Bayesian1701

I agree with the save up plan others suggested. I have a weird funding package and that is how I am going to fund my summers and my last four years. I vote for A as well, since the money is better, it's closer to home and you like the program better (or least that was my impression). Are you the kind of person that would take advantage of B’s town life? Because if that's not a big factor and the prestige isn't a big difference and you want small class sizes I think you should go with A.

Update: A condo on the market had its rent reduced and I ended up leasing it. It was in my budget, safe, and 1.5 miles to campus with a bus lane. It's next to an undergraduate heavy complex but I decided that is not a big deal. I would have done with student apartments if the condo didn't appear. For clarification, I would never live in traditional dorms as a grad student (I didn't even live in one for undergrad).

If you are going to visit a program far before results, ask yourself if you can handle a 6-month wait for results and a waitlist/rejection at your first choice. I visited Baylor in October, fell in love and then was waitlisted in March. It was extremely difficult to get waitlisted at a place I had already visited, picked out an apartments, and had potential advisors. I could have saved myself a lot of trouble by not visiting. Also keep you mind open and don't rank places you haven't visited or been accepted too. Chances are you won't get in everywhere so don't waste you time.

What’s your mathematical preparation outside of the standard prerequisites (calculus, linear algebra,!probability, math stat)? Ideally you would have multiple semesters of real analysis like @statscan9 said, plus some other proof based math courses. Hopefully, your Cs were in less important classes like differential equations. Similarly, what was your research experience like? Did you just apply packages or make your own? This might change based on your exact math grades but your list is likely aiming too high. I would definitely drop CMU from your list and probably Duke. CMU is crazy competitive (probably one of the most). Duke is a little easier since they are a little bigger and have fewer applications but I don’t think your application would stand out enough. Chicago is probably a reach as well. If your research interest is Bayesian statistics (guess based on the list) I would replace some of the reaches with Missouri, Baylor, and a few others in the bottom half or so of the US news rankings. I would categorize Ohio State, Texas A&M, Minnesota,nand UT Austin as reaches. Currently your list has a significant chance of not getting any offers, but this could be fixed by applying to much less top tier programs and more realistic ones.

Not awarded. G/G/G/G/E/VG. Senior undergrad. Got knocked for having a project that was too focused on a narrow application and not having any publications. I am applying as a undergraduate senior graduating early on an independent project so I don’t have any publications yet. I had two years basically and all I had was a submitted one. Also knocked because the plan wasn’t detailed enough. I guess I need to reapply as a second year for NSF GRFP and put in applications elsewhere as well for other fellowships. I guess I’ll be stuck teaching likely though for all five years. It’s not that my comments said I was stupid or not qualified but I feel like my two good/good reviewers didn’t get the point of my research. It is narrow and weird and occupies a tiny niche, but it is my niche. It’s my baby and I want to continue to watch it grow up. I guess they expected something more theoretical and typical instead. I have the nagging suspicion that they weren’t statisticians or maybe even mathematicians. Now to sign my apartment lease and commit to my chosen program.

Putting this altogether and estimating (just adding and subtracting based on already calculated distances) for years I haven’t counted, this is the longest wait time since 2009 (108 days). We are on day 109.

If it the release was Tuesday and maintenance is needed for a release, wouldn’t a notice likely be up right now?

The longer I wait the more and more I think about how awesome it would be to get it and how I would structure my project. Between last October and now I have figured out the exact methodology and a time frame to complete the subprojects. If you're going to crush my dreams NSF please do so soon so I can get my life back together and not waste my time on a project that is not going to happen.

The maintenance trend is pretty strong. It’s 1:30 EST so I don’t think they are going to put one up. Reading all the review information is making me feel a little bit better. I am a woman, no one in my department has ever won with only a handful for the university, and my subfield is stats which does get a lot of applicants. What might kill me for broader impacts is all I have done is ran a statistics blog for three years, and given an invited public talk about my research. My proposal does have great broader impacts so maybe that will help even it out. There is no way I am in Group 1, but I might be high enough in Group 2 to get pulled for an award. My odds are maybe 20-40%

@BL250604 reviving old threads is frowned upon. Usually, if people stay interested in the grad cafe they will post their results later.

