bayessays

Look at their placements: https://biostatistics.vcu.edu/education/recent-career-placements/ If those are the careers you want, it looks like a pleasant department with good funding. But it is probably not going to be a place that will launch a career as a professor. Most of their faculty have degrees from unranked departments and do not publish in top journals.

Rutgers is solid and probably ranked appropriately. Harry Crane has an awesome twitter and I'd go there just because of that.

@kingsdead that's definitely new in the last 5 or so years. I would assume they're interviewing everyone though, so I would not interpret it as a negative thing. I think Hopkins and Harvard (and some stats schools like Duke) have done this type of interview for a while so maybe more schools are adding it now. The only time I've heard of some students being interviewed and others not is when international students are interviewed to check their English skills.

Same, congrats! Big relief to have that first offer.

Also, I think there are definitely some reasonable reasons to avoid biostat departments (for instance, some biostatistics programs have zero opportunities to teach, or if you are only interested in theoretical statistics and probability and never want to look at real data), but if you're interested in "statistical machine learning with applications to healthcare and social sciences" then I'm not sure what you mean that you want to move away from biostatistics. You'd be a strong candidate for Hopkins/Harvard/Washington biostat which would be some of the best places to work on these problems.

We can only speculate based on what we've seen in past results. Some people say only send it if it's 80%tile+. I think a 70 is pretty good though and I don't think it would hurt you, but it's probably in that neutral zone where it won't help a ton either. I know people who have gotten into programs like Chicago without sending their score so I don't think it's usually a big deal if domestic students don't have a subject score.

I think you'd probably get into a few top 10s and you don't need to apply outside the top 20. I don't think Michigan is a shoot for the stars school at all, that should probably be your main target range.

The basic answer to all three of those questions is that, in general, biostatistics departments have less of the very theoretical end of the spectrum. Math requirements for admission are more lax because you likely won't have to take years of extremely theoretical probability classes. You probably won't be publishing in Annals of Statistics. You might take a class in survival analysis instead. Not a huge impact on your placement - if you want to do theoretical work and get a job in a stats department, make sure you go to a biostat with professors that do that type of work. If you want to teach undergraduates, make sure to go to a place that will give you the opportunity to do so.

There are like 5 schools that really look at the subject GRE. Based on OP's math background, they'd probably have to study many 100s of hours to get a score that would help them and even then, they're competing against a bunch of international students who get near perfect scores at the top schools. Probably not worth it.

I think the schools you listed are reaches with your math background (CMU, Wharton, Columbia I would say are extremely unlikely and the others are slight to moderate reaches - I think NCSU/Cornell/UNC would be the top range you should be applying to as reaches). Have you thought about biostat programs? You could probably go to a top 10 biostat program. Your math background would be more typical there and they'll value your bioinformatics background. I'd probably start looking at biostat programs ranked 3-15 and stat programs in the 25-60 range.

I would just ask them this, totally reasonable question.

You'll have to look it up for each program - usually, if you have a degree from a US school, you can waive the test. If you attended University in a non-english speaking country, you'll probably have to take the TOEFL.

Interesting. Usually there are a ton of people who post results on the results page (much more than participate in the forum). I wonder why that's not the case this year.

Hey everyone, moderator here. There were a lot of complaints about RadNeuro's comments. They have been hidden and the user will no longer be able to post. For the sake of continuity of the thread and to prevent further derailment, I have deleted replies to his comments as well, even though some of them were very nice. Please continue about your discussions, and good luck to all of you!

First Ohio State acceptance is up on the results page. Have any of you heard back from them? They usually send in waves over a couple weeks.

There are hundreds of MS statistics programs in the US, and even more if you start talking about applied stat/biostat/data science/etc which you seem to be interested in. There are no rankings of MS programs, so it isn't possible to provide an easy answer to your question unless you narrow it down a little bit. I think you could apply anywhere if you raised your GRE score into the 160s. Even with your current score, you have a 4.0 from a US school with real analysis - I think you could probably apply to any non-elite program (not Stanford, Chicago, CMU, Ivy Leagues, etc) and have a good chance. I have seen some surprising results where people with good profiles get rejected, though. On the other hand, even some top MS programs like Michigan biostatistics admit a very large percentage of applicants. Some MS programs let in almost anyone who can pay.

You're probably in good shape for most places, though it would really help if you could raise your GRE Q into 160s if you want to go to a top program.

I would be reasonably surprised if you didn't get in everywhere.

Usually some biostat programs and Ohio State start sending things out by now or soon, so hopefully we start getting some results later this week or next. Good luck, everyone!

The most important things are grades, GRE and letters, so if you're set on those, I'm not sure there's a ton left to do. Going to a good MS program can definitely help you get letters from more known people, but if you have to pay for the degree, that's a lot of money for a small return. I'd apply to PhD programs and see how it goes. I'd also expand your range a little bit. There's some really solid programs in the 50-70 range too.

I think with glowing letters that show things have really turned around, you could have some luck in the bottom end of the 50. Top programs are still probably going to worry that you couldn't hack it at a top school and that the MS isn't very rigorous. Your results will probably be mixed, but I think you'll find some success. Just as a warning though, I don't think industry is going to be what you are expecting. Research jobs are RARE - at places like Google and Facebook, there are only a couple statisticians doing research and those people could be/are professors at top schools if they wanted to be. The data scientist positions at these companies, which is probably nearly identical to what you're doing now, are the ones that are filled by people with PhDs in statistics. You'll have to be the judge of whether it's worth it to go to school to end up in a similar position to what you have now.

https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/stat110 The handouts and practice/solutions tab have lots of good practice.

Should I delete this? It's an interesting change of pace.

The line between ML and statistics is pretty blurry, but if you want to do things like deep learning, computer vision, NLP, a CS department will probably be a better fit. You'll get plenty of practice doing things like linear models in statistics, if you consider that ML. There are obviously exceptions though.

I'm not sure of the exact admissions data, but Berkeley has a biostat PhD with some very excellent crossover faculty like van der Laan that fit your research interests. If location is that important to you, it might make sense to apply to the biostat program (although I think the statistics program is bigger, and you definitely have a shot at it, so I'm not sure whether this is a good idea. UC Davis has a good program and is sort of nearby, and UCSC also has some really good people, but if you're open to going further from the Bay, you don't need to go to programs ranked this low. If you're staying in the US and want to go into industry though, you'll have good prospects coming from any decent PhD program, at least in the technology industry.