data_scrub

Will you be visiting Iowa State next week? If so I'll see you there! Also, I'll be visiting Purdue next Tuesday so DM me if you want to hear about that! I'm choosing between Iowa State, and Purdue, UIUC (and OSU) so it looks like we have a similar decision to make. I've found from visiting UIUC and OSU that visiting the department and getting a picture of how well I'd fit in means at least as much to me as rankings and reputation. So, I definitely recommend you visit both before deciding. In addition, you'll get a better idea of which faculty are currently doing research that is interesting to you. It may help to look at the department pages to get an idea of research areas for each professor, then look up their google scholar page to see if they have a track record of publishing in good journals (other people here can better speak to how to chose a research advisor). As far as what I personally have heard about each program, I've met some faculty members from Purdue who seem to do interesting research and who are generally friendly, but I've also met a couple folks who've recently dropped out of the program after quals or moved to another program. They do have a large group of researchers tackling computational stat problems, which probably fits in nicely with your interests. For Iowa State, I know two PhD's from there in my department who speak highly of the program, one who has had some success publishing papers in stat learning. I also know a couple professors from there who are involved in the stat education community. Their reputation is certainly better than Purdue, but I'm not sure if they can still claim to be on par with programs such as NC State (in the past they were considered pretty comparable). I would make sure to look at their stat learning faculty first, though! Feel free to reply or DM if you want to discuss further! Tough decision for me as well. Here's a recent thread from me if you haven't seen:

Thanks for your advice Bayesian ? After visiting UIUC I think I'm pretty sure I won't be headed to OSU... I really enjoyed the visit and definitely like I'd fit better in Illinois. Now to visit the other two in the next few weeks!

You're right about Nate's poster, Dr. Craigmile does do Spatial research. I'm mainly concerned that Dr. Calder is leaving OSU, as I was even more interested in her research and applications. You make a good point about visualization focused profs, as that's an interest of mine as well. I'll need to dive further into ISU's directory before the visit day. I'm not too concerned about living by a big city, as far as my hobbies go I'm more outdoor oriented ? That being said the music scene in Chicago is pretty good... Thanks for asking some good questions to follow up on!

As of yesterday I've heard back from all of the schools I applied to, and now I'm trying to decide where to go! I'm interested in doing research in Spatio-temporal stats as well as Bayesian stats (seems to be some amount of overlap between the two), so am looking into advisors with experience in those areas. I'm open to other research areas as well, as I'm sure my interests will change as I get more involved in the field. By the rankings Iowa State seems to have an edge over the others, but it seems like the research fit is still most important. I know Mark Kaiser is there, but not entirely sure who all in the department does Spatial/Bayes research. UIUC seems to have a few potential advisors I'd like to work with including Bo Li and Xiaofeng Shao. I have heard some negative past student perspectives from Purdue, but working with Vinayak Rao would be interesting considering my research interests are a near match and he recently finished a post-doc at Duke with Gelfand. As of now, I'm feeling best about Iowa State and UIUC. I'll be visiting all of these programs in the next few weeks, and would love to hear any opinions or advice on choosing between these schools. I would have TA funding at any of these programs. I've also been accepted to OSU, but after visiting I'm not so sure about the research fit (and personal fit, I'd much prefer to be in a smaller college town) as well as their relative lack of solid academic placements in recent years. Still, I really liked the people there as well as the other prospective students at the visit day!

Update from my last post - just heard from Purdue. Accepted with half time assistantship, should be an interesting offer. Good luck to anyone still waiting!

Can anyone who applied to Purdue's PhD program speak to the results posted earlier? I haven't heard anything yet from them but things aren't looking too great with the no TA acceptance and the accepted to Masters not PhD deal. @BL250604 I was at that visit as well if you end up wanting some information! A lot of people there (including myself) weren't 100% set on going there since visits are still going on for other schools, but I definitely have a better opinion of the program after visiting.

Rejection from CMU, email said to check website. No surprise after NCSU! Looks like a few others got the email. On the other hand who else will be at OSU this weekend?

Thanks roadrunner! I'll be at the visit day as well, seems like a very interesting program. I just read on CMU's website that there's about 10 people in each entering class, so I'm not too optimistic for my chances but still excited to hear back. Seems like they put out some acceptances around this time last year so hopefully we'll see soon.

Got rejected from NC State earlier... oof. That was my first choice by far so should make for a more interesting few months of deciding where to go ?

Congrats to whoever got accepted to CMU! Has anyone else heard from them today?

Last year today (Friday 26) NC state sent all the waitlists... but since their first round of acceptances was before the app deadline I'm holding out hope

Not yet! Think I remember their first acceptances were Feb 1st last year

I'm interested to hear more about this as well. OP, here are a couple threads where active forum members have mentioned UIUC's reputation (just use crtl + f)

Still waiting on NC state as well! Based on past years seems like there will be another round or two of acceptances before they start waitlisting, good luck to everyone else still waiting!

Heard about UIUC today as well!