OuterMeasure

Sorry you have to keep waiting things out at this late stage, Rooster34. I agree that the recent data in your application convey a lot more relevant information than your overall GPA. Hopefully they'll end up offering admission, but you do have UIUC's offer. I assume you outlined the situation in your SOP and/or the emails to the OSU department, and I suppose they're waiting for someone else to decide before making you an offer. Another thing to keep in mind is the pool of applicants is disproportionately larger this year due to economic conditions; I've heard stories of how admissions committees are resorting much more to simple GPA and test score cutoffs, since the number of spaces for PhD. students in most departments hasn't changed. As much as it may seem trite, we should all be appreciative of the fact that we got into competitive programs in what's probably the worst nation-wide admissions situation, well, ever.

This page: http://www-stat.stanford.edu/admissions/financing.html reports that on average one needs $60K to fund the entire M.A. program, which includes living expenses.

For Chicago it was listed as a strong recommendations that you take the Math Subject test, but since they also consider applicants for the M.S., I just applied. I got into the M.S. program with a moderate tuition reduction, but the national needs fellowship offer from Iowa State pretty much sealed the deal for me. I contacted UNC about my application a week ago, and they replied that they're still making decisions. When I get the letter from ISU and gather the nerve to sign it, I'll let UNC and UFL know I'm no longer in this dog-and-pony show. Congrats on your admits, Pierre. Have you made the final decision yet? Some people would find the name Oxford irresistible, but you have a good choice of countries at your disposal.

Bei, thanks for the response. I'm curious, did you decide to stay in Iowa?

This is funny. Bei, I'm in a situation that's extremely similar. I have an offer of a 3-year fellowship for a comajor at ISU with stat and bioinformatics. I have another offer from Wisconsin with no funding, but the only other offer I'm considering at this point is for an M.S. in stat at University of Chicago with nothing more than a 25% tuition reduction. I didn't get into the Stanford M.S. program; congrats, and no hard feelings I think the most qualitative difference between us situation-wise might be that you're not as dead-set on an M.S., and you're more set to go to industry. My interest is also more in industry at this point, although I wouldn't absolutely rule out the professor route; I'm a little older than most students, and the idea of possibly doing a postdoc and then waiting for tenure (possibly trying multiple universities) is less appealing in that I'd be 40 by the time the dust settled. At the same time I've been living in San Francisco and doing collaborative research for a few years, so I have a strong interest in pursuing a doctoral degree. Working in Biotech could be a great way for me to earn an income while staying close to research; the excitement of science is still there, the chance of getting involved in startups, possibly a lot better compensation, etc. That's the thinking behind my "straddling the fence" between academia and private sector at this time; I want the advanced training so I can really contribute (and excel), but I don't need to be a professor. I know the program at Chicago would give me a potential stopping point for education, would definitely make me competitive on the job market after a year, and would still be a viable way to transition into a PhD program. The problem is, unless I do stop at the M.S., which I feel is unlikely at this point, I'd have to apply for PhD programs again (probably take the math subject test, which I didn't do this time), and would lose at least a half-year. I supposed I could charge into the M.S. and take all PhD-level courses the whole time, but I might be thwarted by PhDs getting preference in available spaces for these classes. I visited ISU a month ago because of the fellowship and met with both Stat and BCB faculty. I definitely got good a good feeling about both departments at ISU. On the other hand, life in Iowa will be very different from that in the bay area. Chicago would a more similar experience to S.F. Practical considerations absolutely point to ISU, with the lifestyle of big city versus college town being the only thing that could lean towards UChicago; even then there are benefits to having fewer of the distractions a large city offers. The fellowship would focus me towards genetics, but this is a fairly practical area of research with plenty of crossover with statistics. The Chicago M.S. would be more general in the sense I'd only be studying statistics; I'd have a little opportunity for research while I'd be there, but most of that would occur when I moved on to a PhD program. I might have a better sense of who specifically I'd want to work with after 1 year as opposed to now, where I just have overall good feeling about the ISU faculty and their quality of research. There's my braindump, and I'd be curious to here some summarization of your thought process. As for living in CA, it is expensive; one-bedroom apt in S.F is about $1000 a month or more. Palo Alto is cheaper than S.F., and is a nice city to call home as well, plus you're closed to anything in the East bay. The cost of living is high, so definitely think about the amount of debt you want to have when you finish your M.S. At ISU, one couple of newlyweds, both graduate students, were able to buy a house. Absolutely unheard of here in the east bay for any student who's not sitting on an inheritance, or something. The cost of living is low in Iowa, and most departments at ISU have a fairly liberal amount of money to give to their students. On the other hand, if you go into a job with high pay in the bay area, 100K of debt isn't that bad. That's said, you could do the same with a graduate degree from ISU, most likely. Maybe you really don't need a PhD, in which case the shorter education time and the California setting balance out larger debt. The choice is pretty clear from many viewpoints, especially in my case. I think stopping and thinking about all the possibilities is still a very useful exercise.

