omicrontrabb

Your career goals will greatly affect your choice of schools. You mentioned that you want to go into industry, but potentially get a PhD later. Take American University. They are not known for statistics or really STEM in general. I think it would be quite difficult to go from that program into a decent PhD program. However, I interned as a data scientist at one of the largest American manufacturing companies last summer and I had coworkers who earned stats masters degrees at American University. So I think you would be able to get a good job from any of those programs since they are well known universities and statisticians/data scientists are in high demand. However, I don't think getting a masters degree from those universities (with the exception of Rice) will help you get into a reputable stats PhD program. Almost everyone gets good grades in masters programs, so it can be hard to stand out. Many masters programs do not have much of a research focus. Some of the programs you listed, like SMU, are applied statistics degrees, which are not meant to be a stepping stone for a PhD. Some programs to have internal admit from MS to PhD, so look into that. Other notes: Georgetown does not have separate math and stats departments, so their master's degree seems to be more like applied math. Baylor says on their website that they primarily admit people to their PhD program.

I’m not familiar with all of those programs, but Columbia’s master of stats program is known for being a cash cow for the department. Many people on this forum have indicated that it does not result in the best learning experience.

I'm applying to biostatistics PhD this cycle and have been to several visit days. Very few of the accepted students I met had masters degrees. However, almost all of the students had bachelor's degrees in statistics, math or applied math. You mentioned that the statistics classes that you took at Columbia were for teachers and did not require much math as a prerequisite. I'm going to guess they were pretty applied courses and admissions committees don't seem to value those very much. For comparison, my stats classes in undergrad had Calc 3 and Linear Algebra as prerequisites. If you're currently enrolled in Calc 3 and Linear Algebra, there is no way you'll be admitted to biostatistics PhD programs. Every accepted student, plus tons of rejected ones, will have aced Calc 1 and 2. Having good grades in those is not enough to show admissions committees that you will succeed in mathematically rigorous statistics courses. I think having A's in linear algebra and calc 3 would make a difference. The math classes are prerequisites, but also a primary way of showing you are capable of succeeding in mathematically dense courses. If I were you, I would not go to a masters program and instead enroll in real analysis and a mathematical statistics course and also work on improving your quantitative GRE score. Then you should have a shot at biostatistics PhD programs at schools like VCU. I will add one more note, I'm assuming you're a domestic student. If you're international, it would be difficult to get into a biostatistics PhD program regardless of what you do, because the competition is very fierce.

UNC has a very good statistics department, but its strengths are on the probability/theoretical side of statistics. I’m not sure how connected UNC’s stats and biostats departments are. I know at many schools they are basically completely separate. Don’t obsess too much over the rankings. They do matter, but your advisor is probably the most important part. If you’re interested in pure statistics research and pursuing an academic career in statistics, don’t go to U Penn for biostats. Their department is decent, but you will have basically no shot at getting a tenure-track job in a good statistics department. Yes, U Penn sounds good because it is an Ivy League school, but those other programs you listed are stronger in statistics.

https://forum.thegradcafe.com/topic/116024-biostat-computational-math-statistics/?do=findComment&comment=1058665542

If you want to do bayesian statistics, you should definitely go to Duke for statistics. Multiple people on this forum have said that it is generally a bad idea to get PhDs in applied math/computational math/etc if you want to study statistics. UW has a great applied math department, but look at their research focuses and dissertation topics. They do not seem to have much focus on statistics.

My understanding is that overall Minnesota's biostatistics department is meaningfully better than Emory's. However, you shouldn't pick a program based only on rankings. Where do you want to work after graduation? It seems like most of Emory's MSPH grads stay in Atlanta or in the Southeastern US in general, while Minnesota grads seem to end up a bit more all over the US and are definitely over represented in Minneapolis based companies. Also, if you want to get a PhD eventually, you should focus on taking stat theory classes in your MS. PhD admission committees care far more about your ability to master math statistics than getting A's in very applied public health classes.

I was recently accepted to Cornell's statistics PhD program. The program is relatively small and seems mainly focused on machine-learning/high-dimensional data analysis. What is the overall reputation of the department? Do they have other areas of expertise? Are their graduates competitive for tenure-track jobs at decent stats departments?

Along the same lines as the original question, I'm interested in eventually getting a tenure track faculty position at a decent university. I've been admitted to a top tier biostat PhD program (U of Washington) and a decent stat PhD program (Ohio State). I don't have much of a preference between biostat and stat, but I don't solely want to do applied work. Is it better to go to UW since it's a more highly regarded department in general?

