Non-Academic Career Paths with (stats/biostats) PhD

[cyprusprior]

I imagine a common interview question would be "What do you want to do once you finish your PhD?".

My honest answer is, I think I would enjoy being a professor, but I could also see myself working for a start-up, a pharmaceutical company, or a government agency such as the NIH or CDC. I'm wondering if in this case honesty is the best policy.

Do you think it is OK to tell the interviewer that you are open to careers outside of academia (pharmaceutical company, finance, government such as CDC/ NIH)? Or will this reduce one's chances of acceptance into the program? I have read elsewhere that one should pretend, not only at interviews but throughout the PhD program that academia is the only goal in order to appease faculty who frown on non-academic career paths. I've never met any faculty in my personal experience, so I was just wondering how common this would be in statistics/biostats departments.

[cyberwulf]

I think your best bet is to be honest. There's nothing wrong with keeping an open mind about job prospects after a PhD; what faculty generally don't want to hear is that you have NO interest in pursuing an academic path after graduation. 

[Igotnothin]

Mostly agree with cyberwulf except my sense is that the highest ranked programs do want to train students for an academic path. For example Harvard, Hopkins, and UW biostats. I don't think they necessarily want to have PhD students who are likely to get their degree and go run clinical trials for a private company.