One thing to think about now in a precise way is why a PhD. and why Statistics versus Economics or Mathematical Finance, or something related. The rational is important to justify to yourself the devotion of several more years of your life to education in statistics and then research in an extremely specific topic in that field. Some distillation of this will also be very important for your statement of purpose. My rational is something like: I was a math major with programming experience who moved into Bioinformatics and saw a lot of statistics in all the methods being used. Stat is a nice way for me to study something very mathematically oriented but which is directly used with all manner of research data. I like collaborative research, having worked in that environment several years after college. A Ph.D. in Statistics (as opposed to applied math, or even bioinformatics) keeps a lot of doors to the private sector open, which is important for me since I'm somewhat older than most students and may not want to wait as long to have a stable, well-paying job as a professor (possibly without much choice of where to live). Not all of this went directly in my SOP, but that along with a description of my research projects are definitely the basis. It sounds like your masters thesis has given you exposure to mathematical research, but in addition to coursework you could consider a summer research program where you get to directly apply statistical methods to some real data (and possibly publish the results). This is certainly a very strong academic record, and I think you'd probably get into a "top 10" program and certainly a "top 20," program to the extent that those lists are well-defined. Programming courses are good, but Real Analysis will be more useful in terms of the coursework you'll have to take in graduate school. I learned R on my own having a good deal of experience with Perl and Python; much of learning to program at an intermediate level involves having something to work on and reading a lot of reference material. You start to need fundamental coursework when you want to do things of an algorithmic nature that have to be optimized. Real Analysis also works well in a course because it requires a lot of thinking about a comparatively small number of difficult concepts. Rudin's Principles of Mathematical Analysis will give you excellent preparation, but real analysis, however it's taught at your university, would be a great course to take in general. Again, research experience, be it through your master's thesis, a Summer program, or even a job in academia (my route) is a great way to show admissions committees that you like research. Statistics, as you may know, is very much dependent on the existence of large data sets, of which there are many. Another note, the vast majority of Statistics departments don't require GRE subject test. Stanford does, Washington, Chicago, and Johns Hopkins Stat recommend it, and a couple departments send mixed messages, but those that even talk about it are decidedly amongst the most competitive. If you're going to take it, you'll want to wait until after that real analysis course. It will also require you to study a good deal of abstract algebra. Abstract algebra and upper-division linear algebra are two other good math courses to choose from, if you have the time. Either way, most will tell you only take the subject test if you'll do very well (75 percentile or better). This might be very difficult with only one or two upper-division math courses under your belt, but you do have a good deal of time. Such programs give you a way to get a Master's degree should you choose to not finish your PhD., and they may give students accepted into the MS program (which usually has lower requirements, but less funding) a streamlined way to transition to PhD, should a well-performing student wish to do so. Some MS/PhD programs (like Cornell) don't directly admit Masters students and have a separate, professional Masters track. Many programs do award a terminal Masters even if they don't advertise themselves as "MS/PhD" on the departmental home page. I don't think this aspect drives systematic differences in admission rates; it's just what options you have available to you degree-wise. It's good to read the "fine print" on the departmental website, since they give a good deal of information about all aspects of the program.

I applied to 12 schools, which was a logistical nightmare, but I knew that I didn't want to wait around another year and apply again. I'm also a somewhat atypical applicant, since I'm depending on my work/research experience more than my academic record in my application. I was a math major, but never took stats/probability (unless you count Lebesgue Integration). I've been doing bioinformatics work of a statistical nature for the last two years at an academic institution Out of curiosity, did those of you applying to these same schools take the GRE Math Subject test? It's tough to find the time with a demanding full time job (and nearly 4 years since graduating), but I probably should have made the time. General GRE was no problem (although next year my score would have been too old!), and the vast majority of stats programs don't require the subject test, but I wonder how many do take it. With two acceptances, it's mostly water under the bridge, but if I took a masters program at a school I preferred, I may end up taking it later down the road. I consider many of those I haven't heard back from to be longshots, but there's probably one or two acceptances left, or at least an offer for the masters program. Maybe the style now is to send out more PhD. acceptances but with no funding. Washington sent out a strange pair of emails; the first saying they had no funding for anyone for 2010-2011, the second saying I was rejected. Not sure what that was about; trying to make me feel better? No word: Harvard Stat Johns Hopkins Biostat Berkeley Stat Michigan Stat Stanford Stat (M.S.) U. Florida Stat U. North Carolina Chapel Hill Stat U. Chicago Cornell Stat Accepted: Iowa State (funding, possible fellowship/comajor) Wisconsin-Madison (no funding) Rejected: U. Washington