AnUnladenSwallow

I'm heading to UNC as well! PhD in Biostatistics.

Yeah, it's probably fine to wait until early August to find somewhere to live. Keep in mind that the options may be more limited by that point though. I haven't actually seen the housing in Downtown Commons. In general, the housing offered through the U is pretty awesome (they remodeled it for the Olympics). However, I don't actually know of any grad students who live in university housing. In terms of having a car, it depends on where you live obviously. The bus system seems to be pretty decent, particularly in the Avenues. The Avenues are super close to campus in any case. They are working on expanding the Trax system (I think), so that's always worth looking at for stops near housing areas. Ha ha yes, there are actually places to go out and drink. While the laws are really rather inconvenient, there are some good places to go. A couple of new places just opened up recently - Whiskey Street and the Beer Bar. I haven't actually been to either yet, but I've heard great things about Whiskey Street. There are some local breweries around as well. Desert's Edge in Trolley Square is pretty good, as is Squatter's. I think Epic just opened up a new place in Sugarhouse as well. Other places worth going to..let's see. Gracie's can be good, Bar X supposedly has the best cocktails in Salt Lake..there are quite a few bars downtown really. For buying alcohol, make sure to look at the hours for the liquor stores. Some of them close at 7, while others are open until 10. Prices are a little high as well.

Just thought I'd give my thoughts on Salt Lake since I still live here (finished my undergrad in December!). In terms of nice places to live, I highly recommend looking in the Sugarhouse area. It's like 15-20 minutes to get to campus (depending on when you leave since rush hour can be rather hectic) and really close to the highways. If you enjoy skiing, I think Sugarhouse is perfect since you can get on the highway (215) right away. There are quite a few places being built in this area, so it's a nice atmosphere and close to some cool restaurants and shops. For other neighborhoods, the Avenues are always worth looking into. Those tend to be more pricey and older, but they're really close to the U. You can sometimes find houses to rent up there, though they may be in the "Greater Aves" area (aka up the hill from downtown/the "Lower Aves"). I do know several grad students who live in houses in Millcreek and Murray. I think they're reasonably priced (not sure), but they are certainly further away from the U. Word of advice - don't live on Foothill and avoid it at all costs during rush hour. Seriously. It gets ridiculous. I think some people asked about biking and public transit - while you can take Trax (and I think your UCard gives you access to it, as well as the buses), Trax doesn't really cover much. I think the buses are semi-reliable, but I've never taken them since I just drive to campus. I do know people who bike to campus from the Sugarhouse area, even during the winter. Also, parking passes here are actually very cheap ($180 ish for a year for the U pass) compared to other schools. In terms of activities, Salt Lake is a fantastic place to be outdoors. There's a ton of great hiking, rock climbing, and skiing. I'm a big skier and I've had season passes to Park City, Snowbird, Solitude, and the Canyons. You can get a student pass through One Love or the Freeskier Society (groups at the U) and it's definitely worth it. Though the deadlines are somewhat early, ranging from October to late November, so keep that in mind. Snowbird and Alta do tend to be very crowded over the weekends, but the snow is amazing. I think people also mentioned the weird drinking laws. Yeah, they're weird. Some liquor stores will close at 7, but some are open until 10. Nothing is open on Sundays (including some restaurants and malls. It's irritating). Liquor is precisely measured out, and there are no happy hours for drinks that I know of. However, we do have some pretty decent breweries around. Park City also might be a little more lax on the drinking laws. Unfortunately, one of the major issues I've encountered living here is the smog/inversions. It's disgusting. We're talking about haze you can actually see and smell. Unless you can get up into the mountains on the days it gets really bad, try to avoid being outside. For restaurants, there are some great places here. If you like sushi, go to Tsunami in Sugarhouse (I think there are 2 other locations, but I'm not sure where they are exactly). Frida Bistro is really great, particularly for brunch on Saturdays since it's actually affordable then. Ruth's Diner in Emigration Canyon is awesome. If you like frozen yogurt, go to Lunaberry on 400 S. For thai food, Sawadee is awesome. For Mexican, the Red Iguana (there are 2 locations) is great. For bars, I've heard that Bar X has been voted the best in the city for cocktails. Not sure if that's true, but it can be good. Whiskey Street just opened up in December I think and they have a ridiculously large selection of beverages. In terms of grad life, as someone mentioned, it is a commuter school. This does make it somewhat difficult to meet people. However, if you're at all interested in outdoor activities, you can definitely find lots of people who are also interested. From my experience, the bioengineering PhD students don't tend to hang out with each other in large groups as much. There are certainly small clusters of people who hang out together, but it's not like the entire PhD program hangs out together. I think the neuroscience PhD students (at least this cohort) do hang out all the time together though. So it really depends on what program you're going into.

