Statistics major questions

<p>What are some schools with good statistics programs? The one school I am looking at most seriously is UChicago, but that is a reach (and I am not sure of the quality of their statistics program, I selected them as my reach of choice for their economics program, as that was my major of choice at the time and have stuck with it because of their generally high quality).</p>

<p>Also, I am looking at both Boston University and Boston College (I want to go to school in the city, both schools are rather prestigious and in-state, and I am fairly confident I can get in to both). Which is better for a stat major?</p>

<p>EDIT: Apparently neither of those schools offer a statistics major. Please disregard that part of my post.</p>

<p>According to [CollegeData:</a> College Search, Financial Aid, College Application, College Scholarship, Student Loan, FAFSA Info, Common Application](<a href=“http://www.collegedata.com%5DCollegeData:”>http://www.collegedata.com) , there are 139 colleges with actual statistics majors. But it is possible that other colleges have statistics as an option (or just course selections) under the math or applied math major, so check carefully to see if the statistics courses are under the math department.</p>

<p>If your state of residency is Massachusetts, note that University of Massachusetts - Amherst has a “Department of Mathematics and Statistics”, where statistics is an option to the math major:
<a href=“https://www.math.umass.edu/Undergrad/Program/ugrad_req2.html[/url]”>https://www.math.umass.edu/Undergrad/Program/ugrad_req2.html&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“https://www.math.umass.edu/Courses/course_desc.html?sem=current[/url]”>Course Descriptions | Department of Mathematics and Statistics;

<p>I have considered UMass Amherst, as a large number of kids from my high school end up there, but it is nowhere near Boston, or any major city, which disqualifies it for me.</p>

<p>Thanks for that CollegeData link though! It’s cool to have that list.</p>

<p>Most schools don’t offer a statistics major but close substitutes. Depending on what you are interested in I’d look for schools with good departments in math, OR/IE, actuarial studies, public health.</p>

<p>If you are interested in becoming an actuary, I wouldn’t worry about having a statistics major as long as you have the necessary knowledge. There are also actuarial studies majors which are essentially stats majors with a few finance courses thrown in.</p>

<p>If you are interested in operations research, check out schools that offer programs in OR and Industrial Engineering (math also works). Again these aren’t exactly statistics majors but lead to the same end result.</p>

<p>If you are interested in epidemiology, look for a school that offers a public health program and take as many math and statistics classes as you can. A math major would work fine here (or even a minor)</p>

<p>If you are interested in grad school in statistics you are probably better of with a math major</p>

<p>Well, I want to go to work on Wall Street after college (+grad school), so I’m considering going for an econ bachelor’s and pursuing some more exclusive schools for my master’s.</p>

<p>If you want to work on wall street, then I would not pursue a statistics major. Finance or Economics would suit you better, or even engineering. Having a degree in stats won’t help you find a high end finance job unless you go to a heavily targeted school (IE - ivy league). </p>

<p>For Econ/finance in cities consider:
Boston College
New York University
Northwestern
UCLA</p>

<p>Do you really think so? I was serious about an econ major for a while but switched my focus to statistics because it seemed more useful for Wall Street, especially stock market stuff.</p>

<p>Working “on Wall Street” is kind of a vague ambition. CC conventional wisdom implies that there are opportunities for stats majors just as for any other quantitative, analytical subject iff you attend the right school. Finance is not necessarily a major employer of actual statisticians ([link](<a href=“http://www.amstat.org/careers/pdfs/SPAIGsalarysurvey11.pdf]link[/url]”>http://www.amstat.org/careers/pdfs/SPAIGsalarysurvey11.pdf)</a>).</p>

<p>Statistics is a fine major if you are interested in the subject but based on what you have posted so far I would not make the stats department a major factor in your choice of university.</p>

<p>Why the focus on stats? I could see a math major being very useful for S&T and similar fields, but I’m not sure about stats in particular. </p>

<p>It sounds like Finance, Economics, or Math majors would fit you best. As noimagination said, I would not have the quality of the stats program as a major factor. Your major factors should be how targeted the school is and fit.</p>

<p>I would suggest you look into schools that are not in cities. There are many semi-target and target schools that are in large towns that would help place you into a high-finance job.</p>

<p>If you are looking into going to graduate school in statistics, then you should look at the quality of each school’s statistics department. You most likely will not find a high paying wall street job with an undergraduate degree in Statistics/Math. You need to go to graduate school for that. You will need to know advanced statistics, mathematics, and programming, so an undergraduate degree is not enough. Upper division statistics, mathematics, and computer science classes can get very difficult so be prepared. If you can’t come out with a strong GPA, then you will struggle in graduate school as it gets much harder. If you want to break into wall street right after college, then an undergraduate business degree is the way to go.</p>