abstract_art

I think a lot of decisions are gonna start coming out at the end of this week/next week. Looking back at last year (just looking at "statistics" in the results search), nearly all decisions for stats programs came out after January 27th-29th ish, and most came out in the first couple of weeks of February.

@khsf45 For Harvard we definitely didn't need laptops during the actual visit (idk when you'd have time to use one during the visit). However having it with you would be a good idea while traveling/ at the hotel (to look up any of odds and ends about the program/ professors you're interviewing with) @waitforever what khsf45 said, business casual. There were people wearing suits and there were people wearing kahkis w/ a sweater at my visit, it's probably not gonna matter a whole lot what you actually wear (just don't wear like jeans/ tshirts etc.) Also, heads up that Chicago Stats is sending out a first wave of acceptances (in past years they've done these in waves, not sure about rejections/waitlists). Got an email to check the application website

For Harvard, this thread was pretty much what happened: The whole department was really nice and it seemed like they genuinely cared about all of their students. Unless you don't want to live in Boston (or you really want to live in another city) or you really want to work with some faculty at some other school, I can't see a lot of reasons why you wouldn't want to go there. As for Hopkins, there was one posting on the results search saying they got an interview on Friday, but I don't think they've sent them all out considering the amount of people that posted UW acceptances/ Harvard interviews.

There were like 2 acceptances to UNC Stats in the last few days

Hey, there are definitely a few apps I'll be withdrawing in the coming weeks. However, I'm honestly not sure which programs I like the most so I'm gonna wait till I hear back from most of the other places I applied to. I'm of the mind that I'll learn more during visits about where I'd like to end up, so I don't want to withdraw apps before I hear anything back. I didn't just apply to a bunch of schools for the heck of it after all! (Also with respect to Austin I'd honestly consider going there because there's a few people I could see myself working with/ personal reasons for possibly wanting to go to Texas)

Decisions for UW Stats are out, or at least acceptances and waitlists, as I saw an acceptance on the results search and I just got waitlisted. Congrats to those that got in!

? You might not be searching correctly. If you try searching "unc biostatistics" and "chapel hill biostatistics" you'll be able to find acceptances outside of just January for the past few years. Don't give up hope!

@Neurotic_Jay I'm assuming you're talking about UNC Biostats. From their website (http://sph.unc.edu/programs/?ppk=bios-phd-r), it says they admit ~40 students for an incoming class of 11-19 students. You probably still have a chance, as looking back at the results search, they usually send a few acceptances out in early January, then send out some more in February and March (probably as some of those who got acceptances earlier turn them down). Good luck!

Thanks for the encouragement (: I hope you're right haha

Ah ok, looks like I'm out of the running then unless they're staggering their invites. Thanks for the info!

@metricspace Damn congrats! When did you get it?

@waitforever In previous years the first wave of rejections for UW biostat either came out the day of acceptances or a week later. So I'd imagine we might see some rejections today (or next week). There's still a chance you'll get in later though! Has anyone heard anything from UW stats or Duke stats? Usually UW stats sends out decisions a week after biostats (although they were pretty late last year), and Duke sends out interview invitations sometime before mid January, but it doesn't look like either has sent anything out yet.

@kalgrey No I haven't received a follow up about UW's visit day either, I was expecting info to come with the official letter but I guess we'll have to wait more :/ And as for UNC yeah idk why there haven't been any other results either. I'd think if you were strong enough for UW you'd be strong enough for UNC considering UNC accepts a lot more people than Washington, but who knows! An administrator did email me a while back to tell me to remind my rec letter writers to submit their letters on time cause they liked my app, so maybe I was just a really good fit? Idk I also haven't received any actual follow up from anyone at the department, which I find strange considering I received the admit over a week ago.

So I think the roadblock for your app at top stats (lets say top 10-15ish) and top biostats (lets say top 5ish) is that you don't have any higher level math. Most of the top departments in stats and biostats seem to expect analysis, and it seems like most applicants will be coming from math backgrounds where they've had other upper level math classes that show they can handle mathematical rigor (as a side note if your intro to probability and stats classes aren't calc based you might want to take calc based ones before you apply). If you're really serious about aiming for Stanford, Berkeley, etc. analysis should be a priority to take before you apply. However if you're looking outside of exclusively the top schools I think you could probably get into some decent programs (especially in biostats) if you clearly convey your reasons for wanting a stats/biostats degree considering you have a 4.0 in your bio degree. This advice so far is for PhD programs. If you're looking at masters programs, which aren't nearly as competitive, you should be fine for nearly all places in stats/biostats. You could go to a good masters program as preparation for a top PhD program if you can handle a masters program financially. Also when looking at schools, if you're really interested in the statistics applied to bio thing, I'd make sure there are faculty at the schools you're applying to who are doing work you're interested in. For example, Harvard stats in no way strikes me as a place to go if you're interested in bio applications (it's a small department with a narrow research focus). Don't just apply to schools for the name!

@footballman2399 Are you applying to schools this cycle then? I thought you were a current grad student

@footballman2399 I just looked at Emory's website and there's no phd in biostatistics and epidemiology, so either the people who posted heard back from biostatistics or epidemiology, and it looks like there's a bunch of epidemiology results out right now too, so you're probably right that they're not for biostats!

I can confirm that UW biostats has sent out admits and Harvard biostats has invited people to their open house. It also looks like from the results page that Emory biostats has invited to interviews/ rejected people.

Hey @MsHypatia, from what I've seen in this forum from previous years Harvard statistics doesn't do interviews. Also it seems that for Duke they only do in person interviews for domestic students and they do skype interviews for internationals (idk about international students in the US though) , see this thread

For the past few years there's been a thread around this time of the year with applicants freaking about admissions decisions, so I'm starting this thread for that purpose! This forum/ the results search (at http://www.thegradcafe.com/survey/ if you didn't know about it) have been pretty quiet so far! So far the only biostats results have been interview invitations for Penn, and stray acceptances to Minnesota and UNC (I posted the UNC acceptance, anyone else get one too?), and the only stats result was an Ohio State acceptance posted today. Anyone else get any other decisions?

How would applying to this as an undergraduate senior work? It seems as though the program of study is very specific to your grad school/ it says it requires the approval of an advisor.

In order of usefulness it'd probably be Measure Theory, then Functional Analysis, then Multivariate Data Analysis.

Nobody knows the chances of anyone getting accepted to NYU's Data Science PhD considering this is the first year they're accepting students.

You'd probably be better off asking your OR professors at CMU. Most of the posters here are from statistics/biostatistics. You also might to want to go back through the old posts on this forum to see if there were people with similar profiles applying to OR programs, though from what I can see there's never been a large OR presence on grad cafe.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "mathematical aspects of data science" (do you mean statistics?), but for AI/ML research, most of it is done in Computer Science, Statistics, and Operations Research departments (with the most being done in CS departments and the least being done in OR departments). Which types of departments you apply to will depend on your background and interests, and how they mesh with each department/ the professors you're interested in.

What are your research interests? I'm pretty sure there'll be next to no one doing topological data analysis in biostatistics departments.