TAMU and Northwestern Stats

[kingduck]

Hi all, 

I am deciding between NW and TAMU right now. Roughly speaking, my interests are in ML and I want to get into stochastic processes - I hope to do work more applied in nature. Judging from US News, these two programs seem to be on two different levels, but my questions are these:

Aside from their USNews rankings, what are reasons to attend one over the other?

Is the level or rigor required in both departments generally the same or is one significantly different from the other?

Thanks.

 

[StatsG0d]

These two programs aren't really on the same level at all. The only reason I can think to go to NU over TAMU is if you have very strong location preferences. Otherwise, I don't really see a single advantage NU has over TAMU.

[kingduck]

Forgive my ignorance if this is common knowledge, but how exactly are these "levels" determined? What causes one program to be ranked over another?

Edited April 7, 2021 by kingduck

[StatsG0d]

31 minutes ago, kingduck said:

Forgive my ignorance if this is common knowledge, but how exactly are these "levels" determined? What causes one program to be ranked over another?

Rankings are typically based on a faculty survey. They ask faculty at universities to rank each department. The rankings are then aggregated. If you want to dig in, the methodology can be accessed here:
https://www.usnews.com/education/best-graduate-schools/articles/science-schools-methodology

[bayessays]

Northwestern recently added Han Liu, who seems to be pretty active in good journals, but their professors simply don't publish much at all and not in top statistics journals.    If you want to be a statistics professor ever, you basically have to go to TAMU.  If you want to be a professor in an education department, Hedges is an intriguing option I suppose.  If you aren't interested in academia anyways, it doesn't really matter in the end as anyone with a statistics PhD from a bottom-tier department can get a high-paying job as a data scientist or biostatistician

If anything, Northwestern is rated far too high in US News for their faculty's productivity, as half of their professors have not published in statistics journals in a decade or more.

[StatsG0d]

Yeah I agree if you want to go to industry it won’t matter that much. But if your question is rigor, the answer is simple. You will find TAMU is more rigorous than NU. 

[nauhark]

 

On 4/7/2021 at 4:15 PM, bayessays said:

Northwestern recently added Han Liu, who seems to be pretty active in good journals, but their professors simply don't publish much at all and not in top statistics journals.    If you want to be a statistics professor ever, you basically have to go to TAMU.  If you want to be a professor in an education department, Hedges is an intriguing option I suppose.  If you aren't interested in academia anyways, it doesn't really matter in the end as anyone with a statistics PhD from a bottom-tier department can get a high-paying job as a data scientist or biostatistician

If anything, Northwestern is rated far too high in US News for their faculty's productivity, as half of their professors have not published in statistics journals in a decade or more.

Also, one factor you should consider is that Han Liu may no longer take students at Northwestern. Or, in other words, he hasn't taken any new students since he left Princeton.