TenuousAtBest

A while back, I made about my chances for PhD admissions. All of that information is the same, but I got my GRE score today. I got 166V and 158Q. My quant is abysmally low, but I really don't think I can get it up. I spent months preparing and I didn't improve at all. I don't know how much I can improve in a few weeks. With my new GRE score, I'm out of the running for top 10 programs, right? Top 30 is dicey too? What can I do to overcome my low score?

Right! That's exactly what I thought. So many people on the forum have specific interests that I thought I was behind, though. So broad interests all schools are looking for. When I write my statement of purpose, should I identify a few faculty members who publish in my subfields of interest and name them? Is there any reason to try to reach out to potential advisors if most applicants don't have a specific research area in mind?

How defined should my research interests be when applying to Statistics PhD. programs? I have broad areas that I'm interested in, Computational Statistics and Statistical Learning Theory and Machine Learning, but I haven't narrowed it down any further. I have quite a bit of research experience in longitudinal data analysis and network science , but those aren't topics that I want to pursue. Statistics is a graduate discipline, so how can incoming students be expected to have a deep enough knowledge of the field to know exactly what they want to research?

I've heard very little about Indiana's program and I don't even see them in the graduate rankings for Statistics. Is it a reputable program?

Could someone look over my portfolio and suggest what Statistics PhD programs are realistic places for me to apply to? Major: Mathematics with 3.74 GPA School: Large well respected state school Coursework: I've taken most of the standard mathematics curriculum for undergraduate: Calculus, Linear Algebra, Intro to Proofs, Probability, Math Stats, Geometry, Differential Equations, Complex Analysis, and the first part of Real Analysis and Abstract Algebra. I'll finish my Analysis and Algebra courses in the fall. I've taken a first level software course, and I've taken a course in data structures and algorithms. I have A's in all the listed coursework except for a B in Complex Analysis and a B+ in Probability. Research Experience: I've worked for Economics professor as a research assistant on research in applied Economics. It involved a lot of linear models and data analysis. I'm using some of my contributions as an undergraduate thesis. I received a small scholarship recognizing exceptional undergraduate research for this. The professor's work will be published and I'll be listed as an author, but it will be after I've already sent out applications. I'm also currently working with a Sociology professor on implementing Social Network Analysis models. At the professor's suggestion, I'm taking a graduate level course in Social Network Analysis in the fall where the entirety of the graded work is from a research paper using Social Network Analysis. GRE: I haven't taken the GRE yet, but my goal is above the 90th percentile in Quantitative and above the 80th percentile in Verbal. Letters of Recommendation: I have four people in mind to write letters of recommendation, two of which I did research with. I've yet to make a decision on which of the four I will ask to write me a letter. They all know me very well. Research Interests: My research interests aren't entirely well formed. The statistics classes at my school are intended for graduate students and have prerequisites that I've only recently met, so my exposure to different branches of statistics in limited. That being said, my (niave) research interests are Machine Learning and Bayesian statistics. I'm very interested in Social Network Analysis, but I don't see a lot of work done on that in Statistics departments. Any advice would be appreciated.