notasworried

Wow, I'm a current student at Stanford (graduating after this quarter), and Stanford's Statistics Department is really one of the best in the nation. I'm kind of jealous, congrats! You can't really go wrong, although I might be a little biased towards Stanford... Let me know if you have any specific questions!

Also, does anyone know whether the two schools differ significantly in terms of academic placement? I know it depends a lot on your choice of adviser, but given that I don't even know what field I want to specialize in yet, it's hard for me to look at specific people. I know UNC has a lot of very famous people in Biostat, but I hear that Michigan has been placing a lot of people into academia lately because statistical genetics is such a rapidly growing field. I couldn't find a list of placements for either program online (I know Michigan sent us a flash drive with after-graduation placements included in it, but it only included placements for the Masters program for some reason).

I am very fortunate to hold offers from the PhD programs in both Michigan Biostatistics and UNC Biostatistics. Since I didn't apply to any of the other big names in Biostat (Harvard, JHU, Washington), I think this is the best outcome that I could have hoped for. The debate between UNC and Michigan seems to be one of the most popular in this forum, and there has been some discussion here: My situation is pretty similar, except that I was somehow accepted directly into the PhD program at Michigan. Both programs have offered me funding for 4-5 years, and I really have no location preference (maybe leaning slightly towards Michigan, since it would be nice to see snow again after living in California for so long). I also have no research preference at the moment. I like both theoretical statistics and more applied work, although I would prefer a program with a stronger theoretical background. My professors have told me that UNC will offer a more in-depth theoretical education, but that Michigan is much stronger in statistical genetics/genomics. I don't know if I want to work in genetics research yet, but a lot of people have told me that this is the direction that biostatistics research is heading, and a lot of new academic hires are being made in this field. I definitely want to go into academia, so taking up statistical genetics would be no issue for me if it helps me eventually become a tenure-track faculty member. I have less interest in clinical trials, although I really don't have a lot of experience in this field, so it could be very possible that I will really enjoy it (or it could be possible that I will not enjoy it at all). I would really like to start some discussion on the advantages and disadvantages of both programs here. If you have something to add, I would love to hear your input!

I see on the Results page that there has already been a round of acceptances and rejections for UCLA Statistics, and that the visit day for accepted students has already happened/will happen soon. I still haven't heard anything from them (except in early January when they emailed me asking which faculty members I would like to work with, which I think most people got). Should I assume that I have been waitlisted there? Or have they just not finished sending out all of their rejections yet?

Sorry to hijack this thread, but I have a small question about the UMich Biostat program that doesn't quite warrant its own thread. I see on the results page that some people were accepted to the fast-track MS/PhD and some were accepted directly into the PhD program (even if they didn't have a previous Masters degree). Does anyone know what exactly the difference is? Don't both cohorts have to pass the quals to advance to candidacy and take the same courses? Do PhD admits also get a Masters degree en route if they didn't have one before?

From my (limited) experience, undergraduate institution matters a lot more than I would have expected. I have a sub-3.5 GPA from Stanford (and my mathematical & computational science major GPA is even lower than that), which I thought would have put me out of the running for basically every program I applied to. So far, I am absolutely grateful to have been accepted to 5 schools (out of the 10 I applied to!), and I have not been rejected from any schools yet. I should make the disclaimer that I didn't apply for any of (what people usually consider to be) the top programs, since I assumed they wouldn't have even looked at my application due to my low GPA. However, I think I was accepted to some pretty fantastic programs. I'm actually really shocked right now, because I don't think there was anything really standout about my applications.

Sorry to derail the topic, but did anyone recently receive their funding decision for UNC Biostats? Did they increase their funding from previous years? I've read somewhere on this forum that it's usually 22k minus fees.

I applied for all PhD programs (because I am relatively sure that I want to stay in academia). I don't have enough money to pay for a Masters program, and even if I were accepted to Masters programs, my end goal would be a PhD anyway. Thankfully, it worked out for me.

Thanks for the words of encouragement! I was just recently accepted into a program that I didn't think I was competitive for in the slightest, so I guess I can finally stop worrying and checking the results section every 10 minutes now. Hope you have similar luck with your applications!

Hey guys. So I've applied for a few Statistics and Biostatistics programs this cycle, and I really should have asked this before I started my applications. I'm a senior at Stanford, with the unfortunate distinction of having a rather poor GPA (between 3.4 and 3.5). My major is Mathematical and Computational Science, and unfortunately, the cause of my low GPA is some poor grades in some important math courses (Bs in Modern Mathematics: Continuous Methods, basically multivariate analysis with other proof-based topics). I also received a few Bs in Statistics courses (such as Intro to Time Series and Bayesian Statistics). My core grades (Calculus and Linear Algebra) are at around the A- mark. I have done a bit of research, but nothing too substantial (I'm a lot more interested in theoretical statistics than applied). I decided that my grades were too poor to be competitive for top-ranked Statistics and Biostatistics programs, so I applied for schools in a range starting from just outside these programs (such as Wisconsin, Duke, etc.) to some lower ranked programs (30-50 in the US News rankings). I know its still a little early to hear back from the programs I applied to, but I am very worried since I haven't heard any news whatsoever about my applications. All the admissions statistics that I could dig up indicate that the average GPA of admitted students tends to hover at around the 3.9 mark, which I deviate very heavily from. I would really love to continue my graduate education in Statistics, and if I am rejected from every program that I apply to, is there anything I could do to make myself a more competitive candidate for next year's admissions cycle? Is applying to middle-tier Statistics graduate programs aiming too high for me? Does it matter to adcoms that I attended (what is usually considered to be) an upper-tier institution?