Poll for comparing the academic reputation

[Blain Waan]

I'm still trying to decide between two Statistics PhD offers from Wisconsin-Madison and Penn State. I researched to find the records of academic placements for these two programs and found 15 professors/associate professors and 11 assistant professors who graduated from Wisconsin-Madison vs. 6 professors/associate professors and 2 assistant professors who graduated from Penn State in the US News top 60-65 programs. I don't know if that really means anything because the Wisconsin-Madison program is a larger one compared to Penn State (they have more PhD students I believe). I do understand that finding an academic placement after graduation depends on many things like publication records, advisors, recommendations, etc. But I still thought of opening this poll to see if people in this forum perceive one program to have higher academic reputation than the other in general.     

[taoli29]

Honestly, in terms of academic reputation, I don't think these two schools are even in the same tier.

[Blain Waan]

@taoli29 Could you please explain a bit more so that it helps me decide where I should go? In the US News ranking both schools rank very similarly and both departments have faculties regularly publishing in top Statistics journals. Could you please guide me explaining what makes Wisconsin superior to Penn State? I'm sorry if this comparison seems silly, as an international student I may not have very good knowledge beyond what I saw in the ranking and the websites of these programs.

[DeeEssEl]

40 minutes ago, Blain Waan said:

@taoli29 Could you please explain a bit more so that it helps me decide where I should go? In the US News ranking both schools rank very similarly and both departments have faculties regularly publishing in top Statistics journals. Could you please guide me explaining what makes Wisconsin superior to Penn State? I'm sorry if this comparison seems silly, as an international student I may not have very good knowledge beyond what I saw in the ranking and the websites of these programs.

I'm not who you replied to, but what ranking are you looking at? You have to look at multiple rankings, and even those don't show the whole picture. US News ranks UW-Madison about 20 places above Penn State. Almost every ranking I've seen ranks UW-Madison higher than Penn State. Historical brand name is also a big factor in academic reputation, but this is something you can't easily discern from rankings.

[bayessays]

40 minutes ago, DeeEssEl said:

I'm not who you replied to, but what ranking are you looking at? You have to look at multiple rankings, and even those don't show the whole picture. US News ranks UW-Madison about 20 places above Penn State. Almost every ranking I've seen ranks UW-Madison higher than Penn State. Historical brand name is also a big factor in academic reputation, but this is something you can't easily discern from rankings.

This is a forum about statistics PhD admissions.  He is not asking about the reputation of the university as a whole.

[bayessays]

Blaine, I think most people here are right that UW Madison is probably slightly more highly regarded (it is higher on US News, after all).  But PSU is a good department that has some unique areas like astrostatostics, data privacy, algebraic statistics.  One of their grads this year I know of got a job at a PhD-granting department.  You can definitely be successful there, and I don't think the difference between the departments is enormous.

[StatsG0d]

On 3/25/2021 at 2:09 AM, bayessays said:

Blaine, I think most people here are right that UW Madison is probably slightly more highly regarded (it is higher on US News, after all).  But PSU is a good department that has some unique areas like astrostatostics, data privacy, algebraic statistics.  One of their grads this year I know of got a job at a PhD-granting department.  You can definitely be successful there, and I don't think the difference between the departments is enormous.

I agree there's not really a huge difference between the two programs. Historically, I think Wisconsin has been stronger, but they've lost a lot of good faculty over the last couple of decades and allegedly had funding issues recently. Between these two schools, I would say go wherever you feel like you'd be happier.

I think the biggest strength PSU has over Wisconsin (and many other schools) is the large amount of electives that you can take (as @bayessays alluded to). The student culture at PSU is awesome as well (highly collaborative, not very competitive), although I have never been to Wisconsin so I can't comment on theirs.

FWIW: Madison is probably the more interesting place to live as PSU is right in the middle of nowhere (which is why I opted not to go there, despite really liking the department culture/atmosphere). Madison, WI has about 250,000 people vs. about 45,000 in State College, PA. State College is about 2.5 hours to Pittsburgh and 3.5 hours to Philadelphia. If you don't really care much for city life, it could probably be a great place as there's a lot of hiking around the area.