Stat Assistant Professor

They do this over at mathematicsgre.com. Thought it might be fun to see it for statistics/biostatistics. Fall 2014 applicants: please fill out this template. Undergrad Institution: (School or type of school (such as Big state/Lib Arts/Ivy/Technical/Foreign (Country?)) Major(s): Minor(s): GPA: Type of Student: (Domestic/International (Country?), Male/Female?, Minority?) GRE General Test: Q: xxx (xx%) V: xxx (xx%) W: x.x (xx%) GRE Subject Test in Mathematics: M: xxx (xx%) TOEFL Score: (xx = Rxx/Lxx/Sxx/Wxx) (if applicable) Grad Institution: (school or type of school?) (if applicable) Concentration: GPA: Programs Applying: (Statistics/Operation Research/Biostatistics/Financial Math/etc.) Research Experience: (At your school or elsewhere? What field? How much time? Any publications or conference talks etc...) Awards/Honors/Recognitions: (Within your school or outside?) Pertinent Activities or Jobs: (Such as tutor, TA, etc...) Letters of Recommendation: (what kinds of professors? "well-known" in field? etc.) Any Miscellaneous Points that Might Help: (Such as connections, grad classes, etc...) Applying to Where: (Color use here is welcome) School - Program / Admitted/Rejected/Waitlisted/Pending on (date) / Accepted/Declined School - Program / Admitted/Rejected/Waitlisted/Pending on (date) / Accepted/Declined School - Program / Admitted/Rejected/Waitlisted/Pending on (date) / Accepted/Declined

Maybe we can do one of those "Fall 2014 Applicant Profiles and Admissions Results" threads like they have over at mathematicsgre.com. I will start it right now.

If anyone cares, U.S. News and World Report will be releasing completely new rankings on its website on Mar. 11. So we may have a completely different ranked list for USNWR in a month than what it currently is (although I suspect that the top tier will remain mostly unchanged... there could be some shake-ups below that though).

I checked Petersons.com, and other stats can be found on graduate school websites. It can be difficult to distinguish for stats though, since the admissions information often includes data for both Master's and PhD's (in Columbia's case, it appears to be only Master's reported). Some Masters programs in stats are extremely selective, e.g. Duke accepts fewer than 10 students for even their Master's program.

No idea, actually, haha. I just meant that the competition has been very brutal, so a lot of students who have excellent grades, test scores, LORs, etc. are being rejected from places they could have more "easily" gotten into in the past. I was also inferring that competition may be a bit worse in recent years because of the funding situations at a lot of universities in recent years. For instance, at the place where I did my Master's, there were only a few positions for funded statistics TAs (I think two or three), so they admitted very few students for the PhD program in statistics (they essentially kept a waitlist and would only admit people from it whom they were sure would seriously attend... so they only sent out very few offers initially and would admit people in many, many small rounds after that if people were declining offers). I see that a lot of public universities are offering PhDs with no funding too, which does not bode well.

I see more Florida admits! Congrats! This is one of my top choices at this point. I would love to chat with you, so feel free to PM me. This year seems especially brutal. Granted, in my case, I had little chance of cracking the top tier schools, so I should not have even bothered with some of the schools I applied to. But it seems as though it's rough for a lot of excellent students.

No word from Minnesota for me yet. Has anyone heard from UMN regarding a waitlist?

I think you are right, StatPhD2014. According to Petersons, the admission rate for Columbia Stats is very high (I imagine it's much lower for the PhD applicants), leading me to believe that they accept most people who apply to their Stats MA program.

I haven't heard anything about it, so rankings in the 50-100 or lower range sound about right to me.

Well, I guess it never hurts to have more theoretical understanding of the math and the ability to read articles that use sigma-algebras and Lebesgue integration. So it's not a bad idea to take measure theory. But I don't think hiring committees will care at all if your research never touches upon it at all. They'll care about your research, and many topics in statistics do not use measure theory at all. I'm not sure that will be held against someone on the job market (unless the hiring committee is specifically looking for someone whose research is in the area of probability theory).

