Boston university

[MeMe]

Hello everyone,

 

I just wanted to have your opinion on BU PhD program in Statistics. I find their faculty members research and profiles very interesting but I am quite surpised to see that it is ranked 42th by the NRC... Any comment on that? Do you think this rank is accurate? How would you compare BU to Universities such as Cornell or Columbia? Is it that far behind?

 

 

[Tronathan]

Where do you get the rank of 42nd? I don't see that ranking for the Math department or the Biostatistics department with the R or S ranking. In both departments the S ranking is much better than the R ranking. It seems Boston has one of the largest discrepancies in the two outcomes and I don't know why that is. 

[JZappa]

The only program ranked on NRC is BU's Biostats program from what I see. Also there are multiple ranking systems (R and S rank) and they give a range so it's only a rough estimate. BU is more math oriented from what I can see than traditional statistics programs. There is a professor at UNC who got his PhD from BU so clearly they aren't a barely adequate school, generally it's hard to move up in the academic world from the approximate range that your grad school is in (unless you are a very exceptional student). All that really matters is what you want to do and if you have a few candidates for advisors that are well known and respected.

[Tronathan]

I don't think I would go by that list, at least not by itself. It looks like the PhD in statistics is awarded by the Math department in the college of arts and sciences. Going by the ranking of the biostatistics program in the school of public health may not be accurate. If you use the S ranking the math department is somewhere below Columbia and above Cornell.

[Biostat_Assistant_Prof]

As JZappa said, their biostat department is what is ranked 42nd.... From what I know about their biostat departments is that it is known as a decent program, but not top 10 (Biostats).... I'd guess they are around 12-15ish for Biostats

[MeMe]

Thank you all for your comments! Here is the link I found for the NRC rank of their stat program ... 

http://www.stat.tamu.edu/~jnewton/nrc_rankings/area34.html

 

I'm not quite sure to understand how it is ranked. May I have your sources of information guys? 

[Tronathan]

I'm using the chronicle.com but I think you would need to subscribe to access it.

[JZappa]

Those rankings are from 1995 (per the faculty member's webpage). Google NRC statistics rankings for the 2010 rankings. There are a variety of factors that go into the rankings but I believe you can get those from the NRC pages.