blehperson

I know this is similar to another thread, but I thought my situation was different enough to warrant another post. In the fall of my sophomore year I suffered a bad concussion during a sports game, and was out of school for a few weeks. In order to have time to recover, I withdrew from my course on Russian literature but stayed in my Electricity and Magnetism, Probability, and Abstract Algebra courses. I hadn't fully recovered, but I took my final exams as scheduled for these classes and did well, so my transcript says: A, A, A, WD, for this semester. However, due to chronic headaches as a result of the injury I took the following semester off in order to focus on recovery. The injury never really impacted my academic performance besides having to withdraw from the literature course (the following year I received an academic award for ranking in the top 10% of my class) and the headaches are gone now. Should I mention this in my application? If so, where should I include it (SOP, personal statement, or in an uploaded document)? Will the semester off and the WD negatively impact my application? Thanks in advance for your help.

Hi all, Would appreciate any feedback / School suggestions Undergrad Institution: Top 5 (According to US News) GPA: 3.87/4.00 Major GPA: 3.93/4.00 Major(s): Statistics and Mathematics Type of Student: Domestic White/ Asian Male GRE General Test: 162V, 168Q, 5.0 W (rip) Programs Applying: PhD in Statistics Research Experience:  1. Summer research program at a national lab (summer 2016). This was my introduction to statistics, coming from a physics background. No significant research accomplishment though. 2. Senior thesis on statistical inference for network models. I believe the result of this work is not yet publishable quality, but my advisor is happy and wants me to continue with the goal of publication. 3. Two course projects for graduate level courses. One manuscript on NLP research. 4. Economics research where I programmed and ran simulations. Nothing special came of this. Industry Experience: 1. Data scientist internship at a top tier tech company. I worked on some causal inference problems 2. Two other tech internships Teaching Experience: I was a TA for 4 semesters. I received 2 teaching awards. I also am a TA for a graduate level course on GLMs. Research Interests: Graphical and network modeling, high dimensional inference, theoretical machine learning Letters of Recommendation: Two strong letters from accomplished professors; one from a graduate level course, and one from my senior thesis. One letter from teaching faculty who taught intro stat courses Math and Stat and CS Courses: Real Analysis / Linear Algebra (A- /A) Abstract Algebra (A) Complex Analysis (A) Probability (A) Statistical Inference (A) Combinatorics (A) Stochastic Processes (A) Data Science (A) Dynamical Systems (A) Machine Learning (A) Quantum Mech. (A) Mechanics, Electromagnetism (A, A) Graduate Level Statistical Inference (A) Graduate Level GLMs (A-) Graduate Level Probability (A-) Graduate Level ML for Natural Language Processing (A-) Applying to Where: CMU, Washington, Columbia, UC berkeley, UChicago, Duke, Wharton, UToronto, Michigan, UCLA, Wisconsin Madison, Harvard Questions I have relatively weak research background, and did not take the Math GRE but I am aiming for top schools. Though I am passionate about research, it would be hard to turn down good job offers for a lower ranked school. Also I slipped up in some graduate level courses and got A-, which might look bad. I also slipped up during my freshman fall in real analysis and got a A- (but this was a long time ago). I think my main strength is that I will have accomplished researchers who supporting my application. My cumulative GPA is lower because I got B+/ Bs in some other courses like psychology and writing. Thanks!