Decision Factors

[cyprusprior]

I'm sure many of us on the forum are wrestling with choosing the right program. I've compiled a list of factors I am using to weigh the pros and cons of different departments. I'll just share them here, in no particular priority order, in the hopes that if there's a big factor I'm forgetting to consider, someone might point it out. Also, I hope that this could be a useful checklist for future applicants when they go to visit various department open houses.

Academic Factors:
* time to degree
* course requirements- how many core vs electives, are they in biostat or stat department, are they relevant to what I want to research?
* prelim difficulty
* TA workload
* RA workload
* stipend, is it guaranteed? how much?
* academic job placement
* industry job placement
* ranking
* bayesian versus frequentist
* research opportunities depth/diversity
* faculty working in particular research areas I find interesting? (computational/ genomics/ clinical trials/ survival analysis/ spatial/ etc)
* dissertation- 3 papers or 100 pg manuscript? How much theory vs applied is acceptable? How long does it take for most students?
* how stressed are the current students
* are students working together or are they competing with each other?
* student offices
* strong theoretical training?
* dropout rate
* friendly faculty?
* age structure of the faculty
* friendly students?
* what programming languages do I need to learn (SAS vs R, do faculty use C/C++, python, etc)
 
Personal Factors:
* cost of living
* Can spouse/ significant other find a job in that city?
* ease of using public transportation
* ease of using car
* ease of accessing major airport
* climate/weather (at its worst in winter)
* distance from home, family
* running/ biking trails nearby
* hiking/ proximity to mountains
* exercise facilities (basketball court, swimming pools, etc)

[literaryreference]

Very good list. I might also be interested in the local job market for PhDs who go into industry, as it seems professors have stronger contacts near their schools.

[wine in coffee cups]

I think you might have suggested this generally with "age structure of faculty", but I would add probable retirements and anticipated new positions to a list of things to think about. I really like being associated with a department that has added a lot of new faculty in the past few years but also has an established core of mid- and late-career researchers. The young faculty are great: tremendously energetic and productive, bringing in a lot of their connections as outside speakers working on cutting edge stuff, really helpful for job market advice for senior students because they've just gone through the process themselves.

 

Might be less relevant for biostatistics, but for statistics, I would also add ease of connecting with researchers in other departments if you have particular areas of application in mind. Every place says they collaborate with other departments, but some are better at it than others (and all are much better in some specific fields than others). At my university, you'd be in a great position if you wanted to work on social networks, genetics, ecology, or demography, but in a tough spot if you wanted to get data from researchers in some area we no longer have ties to (like finance).

[agent229]

Might be less relevant for biostatistics, but for statistics, I would also add ease of connecting with researchers in other departments if you have particular areas of application in mind. Every place says they collaborate with other departments, but some are better at it than others (and all are much better in some specific fields than others). 

 

This is a good point. I haven't decided yet, but in my visits I noticed every school boasted this, but only a couple showed real evidence of structure to support interdisciplinary work.

 

As to the original list, I think it's great... what's been hard for me is that evaluating on a bunch of different factors has not helped me reach a decision! A list like yours helped me to narrow it down but I am still stuck between two schools, which are unfortunately pretty similar in strengths and geographic region. Some advice I read elsewhere on here is to imagine yourself actually choosing a school, think through all of the scenarios of living there etc, and then do that with each school and hopefully realize there is one you would rather go to.

[mf161]

I'm particularly interested in the question about programming languages. 

 

Does anybody think this is a significant factor when choosing a department?

I've noticed some departments primarily use R or SAS, which seems like it may have a non-trivial effect on immediate career opportunities (i.e. studying in a R-heavy department could lead to better academic-based opportunities, while an SAS-heavy department could lead to better private sector and government agency opportunities).

[wine in coffee cups]

I'm particularly interested in the question about programming languages. 

 

Does anybody think this is a significant factor when choosing a department?

I've noticed some departments primarily use R or SAS, which seems like it may have a non-trivial effect on immediate career opportunities (i.e. studying in a R-heavy department could lead to better academic-based opportunities, while an SAS-heavy department could lead to better private sector and government agency opportunities).

If you're in a department that somehow does more SAS than R, you're in a pretty applied program and that will manifest itself in ways other than software orientation. For gauging career opportunities, I would look directly at where the alumni are rather than guess based on software.

[wine in coffee cups]

As to the original list, I think it's great... what's been hard for me is that evaluating on a bunch of different factors has not helped me reach a decision! A list like yours helped me to narrow it down but I am still stuck between two schools, which are unfortunately pretty similar in strengths and geographic region. Some advice I read elsewhere on here is to imagine yourself actually choosing a school, think through all of the scenarios of living there etc, and then do that with each school and hopefully realize there is one you would rather go to.

I had the same issue. Made my OCD spreadsheet comparing the three places I had whittled it down to on every dimension I could think of (largely the same as cyprusprior's list), came away understanding the tradeoffs better but not really much closer to a final decision. Asked friends/coworkers/family/recommenders/internet randos here, got thoughtful responses but completely conflicting recommendations.

 

You have to send a lot of emails after you've made a decision: to the departments you haven't turned down yet, to the helpful faculty and students you were in contact with along the way, to your letter writers and everyone else who helped and supported you. A lot of these parties want to know why you made the choice that you did (you will get follow-up from most departments if you don't provide it), so you need to have a short explanation for your decision prepared. It's going to sound stupid, but sometimes you just have to write the emails to draw out of you what you really want. Sit on them for a day or two. You'll find there's probably one version of those emails you would regret sending more than the other. For me, it was observing this dissonance between cheerful email drafts telling everyone where I was going while realizing I couldn't visualize my life/work there that nudged me towards my decision.

[TakeruK]

Related to "age structure" of faculty, consider "expertise structure" of faculty. Does the program have several people in a small number of focussed subfields, or are they more diverse and have maybe only 1 or 2 studying each thing. I'm not in your program but when I visited, I always asked the department chair if they were planning to hire more faculty and expand, or if they were just going to replace their retiring faculty, or if they actually want to downsize. I also ask where they see the research focus of their department going -- are they trying to broaden and cover more topics, or really focus on what they are already good at. Where do they see the department in 10 years? etc.

 

And to add to academic factors, don't forget to ask about how often faculty get tenure and how often they leave too! 

 

Finally, I also second the "ease of accessing a major airport" (I assume you mean a hub airport)!! When I lived far from one, every trip I took was an extra 8 hours (4 to get to the airport, and then 4 waiting because flights don't line up with bus times). Once, going from middle of nowhere Ontario, Canada to Portland, Oregon, it took me longer to make the trip than other researchers from Brazil!