MathStat

I am also starting to discover the connections between probability -> statistical physics -> spin model -> quantum field theory (arrows not necessarily in that order:P). Chatterjee at Stanford is more of a mathematician in my eyes, not really a statistician. But yes, interesting to think of the side of stat that comes from physics. And be able to use it to approach ML from a different perspective.

Basically the title. I know many prestigious finance firms ask for GPA, including major GPA, and sometimes transcripts, even for PhD students. Is that also true for tech companies? Especially for, say, competitive roles such as Google or FB data science? I know many people say grades do not matter anymore after you have passed your qualifying exams and advanced to candidacy, but I would like to double check this, perhaps with people here who have actually been through the process of industry job applications. As a UChicago student, you can all understand why I am asking this 😅.

oh wow....having your writers customize letters would be a deal breaker for them probably... Mine just sent the same letter everywhere. I sent them the request links all at once, so it only took them like 30 min to finish the whole process.

If you have no promises of acceptances (such as, for instance, at your alma mater; some people are lucky and they know their PI can take them on for PhD), I would apply to as many schools as you can afford. I applied to 20 which was overkill, but then again, I had no guarantees of acceptances, and was scared by an example of one guy here with a similar profile to mine who applied to 15+ and got into nowhere. I heard postdocs apply to 60+ positions, so we probably shouldn't complain about sending many Phd applications (besides I have a feeling nobody reads the SOP, they just l

Congrats @Bayequentist! I really wish I took the extra EE/CS classes in my first year (or self studied them, when they overlapped with the core statistics classes...), but I did not manage to achieve this, haha

I just finished the notorious first year of coursework plus preliminary exams at the UChicago Statistics PhD program. Happy to report that I am still alive, and dare I say, excited to move on to research, despite the new set of struggles and uncertainties that will come hand in hand. I do face the following issue now, which seems to be pretty common within US Statistics PhD programs - I recall, for instance, this very heated discussion from a few weeks ago, which did resonate with me a lot: https://forum.thegradcafe.com/topic/125581-school-suggestions/?tab=comments#comment-1058776870. Sim

Great response by @Stat Assistant Professor. Casella Berger is already assumed knowledge for some top programs. But if you are admitted based on your pure math background (like yours truly) you likely won't have even cracked open Casella Berger or have taken a proper mathematical statistics course before coming in. However (and I hope this is not too strong of an opinion), Casella Berger presents math stat in a really outdated way. More modern and useful texts nowadays are from Van der Vaart, Lehmann and Casella, Iain Johnstone's Gaussian sequence model book, etc.. IMO Stanford does thei

I could definitely see you get into either duke math or stat phd with your profile. I'd apply to duke math if I were you (several profs in the duke math department have cross appointments with stat, eecs, etc.; many of them do great ML research; the department is also extremely supportive; the math phd cohorts are a little smaller than the stats ones; however the stat program is also great). And I agree with @StatsG0d, your lists are somewhat bottom heavy.

i've seen many schools waived their Math gre requirement on their website.

First of all don't feel bad about a bad start, it happens. I have gotten to learn many stories of famous statisticians who partied in undergrad then discovered their math/stat passion and made it to top programs and very successful careers later on. From my experience with Stat PhD admissions, a sure-fire way to earn the admission committee's respect is to get As in grad level math classes, particularly in analysis and probability (which build the foundation of statistics). If I were you, I'd work my way up by taking the honors analysis classes offered at your school, then measure theory

@cyberwulf I know someone who *submitted* a paper to one of the top 2 stat journals (Annals/JASA) (so not published but still extremely impressive). However, I assume it would be hard to have an actual publication before applying to the PhD since that would mean you would need to submit at least very early in your junior year (assuming you apply straight out of undergrad), which means you need to start the research at least sometime in your sophomore year. ---- Btw, how long does the review process for Annals of JASA take usually?

Yeah your grades would matter a lot. Definitely for US PhD applications, as they care a lot about your ability to handle grad level courses, just like they care when you apply as an undergrad (you're essentially starting over your application progress, that's how "transferring" in the US works). For Europe PhDs I don't know for sure, but I am somewhat familiar with the UK system (applied there for both undergrad and grad but chose the US both times) and the UK is very grade-centric, they seem to value grades more than research/letters.

I don't want to be excessively nosy, but can't help and wonder: did the above-mentioned person do her Phd at Stanford or Berkeley or somewhere else? And yes, of course this is an amazing profile: http://web.stanford.edu/~songmei/. He was also one of the top picks for new faculty asst. profs. at UChicago.

Going back to the teaching positions question, what would it take to obtain a tenure-track teaching position at a top and very desirable LAC (such as, say, Pomona College) in terms of research/publications, assuming that you go to a top 10 program and can build a strong teaching portfolio? Would the above publication guidelines detailed by @Stat Assistant Professor (i.e. at least 2 papers in Annals/JASA, 6ish papers total, etc) still hold true? Also, would you still need a superstar advisor, or would it be ok to work with a very young advisor (who could become well known in a few years)?

I agree, nobody cares but Stanford. Not even Chicago, Berkeley, UW, Columbia etc etc. Although as a funny story, one of the Duke stat faculty told me they like to see the score if you wanna do research in math stat. Duke also used to say on their website not to bother with sending the scores as they won't look at them. Gotta love academia