Oh man, where was I? I had no idea about the International Year of Statistics. That's awesome though. I have heard some things about having a high demand for biostatisticians from friends for sure. But yeah, that's a good point about the increased need due to medical care/public health advances. It seems like it'll be a really great field to be in.

Oh, that makes sense! Do you think biostatistics as a field is really starting to take off now?

Ha ha what?? Where did all these people come from? That's quite an increase in applicants.

I totally agree with this advice. I think my first draft started out similarly with the "I've always loved math" business, but I ended up revising something like 7 times to make it much stronger. I happened to do a study abroad in Fiji during my undergrad, so I used that as an anecdote to talk about my motivation for pursuing a PhD in biostatistics. You definitely want to focus on the reasons why you want to do the program, why you think you'd be a good fit, and what you might want to do afterwards. As ginagirl mentioned, once you go through the revision process several times, you'll find that your original "I've always excelled at math" first sentence will change and you'll likely come up with great ideas that you would like talk about - I'm sure there's something unique about you that you can use in your statement to stand out. Also, it's a good idea to have several different people read your statement so you have some outside perspectives on your writing. However, stay true to what you want to say - you don't have to agree with everyone's suggestions and if you don't think they really work with who you are, don't use them!

Thanks! Yes, he did tell me via phone that I'd been admitted. I think we pretty much just talked about how I'd been accepted, that I should be receiving my official acceptance from the grad school soon, that there's a visit coming up (I can't remember when..March 17th maybe?), that I'd receive funding, and then he asked if I had any questions for him. We didn't talk about my application at all I'm pretty sure. That's crazy that it's so competitive this year - I think I heard something similar from Washington about having more than 300 strong applications.

I've gotten an acceptance from them! I think I got a phone call from one of the professors a week and a half ago more or less. He did say that the official acceptances hadn't been going out as quickly as they should have been, so that could be a reason for not hearing from them yet.

For those who also went to Brown - what did you think of the visit?

Yeah, I'll admit, I was a little worried when applying because I haven't taken a lot of those "standard" classes like real analysis/probability. I definitely tried to play up my different background in my statement though - I think I said something like having a bioengineering background allows me to better understand the biological problems that we'll be dealing with. I think I also said something about what kind of math I've learned in my engineering classes to somewhat make up for the fact that I haven't done much in the way of stats. But yeah, I had some great recommendation letters - 2 were from professors I've done research with and the other was from the chair of the bioengineering department at my school. I actually heard a professor from Minnesota say I have some of the strongest letters he's ever seen - apparently one of my writers said something about me being a future rock star. So there's that. I do have some research experience - right now I'm simultaneously working on EEG analysis and analysis of olfactory data, both of which do require some stats work, so I think that helps me out quite a bit. And of course, there's always the GRE and GPA scores that help. I think you're definitely right. I have no worries about my actual ability to be able to do the math. I just simply haven't taken those classes yet. I think being able to communicate well through writing and in person are super important for biostats as you mentioned.

Definitely! Through the math department at my school, I did take Calc 1-3 and a combined differential equations and linear algebra course. Through my bioengineering department, I took a biostatistics course. With engineering though, I definitely learned math in my classes, but it's more like fluid dynamics, signal processing, biomechanics, and other things of that nature that aren't typical for biostats people I think. I do think taking a probability course would be a good idea for prepping for a PhD program (I'm trying to teach myself right now), as well as some programming language. I've used MATLAB in my engineering courses and I'm trying to teach myself R right now. It seems like the people I've talked to mostly use R, but there's some MATLAB and other languages in there too.

So I'm actually in a similar situation - I just graduated in December with my Bachelor's in bioengineering and I've applied to biostatistics PhD programs. I've been accepted so far to the PhD programs at Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, and UNC. Washington, I'm waitlisted at, but I was accepted to the Master's program. Berkeley accepted me to the Master's program as well. So anyway, it's possible to go from bioengineering to biostats! Obviously, the statement of purpose and letters of recommendation will be important, but I think it seems like bioengineering can actually be a really helpful background. I forgot to include - I also just finished an interview at Brown.

Maybe they'll send it to you later this week if they just notified you that you're accepted? Though that does seem short notice since the visit is the 20th/21st. Are you going to any other visits? That's a good idea to share thoughts about the visits though! I feel like it could be helpful to know how different schools run their recruiting events, what the professors and current grad students are like, and things like that in case people can't make it to the visits or to just generally help others get a feel for how these things go. Not going to lie, I'm a little nervous for the visit at Brown since it'll be my first recruiting event!

Nope! I'm a prospective PhD student at the moment, so I'll be at the recruiting event to see if I want to go there. I was planning on checking out the town on Saturday to see if I'd like living there. You're welcome to join me if you'd like!