats at UC Irvine, but in general there're many professors working on biostats in statistics department, so you could still work on applied statistics if it turns out to be your real interest later on.

[bayessays]

Agreed that Irvine and UNC are by far the best two options there.  As mentioned above, UNC has had some weird funding stuff in the past, but I'm not sure if that's an issue any more.  If you want to do biostatistics, there are a lot of applied opportunities there. I really think UCI is one of the fastest rising stats departments (they have attracted a lot of great faculty over the last 5 or so years) and you could be really successful coming from there.