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Any of you admitted people thinking of deferring a year? I'm considering it, but not sure whether I want to delay my life for a whole year. I just want to get over with school already.

Hello. I've been fortunate to be accepted into the master's program in biostatistics at both Brown and at UWashington-Seattle. I was wondering if any of you have any thoughts or experience with these programs. They are both great schools, so I don't the quality of education at either place but I was more curious about the opportunities during/after the program and about the biostatistics communities at these schools. The Washington program costs about $10,000 less and is only a 1.5 years, while Brown is a 2 year program. But I like the fact that Brown is small and the Ivy name is really tempting as well. Anyways, any help in choosing between the two programs will be very much appreciated. Thanks!

Anybody here got into the Master's in Health Data Science at the Harvard School of Public Health? I'm trying to decide between that and a MS in Biostatistics from Brown University and University of Washington - Seattle.

Undergrad Institution: The City University of New York Major(s): Math Minor(s): GPA: 4.00 Type of Student: Domestic Male GRE General Test: Q: 166 (89%) V: 164 (94%) W: 4.5 Programs Applying: Biostatistics, Statistics, and Data Science master's programs Research Experience: 1 year of research in economics Pertinent Activities or Jobs: 1 year work experience as Data Analyst at a healthcare company Math/Statistics Grades: A or A+ in all courses Letter of Recommendation: 3 letters total; 1 each from an epidemiology professor, a statistics professor, and a math professor. Any Miscellaneous Points that Might Help: I had a github portfolio with some python and R data analyses. Fairly simple stuff. Nothing too fancy. Applying to Where: (all are MASTER'S programs) Harvard - Health Data Science: Admitted Harvard - Data Science: Rejected UWashington, Seattle - Biostatistics: Admitted UMass, Amherst - Statistics: Admitted Stony Brook - Statistics: Admitted Boston University - Biostatistics: Admitted Uni. of Toronto - Biostatistics: Admitted Brown - Biostatistics: Admitted UCSD - Biostatistics: Admitted UMichigan, Ann Arbor - Biostatistics: Admitted

Because the covid-19 pandemic has become such a historic and consequential event of the century so far, will epidemiology departments see a surge of interest from students? How about increased funding and money for research from governments, corporations, etc?

Hello everyone. I've heard back from all my applications and I've been fortunate enough to have a lot of options. I've whittled down my choices to these three, but not sure which to pick, so any help would be greatly appreciated. The top three I'm deciding between are: 1. University of Toronto - MSc in Biostatistics, $26K CAD 2. Harvard - MS in Health Data Science, $71K 3. UMass Amherst - MS in Statistics $24K I'm an American living in Boston, so I would love to stay around Massachusetts, but I absolutely loved Toronto (the city) when I visited so this Toronto acceptance (with the low tuition and all) has got me rethinking. My other concern is that this border closure between the US and Canada is gonna mess things up so I'm not even sure whether I can even obtain a student visa in the middle of a pandemic. I also love the Harvard name and the opportunities from there, but the cost is just so damn expensive, so I don't know whether it's worth it or not. I have no plans to go into academia or PhD and intend on going into industry so the Harvard name is very attractive right now. I'm also more interested in healthcare and the UMass program is theory-heavy and general statistics, which is why I'm a bit hesitating on this, despite being a solid program with low in-state tuition. Anyone have any experience with one of the master's programs? Any help would be awesome. Thanks so much!

@DanielWarlock Yeah I've heard the statistics master's programs at Stanford and UChicago are brutal. This is slightly off topic, but since you are a current Harvard master's student, do you have any opinions on the health data science master's at the school of public health? I realize that it's at different schools within the university, so no worries if you are not familiar with it!

I'm planning on submitting applications for master's programs in statistics/bio-statistics this fall, and I'm not quite sure how to approach the statement of purpose. I have a relatively good idea of how it works for PhD programs (i.e. research experience, professors or labs to work with, etc.), but if my goal is not a PhD, how do I write this? Most terminal master's are not too research-heavy so I'm just not sure how I can approach this when statements of purpose tend to be mostly about research experience and research goals. Any help will be appreciated. Thanks!

I'm curious about some Canadian universities for their statistics programs, but I've heard numerous times that the way master's programs work in Canada is much different than the ones in the US. A few questions I had was: 1. Generally, are Canadian programs usually funded and geared towards research careers? I'm personally not looking for a research career. 2. As an American, do I have to apply with a TOEFL? 3. Am I ineligible for any kind of Canadian federal/provincial funding or aid as an American? Can I take out loans in the US and use them toward Canadian programs? 4. Most statistics programs in the US consist of international students. Is it similar in Canada? And is it much harder to get in as an American (or international) student to master's program in Canada? Any other thoughts or comments are welcome. Thanks in advance for all the advice!!!

Is 166Q competitive at top schools? I see admission averages that are like 168-169. Also, I'm afraid that even when they see a 4.0, they'll say something along the lines of: "So what? You studied at a CUNY, not an Ivy." I don't know if adcoms are that mean against non-prestigious degrees, but... I hope not.

Hi all, With schools starting to open up their applications in the next 2-3 months, I've been wondering what schools I should aiming for. I want to get into healthcare using math/stats so most of the programs I was considering are bio-statistics or operations research with a focus on health systems. I have a pretty good academic profile but some concerns I have are that 1) my undergrad has zero prestige; 2) my GRE score seems a little low for the top programs; 3) I have no direct healthcare experience (currently work in unrelated economic research). Below are my stats but I'm not sure how competitive my profile would be. Obviously, I would love to get into top schools like Harvard Biostats or Stanford MS&E, but I have no idea whether my GPA/GRE is really enough. Given my profile below, what type of schools should I be aiming for? Am I being delusional for thinking that I should even apply to a place like Harvard? What "tiers" should I be aiming for? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks so much!!! Undergraduate Institution: CUNY - Hunter College Major(s): Math GPA: 4.00/4.00 Type of Student: Domestic Asian Male GRE General: 166Q (90%); 164V (94%); 4.5 AWA (82%) Programs Applying: MS Biostatistics, Statistics, and Operations Research (health systems focus) Letters of Recommendation: 1 from my mathematical statistics class professor; 1 from my epidemiology class; don't know my third letter writer yet. Relevant Coursework: Calculus I, II, III; Linear Algebra; Ordinary Differential Equations; Vector Calculus; Discrete math; Real Analysis I ; Complex Analysis; Abstract Algebra I ; Stochastic Processes; Numerical Methods & Analysis; Mathematical Statistics; Intro to Probability Theory; Intro to Epidemiology Skills: R, Stata, Python, SQL (I have an active Github portfolio with all my code) Relevant Research: None, but I'm not aiming for a PhD Work Experience: Software Engineer for 2.5 years, and now currently doing data analysis doing economics research

I thought statistics and biostatistics have pretty much same math pre-requisites? I wasn't aware that biostatistics is considered "easier" or required less math and statistics coursework for admission.

I don't quite follow. Why would it be better to aim for biostatistics over statistics programs?

Do you actually want to do research in statistics, or do you want to do research using statistics? There is a difference, and it sounds like you are more interested in the latter.

I certainly do not mind working with public health related topics. In fact, there are some that I actually find quite interesting. However, I do not want to be silo-ed into these fields and end up being stuck working with data from genomics, RNA sequencing, or stuff like that. Another concern is that I do not have academic or work experience with biology or epidemiology, which may seriously hurt my applications. Do most biostatistics programs care whether I have courses in epidemiology and biology?