I would mail an official transcript to LSE. I would interpret the phrase "require an official or certified copy" as requiring a transcript with the university stamp and a signature from the registrar's office.

Sounds good to me. Already having an offer from Florida takes some pressure off. The other schools I'm waiting to hear from (assuming rejection from Berkeley) are similarly ranked to UF, and UF has pretty good placement, so I will likely accept the UF offer if I'm waitlisted at any of those schools and/or if I have not heard back from them by the end of the month. If I get any more acceptances, I'll try to visit the departments and weigh my options.

I interviewed with RIce and they seemed to like my app, but I have not received any word from them yet... hopefully I will hear something soon. Congrats to those who were accepted! Congrats to Purdue admits too! That is a program I wish I had applied to.

Is measure theory required for any biostats program? It is required for many stats programs, but I see that some highly reputable programs that are more "applied" in nature don't even require it (e.g. Carnegie Mellon does not appear to require measure theory at all). I'm assuming some places lump probability theory with their mathematics depts (as CMU does), while keeping their statistics depts more applied in nature and separate from that. I guess the importance of measure theory in the job search might depend on whether you apply for more theoretical stats or applied stats openings. I guess having measure theory would be helpful if you plan to apply for jobs in mathematics departments too, not just statistics depts.

Agreed with StatPhD2014. They won't look at your transcript. Hiring committees will look at your research statement, teaching statement, teaching portfolio, and cv, and make decisions based on these, plus your interview and your presentation of research (if you are invited to interview). At the place where I did my Masters, invited job candidates gave presentations that everyone in the department was invited to (grad students, faculty, etc.). Not sure to what extent the graduate students' feedback was weighed. From my understanding, measure theory is most crucial for those who study probability theory. Applied statistical research areas probably have little use for it. I cannot imagine any statisitcal machine learning professors even remembering much from measure theory. The coursework in a PhD program is mostly to help you develop enough basic tools so you can pass qualifying exams (most material which will be forgotten later) and so you can gain a better idea of what research you want to do. My friends in pure math who are on the job market don't remember much of anything from their classes except for those related to their research area (so for instance, my friends who are algebraists or algebraic geometrists remember very little from analysis/measure theory even though they were required to take analysis in order to graduate and pass quals).

Congrats CauchyProcess! Both the math and applied math depts at SUNY are well-regarded and have strong reputations (around top 20ish).

Given the prestige of your undergrad, I think you have a decent shot at most of the places you listed. I wouldn't rule any of those out. For pure stats departments, greater exposure to and strong performance in high-level math classes would probably be the most important thing. Biostats programs below the top 3 (Harvard, JHU, and UW) seem to be a bit more lenient with math requirements, as I have seen people with biology and bioengineering degrees (with only stats and/or math minors) be admitted to Biostatistics programs. But nevertheless, more math would definitely be viewed as a strong plus for a Biostats application. I'd say that whether or not you actually end up getting into the top programs you listed will depend a lot on your letters of recommendation (assuming your statement of purpose is coherent enough). If you can get strong letters that point to specific examples of your research potential and that indicate you're in the top 5 percent of students ever taught, then that would certainly help a lot. Generic LORs may not give much useful info, so you should go with LOR writers who can point out specific examples that showcase your research potential. If you can get a strong letter from a "superstar" professor, that could go a long way as well. In my case, all my upper division and graduate math/statistics grades were excellent, but my overall GPA from an Ivy undergrad was a bit lower (3.51), my MS degree wasn't from amongst the most prestigious programs, and my letters (while strong) were not from any "known" professors. Knowing what I know now about the admissions process, I shouldn't have bothered applying to some of the top-tier places like Harvard, Berkeley, etc., but I did get into UFlorida so I think schools roughly that range (UNC-Chapel Hill, Minnesota, UCLA, etc.) were all accessible to me, and I could have applied to more schools ranked similarly to UF. If I had done better in undergrad and/or been able to secure a recommendation letter from a very well-known professor (in the rare cases where I have seen 3.5ish GPA students get admitted to the very top tier for stats, it has been because the LOR was from a "super star" professor), I might have had a chance for some of the top tier. So given the reputation of your school and your strong overall GPA (and I assume your strong major GPA), you seem as though you have a much better chance that I do at breaking the top tier. I would not be surprised if it came down to your letters of recommendation for you. Best of luck.

