babaloo

That's rough. Did you try the chair of the department as well? I actually won't be attending OSU. I thought their department was great, but they didn't seem to have as much to offer in biostat as some of the other programs where I was accepted.

Sorry to hear that. Who did you e-mail in the department? The grad studies chair and the chair of the dept are the ones you want to talk to. I've had some contact with the grad studies chair this year, and I bet they would be understanding of your situation and let you in, unless they overenrolled or something

I would advise against turning down the ISU offer if you haven't done so already. I just don't think a Stanford M.S. in Statistics is worth going 100k+ in debt. The reason they accept a lot of M.S. students is because they have to pay their way through, so as long as they think you can handle the material, they'll probably accept you, and take your money along the way. If you just want an M.S., you can probably get that on your way to the Ph.D. at ISU and just leave after you've completed the M.S. requirements. You won't go $100k in debt, you'll have a degree from a top statistics program, and you'll have the opportunity, if you choose, to get the Ph.D. without having to reapply. I would definitely think a lot more about the debt you'll face and if you really want to deal with the burden of paying it off before turning down ISU for Stanford. Personally, I wouldn't even think twice about taking the ISU offer. Also, it's late enough in the admissions season that if you haven't heard from schools already, it might be a good idea to contact them and ask them about your status. You might be waitlisted, or rejected, and they just didn't notify you

1. That kind of depends on you. If you can land some kind of relevant job or paid research position for a few months, you might be better off doing that. If not, more math and computing, and maybe a little bit of research, won't hurt. 2. I would stick to staying within your school for courses to avoid the hassle of registering, and getting transcripts and all of that. I don't know how much better these other schools CS departments are than yours, but I doubt it would matter much as long as you did well in the course at your school 3. I don't think a B+ in a graduate probability course will hurt, and if anything, I believe it would be helpful as it'll show them that you can handle graduate work. Also, if your school has a statistics department with a graduate program (and from your list of courses it seems that it does), I would talk to some of the faculty, particularly the grad studies director and the chair if you can, and ask them all of the questions you asked in this thread, because they'd definitely have a better idea of what stat programs look for and care about. About the GRE subject, a handful of top programs require it (Stanford and U Chicago are the ones I know of), and some programs strongly recommend it (Harvard, and perhaps others). By no means do all the top schools require or recommend it, so as someone else suggested, check the web pages of the programs in which you're interested, and plan accordingly. The good news is that you have time to prepare for it

I agree that you are definitely qualified for PhD programs. Having those graduate courses are very helpful. I'd try to get perhaps another letter from a math or stat professor that taught one of your advanced classes, but if that's not possible it would be nice if the economists could speak a little about your mathematical ability. Also, if you have experience with programming or statistical packages like R or SAS (even a little bit), this is something you want programs to know about As for courses, take as much analysis as you can. So if you can take two semesters, do it, and let the schools that you apply to know that you're taking them if it doesn't show up on your transcripts. Programs will care much more about analysis than any applied stat class. If you are going take stats, math stats (i.e. probability theory, statistical inference) would be good classes to have. For a programming course, you can't go wrong with C, C++, or Fortran. One thing I'm curious about is how you managed to take advanced probability theory without analysis. Typically you would need to have some background in analysis or measure theory, but in any case, if you did well in that course and your other graduate stats courses, it will look good. For the GRE, most top programs will expect a perfect or near perfect quantitative score. Below a 770 might hurt, but I'm not too sure about this. Just go for >= 770. Verbal and writing shouldn't matter much, just make sure they're not too low. Departments will probably not care much about the student body or tennis involvement , but the TA is relevant, and the econ competitions may be as well. Being a minority could be to your advantage, especially if you're qualified (and you are). One reason is because some schools have university fellowships for strong minority applicants, so funding wouldn't be an issue for the department. Another reason is that there aren't a lot of non-asian minorities in statistics. Either way, you're well qualified so this shouldn't be something to worry about. As for the MS/PhD thing, most PhD stat programs operate in this manner anyway, they just don't advertise it. If you're applying without a previous master's in statistics, you'll have to complete the master's requirements before moving onto PhD candidacy anyway, and many departments will award you the master's degree en route to the PhD. Also, if you don't pass your quals after a couple of tries, the department might give you a conciliatory master's degree on your way out of the program. Hope this was helpful, and good luck!

If they've already offered you an acceptance and funding, they're not going to take it away for bringing up your SO's application, so I would try to do it tactfully. If they're on the fence about her, they might swing in her favor to get you to enroll. And I think they'd be even more willing to do this since she's applying to the master's program. The way I see it, it wont hurt you to do so (that is, if they have already offered you a spot with funding), and it may help her get in and allow you guys to be together while going to your top choice.

Actually, the math gre is not required or even recommended at most statistics and biostatistics programs (the only I can think of are Stanford and U Chicago), so I'd only bother taking it if you think you can get a very good score, or if you want to apply to those schools that require or recommend it. Your general gre is fine (although I'm not sure how they'll view the writing score, but since you're international they might give you a break on that). As long as you have good grades in your math classes (especially in calc, analysis, and probability and math stats), and strong recommendations, I think you'll have a decent shot at most schools, and be competitive at all of those you listed.