Madison's PhD program in statistics

[danthechub]

I recently applied for statistics graduate programs coming out of a pure math undergrad major. I was denied at all the top places like Stanford, Berkeley, Harvard, but got into several programs in the next cluster. According to rankings, Madison is the best choice for me (over Purdue, Penn state, etc). I have general statistics and probability background, so I don't have strongly specific interests in statistics yet. However, it seems like Madison's program is very heavily focused on bio applications, and I don't want to commit to a program that is too one-dimensional as I don't know if I will be interested in that direction.

Does anyone know much about Madison's statistics program? Is there enough room for the theoretical side of things, or substantial work being done outside of bio/med related applications? It's hard to tell how well people coming out of the program are doing because their alumni page is not very detailed.

[ANDS!]

Looking at the Alumni page, where the person is not doing a post-doc or teaching they are predominantly in bio/public health. That doesn't mean you wont get solid instruction (or they wouldn't be ranked as well as they are) but it's obvious what their focus, and where they direct graduates to is.

[qqyyzz]

I was at visit day and biostats is certainly a large application area and their biostats department seems to have a ton of money. But overall their department is pretty large and you can easily find people working on other things. Also, it seems that a lot of departments work together fairly closely. So you can probably find co-advisors in computer science or other related fields. The one area where they're a bit underrepresented is economics side of things. So I think if you're interested in like econometrics and the like you're a bit out of luck.

I also had a question about Purdue, did you get in? If so, what kind/how much funding do they get? When I emailed them yesterday they told me they were still looking at apps.

[bas_b]

I am interested in hearing more on this topic