I am just waiting for CMU (machine learning), UCLA, Minnesota, UNC-Chapel Hill, Berkeley, and Rice at this point. It seems like I should get a definitive answer from CMU, Minnesota, Berkeley, and Rice this week or next, but it appears as though UCLA and UNC-Chapel Hill keep long reserve lists and may contact people in mid-March with offers if not enough people have accepted at that point. So who knows how those will turn out.

ApplePi, I think you can probably overcome the lack of name recognition of your schools by: 1) obtaining a high subject GRE score, and/or 2) obtaining excellent letters of recommendation. Even if you are from a university the admissions committees have not heard of, strong letters that say you're in the top 1% of students the professors have ever taught and that give SPECIFIC examples of your research potential for mathematiics will go quite a long way. Though the place I obtained my MS in applied mathematics is hardly "unknown" (however, it is a big flagship public university that isn't as high-ranked for math), there was an undergraduate student in the math dept who was able to get into MIT for a PhD in pure mathematics. I attribute it to: 1) the high subject GRE score he received (so his application wasn't just dismissed), and 2) the fact that he had been taking graduate level classes since his freshman year. Having no publications isn't likely a problem. The vast majority of math PhD applicants will not have any publications. That said, I do think the most prestigious, top tier math programs may be out of reach for you, only because of the calibre of students applying to those schools. For instance, it is not uncommon for many new grad students at Harvard, MIT, Berkeley, etc. to already have started taking graduate-level classes their sophomore year (maybe even freshman year). So you will unlikely be able to compete with those types of students only because your exposure to mathematics will not be as deep as them. You may want to aim a little bit lower. Depending on how good your subject test is and how good you assume your letters of recommendation will be, you can probably aim as high as SUNY Stony Brook and Indiana. If your GRE is *really* good, you can probably throw in a few "reach" schools too, but your chances below that will get better the lower down the rankings you go. If your goal is to teach at a junior/community college, SLAC, or technical school, then it's likely the prestige of your PhD program won't be as big an issue, so in that case, going to a second tier PhD program won't be as big of a problem.

I applied to UConn Statistics PhD program. I haven't heard anything from them yet

True. I wish I had applied to Carnegie Mellon Stats. I applied to the machine learning department there instead, which was likely a mistake since the most competitive candidates to ML have more research experience, publications, etc. I have not heard back yet, but they have already sent out acceptances and the profiles of those accepted have much more research experience than I do.

Obviously there is variance in opinions and sub areas of stats would produce different rankings though (e.g. if only social science statistics is considered, Washington would be the "best", Duke for Bayesian, Carnegie Mellon better than some of the "top tier" for applied stats and ML, etc.)

It gives a general "range" which seems more accurate. Additionally, some of the rankings seem to better reflect popular opinion, e.g. the relative rankings of UMich, Wisconsin, Cornell, etc. seem better reflected in NRC than in USNWR.

(For those who care a lot about rankings, I think the NRC rankings are considered slightly more credible than the USNWR)

Oh, hmm. I was inferring that it was likely rejection/waitlist, since it sounds like Minnesota already sent two rounds of acceptances and funding information to boot. ::shrug:: If it happens to be an acceptance, I'll consider it further. But if it's a waitlist, I'll ask to be removed from waitlist so someone else has a chance.