bayessays

Yes, you almost certainly want to find biostatistics programs (there might be one or two faculty at other schools doing something with survival analysis, but you'll have to just dig through faculty pages and look for the words "survival analysis" or "reliability"). All the top biostats programs have people doing survival analysis - UNC, Harvard, Washington, Berkeley, Hopkins all certainly have big names in the field.

You say top 20-30, but your list is basically the 10 hardest programs to get into (except UC Davis, which I think is a reasonable target). Your grades are obviously good, but I don't think there's a lot that makes your profile stand out. Your math background and research are below average for people accepted to these schools. I'd classify all of these schools as big reaches, except maybe UCD which I would put in the "possible but not guaranteed" category. If you don't want to go into a research-track job, then going to a program in the top 20 is not by any means required. I think your best options are to either lower your expectations and apply to a much broader range of programs (there are many great programs all throughout the top 50 and even below the top 50!), or if you are not in a rush, get a master's and get some more background and research experience.

No, Penn State's placements are great. It seems like you for are putting too much stock in the rankings. Is there a single reason you can think of that would make you want to go to UNC? Because "jobs" or "it's a better program" are not valid reasons, because they're not true. Weather, location, smaller program, unique research interests (UNC has lots of probability people, someone doing object-oriented data analysis, and fiducial inference, which are unique research areas), wanting to live in the Research Triangle forever - these are clear reasons to go to UNC. Go to each school's website, go to every single faculty member's website, and look to see what they're working on and make a list of how many profs at each school sound interesting to you.

I think your assessment seems accurate - there is not a big enough difference between these departments where there is a clear choice to make based on their ranking alone. Especially if you're interested in doing applied work and working in industry, I don't think you'd see a difference in your outcomes at the two programs. For doing computational statistics, I know PSU has some good people like Murali Haran. They also have some cool applied areas (in the past they had astrostatistics, personalized medicine groups, etc). $11k+ a year is a lot of money - I'd look at apartments in the area too and see about cost of living. I think UNC could make sense if you want to set down roots, since you could theoretically stay in the area with the industry jobs in the triangle. The weather is also a little warmer.

UChicago's MS statistics FAQ currently says they give 10% scholarships to most people - even 50% still leaves a huge cost for attending the program, which is why the person probably sounded disappointed. Most people on this forum are applying to PhD programs and will get a master's degree for free, so any amount of money to pay would be disappointing when there are programs where you can go for free.

I can't comment on Applied Math/OR, but for statistics, I think your list is completely reasonable - if anything, I think Emory is shooting too low for you but NCSU/Northwestern/Rice are definitely the types of schools you should be end up attending at a minimum. It really depends on what you want to do though. Applied math and stats are quite different. You have a great profile for statistics at least though, and would have a lot of success applying to top programs if you applied to more stats programs. I doubt you'll get into Stanford, but I think you'd be at least in the conversation almost anywhere else.

I think you're shooting way too high with the PhD programs with TAMU and Ohio State (I can't speak to GA Tech's admissions as it's not a statistics program, though, and I have no idea how competitive master's programs are). They're ranked #13 and #24 in the US News. I think you should be looking more towards the 50s and below. You'd probably benefit a lot from a master's in terms of admissions. Your math background is fine, but the grades aren't ideal, and since you're coming from an average school with no research, I can't really see a top 50 program accepting you.

There isn't a single PhD program in statistics that requires measure theory, as far as I know. A few top ones will require measure-theoretic probability, which you got an A in. I can't image any scenario in which somebody looks at your math grades and even thinks twice about whether you're going to be able to complete the coursework and exams.

Not sure if you're trolling about your GPA. Maybe you won't get into Stanford, but you'll get into plenty of top 20 programs and probably quite a few top 10.

Both are good departments, so tuition is probably the biggest thing, so I'd really figure out if you can get an assistantship if that's going to make a big difference between the two. UNC hands down wins for the job market with Raleigh-Durham nearby. Madison is a pretty small city - they have 10 data science jobs posted on linkedin right now in the whole city. As for curriculum, 10 years ago I probably would've said that UNC's operations research/optimization focus is a little weird, but honestly I've seen so many data science roles lately that are looking for that type of background for their supply chains, so you might have an opportunity to set yourself apart there. If you don't have personal reasons to be in the midwest, I don't see many huge advantages to UW besides maybe the tuition and the fact that it's a bigger/(more fun?) city (and only you can decide if that outweighs the other stuff). Realistically, they are both great departments, so I don't think your choice will have a huge impact on your career - I'd prioritize which you think you'll enjoy more and leave you with less debt.

Anything - obviously a more involved project is better, but you just want people that are able to speak on your ability to work independently. But obviously also just choose people that you think will write the most positive letters. I don't know anything about this at all and I don't know if this is something you are interested in at all, but some schools may have special programs available to Hispanic applicants or may go out of their way to recruit more diverse classes. I have some departments in mind that are more explicit about this. A lot of programs will consider you for their master's as a backup, so you don't necessarily have to apply separately. You could always apply to a wide range of programs and try to see how the results go while you're still working, and then narrow down more after seeing how the first rounds of applications go.

In that case, your math background is actually really solid for most programs. I'd figure out your letter writers - even if you weren't super close, are there professors who stand out in your mind as being supportive? Even if you don't have "real" research, is there a professor you did a project for that could stand out? If you can throw together 3 decent letters, I'd apply a little higher than what I stated above, and throw in some master's as a backup. I definitely think you belong in a program that's higher than what I stated above, but you just gotta put a couple pieces together in terms of selling your profile.

What type of school did you take the math classes at? Was it an online university? Your biggest issue obviously is that you don't have any letters of recommendation, so that will make it very difficult to get in anywhere since there isn't any research or pedigree that makes you a standout candidate. In your current shape, I'd probably start the search at US News rank 60 and below for statistics PhDs, and 25 and below for biostatistics. You would benefit a lot from a master's program where you could form some relationships with professors, get some research experience, and drastically improve your results.

Think about it this way: if you want to study probability because it's only really a research area at MSU, then who will hire you afterwards besides MSU? Most departments have no interest in hiring people who are not doing statistics research. Overall, I think Florida is the best department by a pretty wide margin. I don't think there's a huge difference between ISU and MSU, but they both have a few good professors who have students that get faculty jobs.

NYU does not a curriculum that will help you get into a PhD program at all, so if that is a concern, choose UNC.