Bayesian1701

I'm a third year stats PhD student. My advisor is retiring as soon as I graduate and I'm getting married in June 2021. My fiance doesn't have a lot of job prospects where I attend school. After discussions with my advisor we think it's possible I can graduate in four years even though my program requires 96 credit hours and the average graduation time is five years. It is not unprecedented to graduate in four years but it is rare. I have the advantage that I picked my area of specialization as an undergrad and knew what I wanted my dissertation to look like as a first year. I am not interested in academia, but I should still be able to have a handful of publications in applied stats journals, conference preceedings, and some publications in journals in my field of application. My goal is to become a statistical consultant working in the field of political science and public opinion. By the time I graduate I would have spent three years collaborating with a political science research group doing the exact same work I want to do post-graduation. My disseration would probably not win awards but would include multiple in depth projects presenting new methodological solutions to problems that are common. One thing that makes me a little hesitant is that I graduated undergrad a year early and would be 25 when I got my PhD if all goes according to plan. Graduating early is the best solution for my advisor who wants to retire soon and for my future husband's career. But what I am struggling with is if this is the best solution for me. Does a fifth year as a PhD student add future value for a career or would I be better off graduating early.

I am in this class with 8 other Ph.D. students ranging from 2nd (my year) to 4th years. It's supposed to be a one semester credit hour elective with rotating topics that is pass fail. The point of this is to widen our breadth of knowledge. The syllabus said we needed no background knowledge of the topic and the entire class was in that boat. It was taught by someone from another university none of us had ever had before. He was only on campus to teach the lectures, and we where given the assignments the day before he left. And while I started the homework as quickly as I could I couldn't complete it or ask questions before he left. So stopping by office hours to talk about the assignments is not an option. The syllabus mentioned 12 papers as references, but when the class started this snowballed to an entire textbook (designed for a three hour long semester course), and 5 separate book chapters plus the articles. In other versions of this course there was only a few homework questions, but in this class we had to due a long and theoretical homework assignment and a project that he anticipates taking us three whole days of work. He isn't responding to my emails and I can't go by to see him in person because he is thousands of miles away with a three hour time difference. I haven't found anyone that can figure the homework out and it's due on Tuesday which is also during our spring break. I've spent about probably 30 hours on it so far and now I am completely stuck and can't get any further until he responds. I've contacted the PhD program director and the associate head for teaching. I haven't heard back yet from anyone. And I am currently panicking that I will fail, and that I won't know how to finish the homework in time. And other students agree. Does anyone have any advice or can at least confirm this class is horrible. I'm hoping that either the PhD director or the associate head will step in and intervene but that might be a unreasonable expectation.

Besides linear algebra wouldn't some more math like real analysis and mathematical statistics (undergraduate level) also be helpful? Maybe not necessarily a class, but I think it would be challenging to have just the bare minimum prerequisites and not the optional "prerequisites" like real analysis and probability that would make first-year Ph.D. coursework so much easier.

In most cases, an applied masters program is not going to have any real theory courses. If you don’t take any theoretical stat courses in your program you aren’t going to look (or be) any more prepared for the harder theory PhD courses than you are now.

I’m not familiar with those programs but I can give you some generic advice. Things I considered: 1. Prestige: very similar for Iowa State / Purdue so you could ignore this 2. Degree requirements: length, qualifying/prelim process, required courses 3. Research Areas of faculty 4. Happiness factors including funding, location, weather, etc.

I don’t think Baylor has a MS program really, I was told when I visited last fall that it was there so you could leave with a masters. Another option may be Mizzou for a masters especially if you are interested in funding.

It looks like you have settled on UT but you are sort of asking for permission if that’s a good idea. I say if that’s what you want go for it.

If you think you want to go Bayesian/spatial then go with a place where you have good advisor options in those fields. You might change your mind but you don't want to put yourself in a position where you are struggling to find an advisor to match your interests. I would cross Ohio State off the list. At the end of the day, you can only choose one, and a good program overall may not be a good program for you.

I don't know anything about Biostat programs. Your stat list looks good assuming your biostat list isn't too ambitious.

What is your end goal? Do you want a Ph.D. in statistics or just an applied masters? An applied masters isn't going to help you get into a Ph.D. program. But if an applied masters is your end goal that sounds like a good plan.

I would go ahead and reject offers if you know you aren't interested. You can decide to wait until April 15th and that would be fine. However, I would send out an email asking about your waitlist status in early April. I was in a similar boat and I waited on Duke until late March and is what I would recommend you do unless you know you wouldn't take an offer from Duke. Duke is better than UT Austin, but you may not make it off the waitlist.

UT Austin is basically 100% Bayesian and very heavy on Bayesian nonparametrics. It's fantastic if that's what you want to do but not so much if you aren't sure if you want to go Bayesian. Austin is expensive, but the student usually get high paying tech internships (some in Austin). Texas A&M has a Bayesian lean but has plenty of classical statisticians. Texas A&M is also much larger than the other Texas programs.

