DMX

You are probably on an (unofficial) waitlist. Wouldn't hurt to send an email though. I know at least one person who was accepted but will most likely decline, so you may have a good shot! Best of luck

Interesting--can biostats students work with stat professors? My research interest is actually in ML. Yale has a couple of faculty working on ML but they are definitely not the department you think of when you think of ML. (they're far behind Stanford, Cornell, CMU, Michigan, Wharton). Thanks for the comments so far everyone! Right now I am leaning towards Washington. Still have to do more research on faculty at both places though.

Trying to decide between these two programs. Obviously feel very lucky to be in a position of choice. I won't have the opportunity to visit either program (I am overseas), and need to make a decision this month. I want to stay in academia upon graduation. Some pros and cons: Yale Pros: - I like the flexbility of statistics, as I have an interest in a wide variety of discplines (CS, biology, economics, political science) - Good theoretical training - Good academic placement (recent grads went to Berkeley/Cambridge/UNC) - Department is expanding rapidly (at least according to the program director) - Yale brand name--I know one shouldn't emphasize this too much for a PhD program, but there's a good chance I will go back to my country (Asia) and try to get a faculty position there. I believe the Yale brand name will not be insignificant in this case. Cons: - Maybe too theoretical? There's a couple of faculty working on statistical genetics etc. but most of the faculty's interests seem to be in theory (especially stochastic processes). I am more of an applied guy. - Less than 10 faculty--less room to explore different research areas. - USNews ranking places Yale outside of top 30--how accurate is this? Is it due to the smallness of the program? University of Washington Pros: - Top 3 for biostats (some would say second only to Harvard?). - Between Biostats/Stats there's ~100 faculty. A lot of room to explore different areas of research - Heavy emphasis on theory (not as much as Yale, but definitely one of the more theoretical biostats programs) - Biostatistics is more applied (almost by definition), and I am more interested in applications of statistics rather than theory (I do want a good theoretical foundation however). - Excellent academic placement (something like 60%+ placement in academia) Cons: - Don't want to limit myself to biostatistics academic positions - Back in my home country, biostatistics is not as established as statistics, so may be hard to get a faculty position back home. If I were sure that I wanted to be in biostatistics forever, it would be an obvious choice to go to Washington. But I want to have as many options open as possible. Any input would be appreciated.

I am trying to save up 20~30K before I start the program. I have several friends in PhD programs and they live paycheck to paycheck, which I don't want to do. I have a decently high paying job so if I am frugal I can save that much before I start the program

former columbia MA stats person here. Feel free to PM me with any specific questions regarding columbia's program.

If you want to do PhD later on I would save the extra 30K and go to CUNY. But make sure you can get some solid research experience from the program. If you want to do industry I would say go to Columbia.

Are you interested in PhD stats or biostats?

Thanks. Best of luck on the interview! And do tell us if you hear anything worth sharing for those anxiously waiting.

internationals are on a different schedule. rob1234, do you mind sharing your profile (via PM if you want)

Are you an international student?

Looks like harvard just sent out first batch of acceptances. but they are all domestic are timelines different for international students?

Just got duke rejection. Tho it was nicely worded. "Though we understand this may be disappointing news, being denied admission here is not at all a negative on your record, preparation or promise for research in statistics; your application is clearly very strong and was naturally highly regarded by the admissions committee. However, we have applications from a simply huge number of highly qualified students, and the competition for our few places (we admit <5%) is simply intense." 0/3 for now. 6 more to go. Time to start drinking.

that all decisions will be made by this week. i'm guessing (as is customary) that rejectees will be notified after a few weeks

cyberwulf, at most institutions, are offers/rejections/waitlists/implied waitlists made on a rolling basis (i.e. they may review a batch of applications one week, then another week etc.), or do they typically do it "one round at a time"? quite a few schools I've applied to have sent out offers/rejections/waitlists already (at least according to results survey), but I've yet to hear anything.

Looks like Berkeley just sent out their acceptances. sigh

yeah lol

Looks like some Yale decisions went out today. Also, expect Berkeley decisions this week (source: graduate director of stats department there).

if i recall correctly it was something like 20~30%

for Duke, I wouldn't hold my breath since they've apparently invited ~40 people to visit them already. I doubt the watlist would go beyond those who were invited (i.e. out of 40 people, they would probably accept ~15, waitlist ~5, reject 20). FYI, I haven't heard anything but definitely not optimistic regarding my chances.

Depends on which programs (e.g. is it Minnesota biostat vs Yale stat? or Harvard biostat vs UF stat). If you want to work soley on theory (though why wouldn't you want to do both? ), I think stat departments make more sense. Biostatistics (almost by definition) is applications of statistics to biomedical problems.

you've probably passed the first round of rejects. by the way i've heard wharton accepts 5~6 ppl each year for an incoming class of 3~4.

https://app.applyyourself.com/?id=upenn-phd

Looks like Wharton/Stanford released their (reject) decisions today. Bad day for me.

I work at a statistical consulting firm and we provide predictive analytics to clients. We do some state-of-the-art stuff from a technical standpoint (random forests, boosting, recurrent neural nets to name a few). I didn't put any of this down in my SoP since I didn't feel it to be "worthy" of true statistical research, in that we aren't inventing new techinques. But I've been browsing some research papers on the applied statistics side and I realize what I do is a majority of what applied statisticians do (i.e. variable selection & interpretation using statistical tools). I feel like I've sold myself short but not mentioning any of this in the application. Also, I've participated in data mining competitions (a la Kaggle) and have some decent results. And some Kaggle competitions have entire stat/biostat departments participating! Should I have mentioned these in my SoP? Is it too late to mention them now?

I think it would depend on how much the program wants to keep you. No harm in asking though. Did you hear back from Berkeley today? There goes my Berekely hopes then...