Stat PhD: Deciding between MSU and Johns Hopkins AMS

[Friend of a friend]

I'm quite happy with my application cycle. I was fortunately accepted into two places I would love to attend, MSU and Johns Hopkins. Now, I have to make a choice. A friend of mine suggested I post here to get some thoughts. 

 

I don't really have an established research interest to be frank. I'm open to a lot of things, and research relating to applied work in general appeals to me. Maybe I'm more interested in applications related to social science? But it's not that strong of a preference, pretty much every science has something interesting about it in my experience. I think I'll most likely end up in industry. 

 

I did find probability and Stochastic Processes courses very interesting and fun. I realize this is something MSU is known for, so that's cool. Apparently they're also known for methodological research, which kinda sounds application oriented research, but I'm not really sure what it exactly is. I also have my family and friends in Michigan, and that's also important to me. 

 

I am also aware of the fact that Johns Hopkins is kind of a prestigious name, so I don't want to screw up and not take a big opportunity if one is presenting itself to me. But I couldn't find a lot about the AMS PhD program in Statistics on here. They're not even ranked in USNews as far as I know. But it looks like it's in Whiting School, which is well ranked, and has big name people (or at least Donald Geman). 

 

Overall I'm leaning towards MSU at the moment. I don't really want to go away from my personal circle for a comparable education and career prospect, and MSU does indeed seem like a respectable school with its own strengths. However, if Johns Hopkins will be a major upgrade in any way, maybe I should take the chance. 

 

Any thoughts or guidance is appreciated, thanks for helping me make the decision. 
 

[Stat Assistant Professor]

JHU used to be ranked in the Statistics USNWR rankings, but I guess they were removed this past year. Their ranking under USNWR Best Mathematics schools is probably where they were moved, and their ranking there may be indicative of the reputation of the program. Even so, the Statistics group within the broader Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics department at Johns Hopkins is a very strong group, and they have had pretty good academic placements in Math/Statistics departments (their PhD students have ended up at University of Maryland, UW-Madison, UIUC, just to name a few). So I just want to clarify that JHU AMS is highly regarded in the statistics community (irrespective of their lack of presence in USNWR rankings).

If you are leaning towards industry, it probably doesn't matter that much (MSU vs. JHU). You can weigh personal factors that are important to you, like you mentioned.

[Friend of a friend]

Hmm, it's a tough choice. A good headache to have though.

Just to get your full view of things: what is your opinion of MSU's department? If I'm understanding correctly, MSU vs. Johns Hopkins for me is coming down to personal factors vs. better reputation if I am to pursue academia?

Thanks for your thoughts!

[bayessays]

Do you have a professor in mind at JHU?  As far as I can see, they have about two options for your advisor, Younes and Naiman.   Seems like a big risk.  JHU has had some successful statistics students, but the one I'm most familiar with was a student of Minh Tang, who left for NC State.

MSU is known as having a lot of probabilists, but they do have a lot of people working on stats stuff so it's not like they only do probability (it's just they ALSO have probability stuff, and you have to take quite a few probability classes).  If you want to be a statistician, I'd probably go to MSU.