orchidnora

Thanks for the info! @Geococcyx: I actually have not heard that, but that's interesting. Maybe they're simply trying to expand their program. @bayessays You're right, all of these schools are great. I'll visit to decide, as you suggest, since I like both Bayesian stuff and ML. @Stat PhD Now Postdoc Cool, I didn't know about social science applications and network/spatial data at UW. I have some interest in those topics, but not strong enough to justify going there specifically for it. ML research in general though is very important to me.

Hi, everyone. Does anybody have any information to compare these schools? I am very excited to have been accepted to these amazing schools and never expected I would have to make such a decision. Berkeley has been my top choice for a while for various reasons. But I want to be cautious and evaluate all my options carefully. I will definitely be visiting Duke and Berkeley to help decide, but I'm not sure if I want to attend UW. Any information about these schools (especially UW, since I'm less familiar with their program) would be helpful for me.

Thanks @Stat PhD Now Postdoc! That is very good advice and reassuring. About your last point, many of the professors I'm looking at have big research groups, so hopefully the other Ph.D. students and even postdocs would be available for a chat sometimes. How often would you meet with your advisor on average? I think I would be fine, as long as my advisor can meet (or Skype) about once every 1-2 weeks.

Hi, everyone. I'm supposed to be making lists of potential advisors at schools I'll be visiting. Some of the professors with whom I have the best research fit seem to be very busy people. Some have 10 or more students and postdocs. Does anybody have experience with or insights on working with very busy advisors? Thanks!

I think you should also post your budget, keeping in mind that some departments/advisors might provide you with a work computer or funding for one as well. One thing that's nice about Mac is that the hyperthreading can be easily exploited in R through the "parallel" package. Using the "parallel" package, you can easily speed up certain types/sections of code drastically. This is convenient if you plan on running your code locally. If you get into heavily computational work, then you will be probably be mostly working on HPC. In that case, the quality of your computer doesn't matter as much (a $500 laptop would suffice), as long as you can connect remotely to the HPC server. Connecting to the server is obviously easier through Unix, but there are programs you can download to access it through Windows too. Personally, I like working locally in RStudio as well as using HPC, so I did recently buy a nice ASUS laptop with Windows. I would have liked a Mac, but a Mac with similar specifications is far outside my budget.

Thanks to all for the insights! I never would have guessed that Michael Jordan DOESN'T come from a math/stats background. That really puts it into perspective for me. Since I am mostly interested in computational stats/ML, it makes sense more sense now that I've been drawn to these professors with strong ties to EE/CS. I've been looking at the journals potential advisors publish in, as well as the student job placement, and now I feel more confident about my choice of advisors.

I was also rejected from Stanford just now. But I'm not surprised (given my less than impressive math subject test score), nor am I disappointed (given that Berkeley was my top pick anyway)

Congrats to all who got accepted to Stanford! I still haven't heard anything from them. However, I woke up to an email this morning from UC Berkeley! I've been accepted!! I'm beyond ecstatic, considering that Berkeley was my top choice school.

I'm looking for potential Ph.D. advisors at various schools. However, some schools (like Duke) have many professors with joint appointments. These people are listed as professors of Statistics, but when I go to their websites, I discover that the Ph.D. was in a different field, such as Electrical Engineering, Machine Learning, or CS. Other than the actual degree, they appear to do statistical research that I'm interested in. Does it matter for statistics if I am advised by somebody with a Ph.D. that's technically in a different field? I would love to hear anybody's thoughts on this matter. Thanks!

I’ll be turning down NC State today because of my offer from Duke, so hopefully the spot will go towards one of ya’all on the waitlist. Good luck! Also congrats to everyone who was recently admitted to other schools!

Thank you!! I almost had a heart attack when I got an email from Duke, and I immediately assumed I was rejected (since it only said to check the application portal, plus I also thought they do interviews). But I guess this time they're only interviewing some applicants.

I literally just got emailed by Duke to check the application portal, and it was an acceptance letter from the department!!! I am beyond ecstatic, after checking my email almost constantly since last week. This is the first correspondence I've had from Duke (there was no request for an interview or anything like that).

I haven't been informed of a visit day yet. My hunch is that I was admitted earlier than some applicants, because of my fellowship nomination (I have to fill out an application for it that is due next week). In that case, maybe the other admits haven't even been decided or notified yet.

Thanks, @MathStat and @ducky500! For anyone wondering, I did email Texas A&M about my admissions. They confirmed that I am accepted and that I will receive TA/RA funding even if I'm not awarded the fellowship. I haven't heard anything yet about the Stats Ph.D. at UW and Duke. My application statuses are still just "submitted".

I submitted my application on December 14th, so definitely wayyyy before the deadline. I also read on their stats dept website that admissions are rolling, so maybe they haven't gotten to your app yet