Stat Assistant Professor

For just MS-level jobs, I don't think reputation/rank is nearly as critical or would give you a significant boost in starting salary. This is only anecdotal evidence, but I know several people in the Boston area who have great jobs in biotech with stats MS degrees from my Master's department (which is ranked 60-70 in math in USNWR and unranked in stats). You may want to find out about job placement from those schools you mentioned, although I suspect the placements for the first two schools you mentioned (possibly all three) would be pretty comparable.

This might be a long shot, but does anyone know what the yield rate is like for UC Berkeley, how many have been admitted so far, and what the target incoming class is? I saw someone posted what it was for UC Davis on page 40, so just curious if anyone can give any insight on this for Berkeley. I'm on an unofficial waiting list for Berkeley, but I'm curious how likely it is that they will send out more offers.

They're both really good in terms of reputation, so you can't really lose on that measure whether you go to OSU or Davis (academia is a very reputation-based business, I don't think going to one would give you a huge advantage over the other). I think it is important to consider location and money. You're going to be living in this place for five years, so you may as well go with a place where you wouldn't hate living. Re: money. This will depend very much on your situation. Some people can rely on family support, but others can't as easily. If you think you would greatly prefer Davis and can survive on the stipend they're offering you, then I don't see why you shouldn't go there!

Those are both great options. Congrats! I think they are similarly ranked in both USNWR and NRC. Have you checked out the placement on their sites? I think both would give you an equally good shoot at getting an academic position... In this case, your success at getting one would be more dependent on who your adviser is and who their connections are (as well as what your research is on, how many publications you have when you go on the market, etc.), rather than the name of the school.

To anyone who is waiting to hear from UNC-Chapel Hill, I e-mailed the department, and this is what he said: "The admissions committee has made first round admissions offers and notified those students. Based on the offer response and the departmental budget for Fall 2014, they may offer a couple more Ph.D. students admission. Your application is complete and will remain eligible for review if we are able to make any additional offers." So it sounds like UNC won't reject anyone officially, but that they will possibly accept more people, based on how many accept their first-round offers (I assume those who are ranked the highest ranked below the list of those who were accepted). If anyone has an offer from UNC but is not planning to attend, I'm sure some people would be very grateful if you were to decline very soon.

I guess I was just trying to convey that pedigree does seem to matter for getting TT jobs and that if you *graduate* from a "lower ranked" school, you could still potentially get a TT position but it would be more likely to be at an even lower ranked or unranked department (not that there is anything wrong with this -- hell, even community college TT jobs are perfectly respectable, and there are certain perks of being at lower tier colleges than at R1's... my dad is a professor with a PhD from Yale, and he turned down job offers at R1s to teach at a mid-tier school because he thought his chances at getting tenure would be better). Statistics does not seem that different from math in this regard.

Thanks for your response. I researched the job placement of alumni on several statistics dept webpages though, and it seems as though it is similar for stats as for math (though not nearly as cut-throat since the academic job market for math is way worse than statistics), insofar as the top tier programs only have faculty who have PhDs from other similarly ranked schools, and mid-tier PhD graduates become faculty at lower ranked schools. Someone with a PhD from a school outside the top 20 probably has no chance of getting a TT position at the top tier stats departments, for instance. The lower the rankings you go, the greater it is the case that those graduates will be taking faculty positions at regional and less-known universities and colleges (i.e. schools that are not well-known outside of the region they occupy). At least this is what I gathered from doing a quick search of alumni placements at the top 30 or so stats programs.

I had requested to have my application to UConn withdrawn, but I got an acceptance there today. Waitlisted for financial support. Wll decline this offer.

Just in case cost is a big factor in people's decisions, this site is pretty nifty for comparing different cities (thanks persistent_homology): http://www.areavibes.com/cost-of-living-calculator/ Florida has just offered me a very generous, attractive fellowship. I'm not likely to receive this much support at UNC, Rice, or UCLA, and I'm not sure I prefer any of those *vastly* to Florida, so I'm weighing my options carefully. Will let others on the forum know if I decide to withdraw applications from UNC, Rice, and UCLA.

Have you looked into the placement at the programs you were admitted to? That might give you an idea as to where they go. That said, my impression is that alumni of "lower-ranked" programs who go the academic route typically get placed at schools ranked lower (not always the case though -- if you have a faculty adviser who is well-known and has connections, it could be a different story). As some anecdotal evidence, the math department where I got my Master's (ranked 60-70ish in the USNWR for mathematics) had statistics faculty with PhDs from Colorado State and UCSB. Several of the PhD alumni in my dept did manage to get TT positions, but they were generally at lower ranked schools (regional universities and small liberal arts schools that I'd never heard of).

Just out of curiosity: has anyone else accepted an offer yet or plan to in the next few weeks? What other offices did/will you decline, if so?

sounds good! Hope you get good news. If you haven't heard back by early April, I'd e-mail them again. Since the UCLA application instructions specifically asked applicants to list a faculty member they'd like as their adviser, I wonder if contacting professors in this case to reiterate interest would be of any help... I know it typically doesn't matter in stats, but since UCLA had asked us to do this, it might help? Not sure.

