agent229

Thanks for the info on Pittsburgh! It sounds more promising than I was thinking. I definitely plan to visit, they haven't told me when the visit day is yet though... It was not a formal offer. It was an email from a professor saying they strongly recommend my admission, but are still working to get funding to offer me actual admission. They still want to give me $500 to visit though, despite me not knowing for sure that I'm in, which is odd... but yeah.

Accepted and funded: Carnegie Mellon, UW-Madison (biostat option), and Colorado State Kind of accepted (funding not yet guaranteed, they say they are trying to get funding for me): Cornell Rejected: University of Washington No word yet from my other schools.. the only one left in my list where I really want to get in is Berkeley! Also... probstats, can you say more about Pittsburgh? I am obviously very excited about the offer from CMU but a little leery about the city. In particular, I am a very outdoorsy person and like smaller towns/cities... do you think I'd be miserable or find a way to get outside and away from the city occaisionally?

Applied to a PhD program and was told that they really want me, but cannot guarantee funding at this point. They say they are working on securing more funding in order to give me an official offer. They don't know how long this will take. However, they have offered $500 to cover travel expenses for me to come to the visit day, and have encouraged me to go ahead and make travel plans. Would you visit? I would definitely visit if I knew I was funded, but I feel like it might be weird if I make travel plans now to visit, and then find out they can't fund me... that would be odd... or do I wait to make plans and hope to hear from them about funding?

I wouldn't mind

So my feeling is that in stats it's not necessary to name-drop in the statement of purpose, but can't really hurt. I am currently debating whether or not to add names to mine. I already specifically talk about the kind of research I am interested in currently (at what I believe is an appropriate level of specificity) and mention that the university in question has several people I would be interested in working with, but is that too vague? If I should put the names, do you think it would be bad to mention professors in the statement of purpose without contacting them first? I have not really contacted professors because I've gotten advice that it's generally mildly annoying at best. If that was bad advice, would it look really bad to suddenly contact them right before the deadline?

I'm stat as well and am willing to swap.