I applied to stats programs but I have some visit/decision advice here.

I didn’t see a system that would have let me update fall grades when I applied. If they want it they will ask. Much to my surprise Duke did not ask me about my fall grades during my interview. They probably only care if you are a borderline interview/acceptance.

I would go ahead and apply for the REUs. I agree with the others that the CS courses aren’t that helpful unless you don’t have any experience and they are in languages you are likely to use. Now onto your second question. You will be judged a little harsher with a masters and the masters probably isn’t going to make you graduate with a PhD any faster. The exception is you do extremely well in a top masters program and get great research experience in your first year but that’s pretty rare. You don’t need any research experience so I wouldn’t worry about that. I would apply to PhD if that’s what you think you want. A lot of programs will consider you for a masters if you don’t get into the PhD program. You almost always have the option to drop out with a masters after a few years.

I think I have it figured out but it was an incredibly stressful time advisor searching for my research credit in the spring. If you are deadset on a particular area make that clear at your visits and interactions with faculty. That was one thing I didn’t do but I regret. Once you are accepted don’t be afraid to ask tough questions and know what you really want. I was way too shy.

I had a bad experience with VA Tech but you may not. I’ve written about it before but there completion rate is low (they admitted most people have to master out because they failed exams) and they do funding on a year by year basis. They said it was because they had to accept students who where really qualified and assured me I would be ok but I couldn’t take the chance of failing out when I had stable funding packages at places with higher completion and better placements.

Things may be different for you as an international student (who are usually held to a higher standard) but stochastic processes and graduate coursework aren’t necessary to get into a PhD program. They are helpful if you have them but not disqualifing if you don’t. Coming from a SLAC that is not good will probably hurt you more than no graduate courses. Where did you apply?

An A- at a top school should be more positive than negative. If it was B- then maybe you shouldn't report.

I just finished the first semester of my Ph.D. program. I have a very narrow research interest and had no great advisor options really anywhere I got in. I was in a similar spot and while I won't say what I chose in the end, I'll offer some advice on what to consider. I thought about everything: prestige, stipend livability, location, happiness, qualifying exam process, and required coursework. No one knows what the best decision for you is like you do and there really isn't a blanket answer for this. However, forging your own research path is hard. It was incredibly stressful to have two advisor options and one of them is only an ok fit. I considered transferring multiple times or dropping out entirely. I had the impression that I wouldn't be accepted if I was a bad fit, but I wonder if my research interests were not taken seriously. Not that I know of. if you have an area in mind you can look at profile evaluations people did in your area and look at where people suggested. Some users are much more knowledgable than others. More experienced users @Stat PhD Now Postdoc @bayessays know many niches, but other newer people like me know only certain niches (mine is Bayesian and southern programs).

Don't worry about it. It's super early. My guess is that OSU sorted applicants by GRE/GPA pulled out the best candidates to try to start recruiting top candidates before anyone heard back. I wouldn't be surprised if they aren't done admitting yet. I posted this last year with some timelines of places I applied to and my signature has all the dates I heard back which except Duke and Columbia and Baylor (edited) were the earliest reported dates on hear (unless someone backdated stuff in results without my knowledge): .

Just the professor in charge of all TAs.

As a part of my assistantship, I would in a tutoring center for a few hours a week. Most of my cohort does the same thing. Multiple people work at the same time, but some of my coworkers are regularly skipping or coming in extremely late (20 minutes out of two hours). When people don’t show up the students have to wait and they have gotten frustrated. It’s also caused me stress because I have to help more people than I would if my coworkers were actually there. I’m busy too as a fellow first year dealing with three difficult classes. I’m frustated but I don’t want to make them mad because they are in my cohort and I will be spending 4-6 years with these people. Any suggestions on how to deal with this? Should I keep quiet or is it time to contact the professor in charge after a week of 5 no shows and only 2 people out of 6 there for the first 20 minutes three days in a row.

Domestic Female students tend to have pretty good chances compared to other demographic groups, and your profile is definitely good enough to get into a Ph.D. program. I know Texas A&M has some machine learning people but that is probably a reach but if they do a free application again this year I would definitely apply because it's free and a good fit. I don't know much about which programs have professors in computational statistics / machine learning, but I am going to list some places that might be good starting points. UT Austin is going to be tough since their program is tiny. I would not recommend getting a masters if a Ph.D. is what you really want unless you have a way to fund it. The places that do funded masters are also places you could get into their Ph.D. program if they had one. Standalone master programs are also possibilities but they probably aren't going to help you much when you apply for Ph.D. programs. I think if you applied to 8-10 programs with most of them falling in the 20-50 range you will get an offer.

If you are applying for this admission cycle you can not get meaningful research experience in less than three months. Even if you apply for next year, I highly doubt you could get enough before you graduate to be competitive at a place like Stanford. Stanford is the #1 program in the US. A 4.0 and a 170 Math GRE with a perfect subject test isn't going to get you into Stanford. You have to have research experience on some level to be competitive in probably the top 10 programs.