Go with Pitt. It’s a PhD program, funded, and there are no guarantees that you will do better next year even with a masters. It’s very possible that even if you reapply, take the Math GRE and do well, and get a masters you won’t get a much better offer. And I don’t think it would come off well to reapply to Pitt after you rejected them. They’ll then know that they are your safety school and that you don’t really want to go there. If you hate Pitt leave with a masters and reapply later. I think reapplying is a stupid idea. It’s risky and expensive. It’s probably going to take an unfunded masters degree that will cost you tens of thousands of dollars, you would be delaying your entry to the workforce which again would result in lost money, and then spend $1000-2000 on applications. Four people are telling you that this reapplying is a terrible idea. Read the past profiles of international students who got into top programs. I think you will see that a masters, research experience, and a good math GRE score are not enough to guarantee a spot. But now you have a guaranteed spot at a top 40 program.

Look at the cost of attendance at all of these places because it’s an easy way to ballpark living expenses. Make sure you include the living expenses for the summer as well. Just subtract out your funding offers and see what they are. If you don’t have an assistantship and since I think you have to work on campus as an international student (definitely clarify this) you probably will not make enough money working to cover living expenses.

GRFP should be any day now. I am really hoping for Friday. We are at the longest processing time in three years and the 2017 is up. I would give it until next Tuesday or Friday (not the one in 2 days). I feel like if you had GRFP they would be willing to fund the other years just to attract you. Hopefully you’ll get it and funding to 1 because it sounds like the best fit for both of you. At 1 if you got a job outside of the department would you be able to afford it?

If they reuploaded the 2017 list with no maintenance does that mean that maintenance might not be necessary? It was taken down during a maintenance shutdown right, but it went back up without one. If I had to guess they take it down to make last’s years labeled as the contest year and not the “current year” freeing up the current year label for new results? I was it not called the current year in the award year drop down and only in the search feature.

Don’t accept an unfunded offer from UNC it’s a bad idea and I don’t think they have a lot of incentive to fund you later on. Maybe send one last email asking about funding and see what they tell you. Even if you get full funding later years at UNC (which may not even happen) paying for a year of UNC at approximately $55k with living expenses is a bad idea. Plus funding is going to give you teaching/research experience that you might not have otherwise.

Finally. I’m hoping for a maintenance notice in the next 24 hours.

Here is my interpretation of this data: I counted 254 STEM graduates. So maybe 400 eligible graduate students and maybe 500 undergrad seniors eligible (total guess based on 6000 STEM graduates in 2015 and not many people want to go to research programs), but not everyone applies so maybe like 900 applicants max, but since there were only 14,000 applicants for all of American I think not a lot of people apply that are eligible. I still am sticking by my original 140-160 estimate. I think there might be some growth in degrees and attrition making more first years than graduates, but some first and second years may have masters degrees or be international students. Does that estimate look right to other people?

I don't think so. Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands are about 1% of the total US population, so they should be around 1% of the total pool so approximately 130-160 applicants. This is a pretty imprecise estimate but I can't imagine that they would have more than 200 applicants which isn't much to get together.

Probably by tomorrow, but a maintenance notice might come on Thursday. Even if there is no maintenance shutdown, I think results will come out Friday. Past data suggests that maintenance usually happens but it could be different this year.

Also defeated. Dear NSF, I am can do real statistics with if I have data and I know that luck is not a real thing. Just let me know so I can stop working on getting ready for my proposal if I get rejected. I have a much better one now.

I am glad that the NSF doesn't know who I am and how currently superstitious and speculative I have been on here. I feel like they would reject me for being a bad scientist during my freakouts. Also we are at the longest processing time from deadline to release for the past 3 years. I guess the delays really slowed things down.

Here is the template I used to outline my budget and I use the EveryDollar app to keep track of expenses. I don't like using excel to keep track of what I am spending on a day to day basis but I love excel for figuring out how much I can afford to spend in a category.

I guess I am trying to avoid anywhere than had more than a few violent crimes (murder, rape, assault) or break-ins. I know the the alcohol crime is going to be underreported but if it is showing up anyway on the crime maps that's probably not a good sign. Finding safe places isn't really as much of a problem as finding quiet and affordable. My parents think I should avoid living with students at all costs, but they haven't been in college for 30 years and think living by sorority row is a great idea. I have ideas of student complexes that will be quiet but I wasn't sure if that was a bad idea. There are a some student complexes that are unfurnished, don't have fancy amenities, are in a residential neighborhood, and don't have anything bigger than a 2 bedroom which I think would probably be more chill places than a giant high rises with 4 bedroom apartments in the middle of the entertainment district. I was curious if the don't live with undergrads advice extended to location or was just for roommates.

How unlikely would it be to have resulfs later today? It would make sense that if there is no maintenance required that they would send it out during business hours right?

So it's probably going be Friday, but who else will irrationally check their email first thing tomorrow?