Doesn't hurt to find out though. I was going to write off UC Berkeley completely, a school that I considered a reach even before applying and one that I was certain I'd be rejected from based on my other rejections. But then I inquired with the department and it turned out I was on what sounded a lot like an informal waiting list (my application is among "a small number of applications" where "a final decision has not yet been made").

There are some rejections from UCLA on the results page, but I did not receive a rejection yet. My e-mail inquiry to the vice chair informed me that they are still undecided, which could mean informal waitlist or that they're deciding whether to waitlist or reject me. I did not ask him to clarify or what the likelihood of being accepted was though.

Re: UCLA. Not necessarily. If you log onto the decision status page and see "undecided," it means you haven't been rejected yet. And I know UCLA has been known to send out acceptances as late as April. It might be possible to contact them to see where your application stands.

i randomly checked the websites of some of the schools ranked from Colorado State & UConn and higher, and it seems as though job placement is pretty solid at all these schools... though of course, the faculty at the top tier schools nearly all have their PhDs from other top tier.

thanks, I edited my post. I might have made some other errors in there but the general rankings are correct (I think...)

To separate statistics from biostatistics (these are the 2015 rankings): STATISTICS 1. Stanford 2. UC Berkeley 3. UChicago 4-5. Harvard, Washington (tied) 6. Carnegie Mellon 7. Duke 8. UPenn 9. Wisconsin 10-12. NCSU, Texas A&M, Michigan (tied) 13. Iowa State 14-17. Minnesota, Columbia, Penn State, UNC Chapel Hill (tied) 18-19. Cornell, Purdue (tied) 20-21. Ohio State, UC Davis (tied) 22-23. UCLA, Florida (tied) 24-26. UIUC, Yale, Iowa (tied) 27-29. Florida State, Rice, Rutgers (tied) 30-31. Colorado State, UConn (tied) 32. Michigan State 33-35. NYU, Northwestern, Pittsburgh (tied) 36-39. George Washington, Georgia, Missouri, Virginia Tech (tied) 40. SMU 41-45. UCSB, Arizona State, Oregon State, South Carolina, UVA (tied) 46-47. Temple, UC Riverside (tied) 48-49. Kansas State, Colorado-Denver (tied) 50-52. Baylor, Case Western, Kentucky (tied) BIOSTATISTICS 1-2. Harvard, Washington (tied) 3. Johns Hopkins 4-5. Michigan, UNC-Chapel Hill (tied) 6. UC Berkeley 7. Minnesota 8. UPenn 9-10. Columbia, UCLA (tied) 11. Yale 12. Emory 13. Brown 14-15. Iowa, Rochester (tied) 16. Pittsburgh 17. Boston University 18-20. Medical College of Wisconsin, UIllinois-Chicago, UTexas-Houston (tied) 21. Case Western 22. Medical College of South Carolina 23-25. SUNY Albany, Alabama, SUNY Buffalo (tied) 26. South Carolina, Virginia Commonwealth

Biostats and stats are both ranked on this list. You have to click on the individual school to see stats vs. biostats. I am segregating the two right now, will post to thread when I'm finished

Heh. I am creating separate lists for statistics and biostatistics right now, will update this thread when I am done. Also, there are ties on the USNWR list so just because a school is listed below another does not mean that the one below it is ranked lower (U.S. News considers them equally ranked).

Looks like the updated rankings were just posted. http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-science-schools/statistics-rankings

I think it might help at least a little. I know some people in applied math programs whose undergrad degrees were in physics or engineering. However, they had research experience in a field that overlapped with applied math (e.g. computer vision or computational fluid dynamics). It's harder to predict what adcoms are looking for exactly in applied math than in statistics or pure math. However, based on my knowledge of the process and based on the stats of those who have gotten into PhD programs in applied math, I definitely do think applied math is more forgiving about lower math GRE scores and GPAs than pure math or statistics. (e.g. over at mathematicsgre.com, I see someone who got an F in abstract algebra but who still got into some applied math PhD programs. And a search for "applied math" on the results page here suggests that as well).

That's great! I think your application will at least be 'in the discussion,' depending on how strong your letters of recommendation are. It's hard to predict your chances, but I'd say that the subject test score is the most glaring deficiency in your profile, and there isn't a guarantee that you could make it into a "top" schools. So best to apply widely rather than restrict your search to the "top" schools.

I only have a Master's degree in Applied Math, so I am uncertain about the requirements of the subject test for PhD programs. But it definitely seems as though "lower" scores (i.e. 50-70th percentile) are more tolerated for applied math programs. I've seen people get into places like UW, Texas A&M, and Northwestern with math GRE scores in that range. But below 50th percentile still doesn't look great.

It's not impossible to break the top 25, but you'll have some work cut out for you. Since you have research experience, I'd try to get some good letters of recommendation out of that. What is your GPA like in your upper division math classes? Also, I think your subject test is a little low. Even though the MGRE doesn't matter as much for applied math, I think trying to score at least 50th percentile is ideal, otherwise you shouldn't submit it. Do a lot of applied math PhD programs even require the subject test now?