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I don't know if I'd suggest Elements to someone who's just trying to self study some stats before a graduate program, especially if they weren't specifically interested in machine learning

The standard undergrad math stats books are Wackerly, Rice, and Larsen and Marx. You only really need to self study from one. If you want to preview what you'd most likely see in grad school, Casella and Berger is the standard for the first year of a grad program. For Bayesian stats the standard is Bayesian Data Analysis (BDA) (Hoff also seems like another pretty standard bayesian stats book). None of these require real analysis (but it'd help to have some analysis).

Did anyone see the posting in the results search saying Columbia stats already sent out phd offers? Anyone know if it's true?

What's your mathematical background like?

Not saying it's irrelevant but that you have to take into account placements since that time. Just as an example it seems like Hopkins has had a ton of placements since 2011-2012ish (http://www.biostat.jhsph.edu/people/alumni/alumlist.shtml). The problem is as you said there's no consolidated data and we're all pretty much just showing anecdotal evidence, and we probably notice/remember some things more than others (e.g. you see Michigan placements, I see Hopkins placements). In reality going to any of these programs is most likely going to set you up well, and as you said, advisor matters more than the overall program! Not trying to start a fight or diss anyone either haha

While I agree that all of the schools in question are great and you can have good placements going to any of them (and the gap between programs probably isn't as big as it seems), you have to acknowledge that biostat_prof's statements are gonna be somewhat biased considering it seems as though they're faculty at UNC (also that thread is 4 years old!). Also what @Innominate was saying, where's the data. And also you need to think about criterion for what saying one school is better than the rest at academic placement means (e.g. how recent are the hires, are the placements at some of the top programs or some of the lower programs (or even unknown programs), do postdocs count?, how do you compare biostat department placements to stats department placements or placements in other related departments, etc.)

Yeah idk about this. There's a reason why Harvard/UW are considered in their own tier in biostats followed by JHU/UM/UNC

I think since you seem to have a good idea of what you want to do, the overall placements of the program aren't important so much as the placements of the professors you're interested in. Hypothetically, if someone from UM stats was placed at like Stanford or Berkeley but their research area/advisor were in something like spatial statistics, that shouldn't really affect your decision. You seem to have POI at both schools, so look at where their students have published/ been placed.

Eh, I wouldn't really draw conclusions from those few data points (yale and brown biostats are fairly small programs). Also if you look at Penn biostats academic placements specifically, they're not amazing, only have one recent placement at CMU (from a guy who worked with Dylan Small). UW has placements pretty much everywhere.

You can't really go wrong with either 2nd semester linear or measure theory (there's probably not diminishing returns if you're doing well in all of these analysis classes). I don't know which an admissions committee would look more favorably at (maybe measure theory?), but I'd try to take both if you can. The stochastic models models class sounds interesting but it might be something you'd end up taking again in grad school (so maybe sit in on it, take it pass/fail, etc).

Oh thank god you had me scared lol. The phd acceptances usually go all out at once so I thought I missed out

PhD or MA?

Anyone hear back from Columbia stats yet? They're the only program I applied to that has nothing posted yet on the results search.

That might be true but it doesn't look like they've done that in recent years (in terms of sending out the unfunded offers first)

Weird that Wisconsin is sending out the phd acceptances without funding before sending out the acceptances with funding this year

Also looks like Wisconsin sent out a bunch of rejections tonight so I'd guess if you haven't heard back yet it's a good sign. I'd imagine acceptances get posted soon (tomorrow maybe?).

Sorry double posted lol

I'm not in the same position but I'm interested in ml so maybe my advice can help a little. I'd say definitely take the Michigan offer (unless you're still waiting on other programs). They have a ton of people working in ml (Ambuj Tewari, Shuheng Zhou, Ji Zhou, Elizaveta Levina, Yuekai Sun, Long Nguyen, Susan Murphy, Clay Scott, probably missing some) plus they seem to have a good connection to the cs department where there're even more people doing ml research. It's hard to imagine you wouldn't find somebody who's research you liked there. It's also top 10 so it's not like you're really missing out much on prestige compared to the others in the top 5 (except maybe like Berkeley or Stanford). Since you already know you want to do ml research and you think you want to go into academia, look at the placements of the past students of these professors doing ml research, I'm sure there are a good amount who went into academia. Going to Chicago or Harvard for an MS doesn't guarantee that you'll have better results next time around (after all better here means getting into one of <10 schools since Michigan is already really highly ranked). You could be spending 10s of thousands of dollars to attend a school with a slightly better reputation (or attend a school of the same reputation as Michigan or worse). I also wouldn't fixate so much on "top 3". While Stanford and Berkeley are obviously some of the top stats programs for ml, Chicago isn't as strong in ml (Lafferty is the only really big name w/ a few other newer professors, although you do have access to TTIC), and other programs like Washington, CMU, Wisconsin, and honestly probably Michigan (just to name some in the top 10) are probably better than Chicago for ml. Unrelated to your question, when you say you got off the waitlist, do you mean you were notified that you were on a waitlist and then taken off, or that you just received a second round admit?

Another Michigan stats acceptance got posted so I guess they're doing a round two!

No I haven't either, and it doesn't look like any stats results have come out since Friday. And yeah either they're doing a round two of admissions or (more likely) waitlists at this point. I would think though they still have a decent amount of rejections to send out too so idk. Idk if stats does the consideration for masters like biostats does (was it something where we had to check a box? cause if so I don't think I checked it lol). And for those who applied to cornell stats, I emailed the department and they said they sent out offers last week and "may" be sending out more in a few weeks.

Here's a thread from a few years ago discussing this stuff: I'd say if you know you want to go the academic route and already have a research area in mind then what should matter most are potential advisors and the placements of their past students.

I wasn't saying undergrad reputation doesn't matter at all, but that in the case of me and MsHypatia it probably doesn't matter as much, as both of our schools don't have stats departments, and our math departments are both low ranked/ unranked. Obviously coming from Stanford or another top school where adcoms have some reference for what different gpas mean (e.g. is your sub 3.5 really that low in the context of Stanford), or maybe they know your letter writers, is gonna help you out.

Ugh someone posted a Berkeley stats acceptance (and it looks legit). From the past few years it looks like they spread acceptances/ waitlists out over a few days but if you don't hear from them in those few days you're rejected

I have no clue but it certainly is annoying. Yeah I didn't see that, so they sent out some acceptances on the 7th and then rejections on the 8th and 9th. It looks like everyone is still for the most part running on a later schedule than last year. I've only heard back from one program in the past week (and it wasn't even for stats lol).

I'm not sure. Have you been admitted? If so I'd try emailing the administrator for the biostats department and see if she can give any info. Also there was a Michigan stats rejection posted by a domestic student yesterday (think that was the first). I wish they'd just send all of the decisions out already lol