Yeah, they sent out Skype interview requests last week.

I don't think you need to get another masters. You should have a really solid chance to get into places like Minnesota, Wisconsin, Emory, which are very good schools. You should almost certainly get into Iowa, Pittsburgh, Boston or VCU, which are all still ranked top 20.

In general, biostatistics PhD programs don't really care about the math GRE subject test. They are also fairly lenient on math background, especially outside of Harvard/JHU/UW. I'm not exactly sure what advice to give you. Your undergraduate math grades are pretty mediocre. However, your graduate grades are very good and are more recent. Could you address why you got those grades in your personal statement perhaps? How are your regular GRE scores? Even without taking the math GRE, I would be very surprised if you were rejected from any schools like Boston, Iowa, Pittsburgh. You should still have a shot at schools like UNC, Minnesota, etc especially if your regular GRE scores are good. I'm pretty sure I can guess where you're going to school (not going to list it for your anonymity). I'm not entirely sure how much PhD programs look at unranked master's programs. Many people on this forum have said that masters from places like Harvard, Chicago, etc, can really boost your chances. I am sure that your good grades in graduate statistics classes will be a positive. I just don't know how that is compared to everything else.

You have a really solid application and your math background will help especially. Schools like Harvard are super hard for anyone to get into and they are basically enrolling 1 domestic student a year, so that's going to be hard. But you should have a real shot at everything else. I'd be pretty surprised if you didn't get into NCSU or UT Austin for stats or any of those biostats schools except for Berkeley. Can I ask why you picked those schools? Some of those are kind of strange picks. Johns Hopkins statistics program is combined with applied math, so it is very focused on optimization and other industrial/financial math topics. Berkeley does not have a biostatistics department. It's just a research group of people from other departments. They are well recognized for their work, but that is very different than the other programs in schools of public health. UT Houston and and MD Anderson are not well known for their work in biostatistics. You could definitely get into better recognized schools, unless you really want to live in Texas.

If you really want a two-year program, you could also consider a master's degree in statistics or applied statistics. You would definitely still be able to get data science jobs with that and there are more two-year options to consider.

My understanding is that almost none of the top masters in statistics and biostatistics are funded. Top statistics masters programs tend to be treated as cash cows by the departments. I think that many 3rd+ tier statistics masters are funded, for example: Kentucky, Florida, Villanova and other large public schools For biostats, Vanderbilt gives an 80% tuition waver, Michigan funds some of their students, Brown funds some as well. A lot of programs say that they fund "a limited number of masters students," so it's hard to guess which are most likely to fund you. You will be competitive for many of the biostatistics masters programs, but your GPA might be too low for top programs like UNC, Minnesota, Michigan.

You could consider NC State's MS in Analytics. You would almost certainly get in and a lot of their graduates work in consulting, with a median starting salary of about $100,000. https://analytics.ncsu.edu/ You should be competitive for all the places you're applying for and I think you'll get into at least some of them.

Undergraduate Institution: NC State Major//Minor: Statistics, Minors in Math, English, German Cumulative GPA: 4.00 Major GPA: 4.00 Student Type: Domestic White Male GRE General: Q: 168 (94 %tile) V: 168 (98 %tile) W: 4.5 (82 %tile) Classes: A+: Java, Intro to Advanced Math, Statistical Computing, Regression Analysis A: Calc 3, Intro to Stat, Linear Algebra, Survey Sampling, Experimental Design, Data Science, Operations Research A-: Differential Equations, Math Stat I, Math Stat II B: Real Analysis I (honors section if that counts for anything) In progress: Nonparametric Statistics, Applied Time Series, Real Analysis II Programming Experience: R, SAS Certified, SQL Research Experience: SIBS at Boston University, statistical genetics REU, functional data analysis research with professor at NC State Work Experience: Internship as Data Scientist at Boeing, applied statistics work for fundraising office at NC State Research Interests: Statistical genetics, machine learning, unsure Publications: None Letters of Recommendation: Strong letter from REU mentor, letter from advisor and letter from professor I did research with at NC State Schools: Statistics PhD: Carnegie Mellon, Ohio St, Penn St, NC State, Cornell, Minnesota Biostatistics PhD: Harvard, Washington, UNC, Boston U My concern: low grade in analysis, lack of other high level math courses