It's application season. Legions of brilliant young people -- determined to harness innovative data, clear thinking, and social and biological insights to improve population health -- have decided to pursue a PhD in epidemiology. Well, maybe not legions, but a great many. But where best to pursue this dream? There are quite a few doctoral programs in epi or related fields, offering different degrees (PhD, ScD, DrPH), many in schools of public health but some in schools of medicine or other areas of a university. What should you look for in a PhD program? As director of the UCSF PhD in Epidemiology and Translational Science program, I spend a lot of time talking with prospective students, prospective faculty mentors, and admissions committees. I am a little biased because of the terrific UCSF program, but I also recognize more and more how different students will flourish in different programs. Some things probably apply anywhere you are considering. Although it's easy to take these things for granted, many of these top priorities were not so obvious to me back when I was a prospective student, so in this note I'll share the advice I think is relevant to most everyone making this decision.

The number one consideration for a PhD program is your mentor . Find a program with at least one, and preferably more, faculty members whose work you admire, who have deep expertise in the area you wish to pursue, and who you know from personal interactions and reputation would provide you with willing and committed mentorship.

Funding is a topic students often hesitate to discuss but it’s usually better to be straightforward about it. You're an adult and probably already fairly accomplished. You should receive financial support during your PhD. At this point, the funding situation is mixed across epi PhD programs. Some programs (Harvard and UCSF for example) appear to fully fund nearly all PhD students, although funding sources, stipend amounts, and “guarantees” differ. At many programs, funding is tied to teaching and research roles, while at others, students typically receive support from either institutional or individual mentored training grants. These alternatives each have advantages: it looks great on a new graduate’s CV to note you received your own grant as a PhD student. Your best option is probably a setting where you are likely to have a combination of these experiences to provide full funding. Recognize that "full funding" is probably much less than you'd make if you went on the job market. A PhD is a training program: you will hopefully spend a lot of time learning new things and doing work inefficiently as you gain mastery. Annual stipends range from around $20K to just under $40K, depending on the program. At some programs students earn more by supplementing with summer work.

Classmates matter. Who do you want to work with? What types of collaborations will you want in your future career? As a junior person, I remember often really wanting to work with people who “got” my ideas, perspectives, and priorities (for me, social epi and causal inference). Now, I recognize the people who will most help you do strong, insightful, and novel research are colleagues who have really different expertise, frameworks, and methods than you. This is not so clear-cut for PhD students, because you need to make sure there are enough like-minded people to develop depth of expertise in your subdiscipline, but realize the advantages of opportunities to take classes, collaborate with, and hang out with folks who are not like you. On top of this, of course you want to be around nice, smart people. Programs where classmates are generous and collaborative will serve you better for both quality of training and maintaining sanity through the inevitable challenges.

That's my basic advice. If I have time between reading applications (and find out anybody reads this post), I'll share some more thoughts on issues that are more topical and relevant to subgroups of students with particular goals.