Residuals

I often read on various forums that Hyde Park is unsafe. I am amazed with the urban legend about UChicago and Hyde Park. Between the Chicago Police and UChicago Police, Hyde Park has one of the highest police per capita in the US. In terms of actual crime, there is a great site of statistics by university at the US Department of Education (https://ope.ed.gov/campussafety/#/). The data are in the form of crime incidences (of various categories) per 1000 students. Folks may be surprised to find that UChicago is one of the safest universities. For fun, compare UChicago versus Stanford, Berkeley, Harvard, etc. You will find that UChicago is pretty much uniformly less than all these schools. Number of incidents of sexual crimes, burglaries are on the order of 3 to 5 times higher at schools like Stanford, Berkeley, Harvard than UChicago. With this said, with any urban institution, there are areas and times that would be stupid to venture into. When you live in Hyde Park, it is pretty obvious what boundaries you don't want to cross especially in the dark hours.

Wharton never seems well gauged in the admissions process. The department feels it is theoretically on par with Stanford accepting Stanford qualified students and putting excellent students on the waiting list. But more times than not, the accepted students decide to go to other departments (like Stanford, Berkeley, or Chicago). But, in the meantime, Wharton drags its feet on the waiting list students to only lose them for reasons you state. It is quite a dysfunctional process.

Indeed, that is where he is going. Chicago started to build momentum on the ML/computational front with him. I wonder how the department is going to respond with this set back?

Lafferty is apparently leaving Chicago.

Yesterday (March 6) and today (March 7) are admit visiting days for Berkeley stats. Accepted applicants are visiting the department as we speak. Obviously, not all the admits will accept. So, there might be further considerations down the road but I am not sure of that either.

I agree with you. It is discouraging for a PhD student to be admitted with no or limited funding.

There is no doubt that the state cuts on UW system has had impact on financials like offering of scholarships. But, the rumors of UW Madison's department being "poor" are totally unfounded. There are top notch researchers (both at the senior and junior levels). Several Berkeley PhD's as faculty. They just hired two Wharton statistics doctoral graduates as assistant professors. So, no suffering in terms of faculty quality. What is suffering is the campus' ability to give $$.

The statistics profession is going through an evolution with no clear end game. First, the academic job market for statistics faculty positions is quite tight and difficult to land even if one is coming from a top department. A recent Amstats News article spoke the sobering fact that post-docs in statistics is growing exponentially which further delays the starting of an academic career. Then there is a computer science (CS) effect. Those few faculty positions that are out there are increasingly being filled by CS PhD graduates. The number CS PhD students is exploding. So, there is a risk that this supply of graduates can further crowd out a traditional PhD in statistics student.

The rankings are weird on this site. For example, if one deletes the three biostats departments above Chicago, then logically places Chicago at #3 with statistics. But clicking on the schools show different rankings. Weird and not well done. Too bad this list wasn't properly designed based on the separation.

OM comparison with statistics within a particular B-school is a not a full analysis. Without revealing myself, let me just note that I have a dual PhD in OM and statistics from a top 5 B-school and I am an OM and statistics faculty member at a doctoral granting B-school. So, I agree that OM is a fundamental area that deals with creation and transformation and is at the core of business and is most valuable to the company and society; I teach this! But, my statements about OM market being the smallest in terms of faculty positions are very informed. OM faculty regrettably get paid less that their business school colleagues, though OM does pay better than statistics faculty positions. There are leading OM researchers (some of whom my colleagues) who are trying to expand the recognition of OM as a field. The supply chain management movement has no doubt helped but OM still has a way to go to be viewed in the same manner as finance, accounting, management, etc. Finally, there are fundamental research questions in accounting and management that require PhD level training. You just have to be familiar with these worlds. Good luck in your applications.

You are failing to recognize that OM is the smallest discipline at business schools (top or not). There are typically fewer OM faculty (than say finance) to supervise research. And given the size of OM as an area, the market can't support increase of the supply side (there aren't as many OM faculty jobs as finance/accting/marketing/mgmt). Thus, in the end, this is why you find smaller PhD counts.

I would agree with @marmle. Top stats departments favor math backgrounds. Real analysis is the minimal gateway requirement. You indicate that you possibly could see yourself being a faculty. Bear in mind, the top departments are biased towards applicants who have academic career aspirations. Harvard tends to be more focused on social sciences applications, not your interests. Biology-oriented statisticians may be hard to find in departments of statistics. But, they are around if you look. There is Philip Dixon at Iowa State U Department of Statistics; might look him up.

I think with your math courses/GPA/General GRE Quant and from a good school in U of Toronto, you have a good shot at all the schools. Only Stanford's PhD requires Math Subject Test; no other school explicitly requires it. So, if you feel that your Math Subject Test score is not on par with other international students, you don't have to submit it to any of these schools (note: no MS program asks for the subject test, so if you go to an MS program then you have a second chance at the math subject test in the future). I think you have good chance at many of the programs you are applying to. Good luck.

Your math course work is good and expected for the better programs in statistics. I wouldn't worry about the verbal GRE, most schools don't focus on it. The problem with the Math Subject GRE is that there is an expectation of very high scores from international applicants. I think you can rely on the general GRE quant score. Might think about U of Wisconsin and Penn State.

Your record should be no problem for MS programs at all these schools. You don't state which schools are MS vs. PhD so it is hard to be more specific. CU Boulder is a respectable math department so your courses will be taken seriously. Your math grades are solid except for a blemish with Calc II. Your GRE is solid. You might have difficulty at the very top schools for PhD going against students who have taken the GRE math subject test and have done well. But, being a domestic male is an advantage. Math at top state schools is not any different than the international schools. Domestic students take graduate probability at the undergraduate level so domestic students will experience courses in the graduate program early just as many international students. The substantial difference between domestic and international applicants is the test scoring. International students work intensely on problems repetitively resulting in the ability to master GRE and GRE subject tests. You have international students who have terrible English skills who score 90% on GRE English! It is a bit of a joke. But, as a result, international students have created a problem for themselves in that their scores are "discounted" relative to a domestic student. Personally, I don't view the Ivies as representing the stronger statistics departments. The academic placements of Harvard and Columbia are much weaker than many other departments. Penn fairs okay.