[2019 Applicant Profiles and Admission Results for Statistics/Biostatistics]

Undergrad Institution: Large public school (top 150).
Major(s): Math with concentration in stats
Minor(s):
GPA: 4.0/4.0

Type of Student: Domestic White Male

GRE General Test:
Q: 168 (94%)
V: 167 (98%)
W: 5.0 (92%)
GRE Subject Test in Mathematics:
Did not take
 

Programs Applying: Stats PhD and a few Biostats PhD

 

Research Experience: Senior capstone project in statistics adjacent part of game theory. No publications
Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Honors college, national merit scholar, grade related awards
Pertinent Activities or Jobs: Internship doing data science type work at insurance company

Letters of Recommendation: One from real analysis/diffeq professor, one from numerical analysis professor, one from stochastic processes professor. I think they were all fairly strong.

Math/Statistics Grades: 

Calc I/II/III(A+), Linear Algebra (A+), DiffEq (A) , Real Analysis I/II (A+/A), Abstract Algebra I (A+), Numerical Analysis (A+), Data Analysis (A), Probability (A+), Mathematical Stats (A), Stochastic Processes (A+) , Topology (A+), Complex Variables (A+), various CS/Econ classes

Applying to Where:
NC State- Stats PhD/ Waitlisted on 1/29/ Admitted on 4/6 /Declined
Wisconsin- Stats PhD/ Admitted on 2/22 / Declined
Texas A&M- Stats PhD/ Admitted on 1/23 / Attending
Minnesota - Stats PhD / Admitted on 2/11 / Declined
Iowa State - Stats PhD / Admitted on 3/6 / Declined
Florida - Stats PhD / Admitted on 1/24 / Declined
Emory - Biostats PhD / Rejected (possibly because one of my letters never got submitted here -- not sure)
UC Santa Cruz - Stats PhD / Admitted / Declined
Medical College of Wisconsin - Biostats PhD / Interview / Admitted / Declined

I was pretty surprised to get in everywhere to be honest, but obviously very happy. In hindsight, I would have added a few reaches and done a few less safeties. But going in, it's hard to know exactly where you stand especially with some variance involved with letters.

[Am I killing myself with potentially the wrong major? What do grad schools think about a degree from BC anyways?]

You may want to try mathematicsgre.com, as most pure math grad applicants go there to discuss.

I think that getting into any kind of decent math PhD program with 2.7 GPA will be extremely hard. The best chance would be to ace the GRE subject test (which may be hard if you aren't a good test taker), get much improved grades in the upper level math courses you take from now on, and possibly to do an MS first and get a good GPA there. 

That being said, you may want to reconsider. Grad level math courses are substantially harder than undergrad classes, and in many cases you will also have to juggle other responsibilities such as TA and research. In general, grad school is not known to be good for your mental health. Of course, that's not to say that you couldn't do it, it's just that you should prepare yourself for what you are getting yourself into.

If you like teaching and want to do something math related, one other option to consider might be teaching middle/high school math.

[Do I need to retake the GRE?]

You'll be fine. The GRE is, from what I understand, more of a filtering criteria than something that they actually care about. 166Q is certainly more than high enough to not be filtered out by anyone.

[Fall 2019 Statistics Applicant Thread]

Has anyone heard anything from Wisconsin yet?

[Fall 2019 Statistics Applicant Thread]

I also got waitlisted from NC State. They say they got over 500 applicants, so I'm not super optimistic.

[Fall 2019 Statistics Applicant Thread]

I got a similar email about an A&M merit fellowship. But no word on admission either haha.

[Fall 2019 Stats PhD Profile Evaluation]

1 hour ago, Stat PhD Now Postdoc said:

I think you have a good shot at getting into University of Florida, and you would also be able to get into schools like Michigan State and Virginia Tech if you applied to them.

Is there a reason why your letters of recommendation are only going to be "okay" but not "amazing"? If you can secure strong letters, your application may very well be in the discussion for a school like Texas A&M. Also, if your interest is in applied Bayesian statistics, perhaps you should also think of applying to some more Biostatistics programs besides Emory. I think you could do well in Biostat. Just a thought.

Thanks for the advice! I think I will try to add a few more biostats programs in.

The reason I don't think my letters will be very good is that I decided to pursue grad school relatively late in the game. So for example, I don't have anyone I've done research with or taken a grad class from.

My plan is one from real analysis prof who knows me decently well (I took 3 classes from him). At a minimum, I think he can confirm that I can handle the abstract math necessary. He was also the one who first suggested that I look at phd programs. One from stats prof who knows me well (but again, didn't do research with). One from numerical analysis prof who doesn't know me that well but I wanted someone to talk about computing/applied math/linear algebra ability.

Obviously not ideal. But maybe not as weak as I think? Not sure.

[Fall 2019 Stats PhD Profile Evaluation]

Undergrad Institution: Top 150, large state school

GPA: 4.0

Major(s):  Math/Stats

Type of Student: Domestic White Male
GRE General Test: 167V + 168Q, ?W

Programs Applying: PhD in Statistics

Research Experience: 

1.    Internship doing data analysis/data science type work at an insurance company

2.    Doing senior thesis/project on a problem in game theory (that is fairly stats adjacent).

3.   Various personal projects involving data analysis, visualization, model design, etc.

Research Interests: Applied statistics (especially to economics and social sciences), statistical computing, bayesian stats

Teaching: A little bit of experience tutoring/coaching before undergrad

Letters of Recommendation: Will be ok but not amazing. Probably mostly of the 'did well in class' variety since I didn't do research with any of them.

Math and Stat Courses:

Calc I/II/III(A+)

Linear Algebra (A+)

DiffEq (A)

Real Analysis I/II (A+/A)

Abstract Algebra I (A+)

Numerical Analysis (A+)

Data Analysis (A)

Probability (A+)

Mathematical Stats (A)

Stochastic Processes (A+)

 Various CS/Econ/Business classes

In progress/will take

Topology

Complex Analysis

Statistical Learning

Applied Linear Models

Applying to Where: 

Wisconsin, NC State (probably have no chance for these but yolo)

Iowa State, Minnesota, Texas A&M, Emory(Biostats)

Colorado State, Florida, 2+ yet to be determined lower ranked schools

Questions

Not really sure how good my application is. I know that my less known undergrad and relatively weak letters are a problem. I think the rest of it is decent though? But I'm not sure where that puts me. Do you think I have a chance at the middle tier schools or should I be aiming lower?

Also what would be some good safety schools?

Thanks!