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I wouldn't worry much about your low grades in general ed courses since they are less important. You have good math grades from a top school and if you can improve your GRE Q to 166+, you should be able to get into some top 20s. You may even have a shot at schools like Michigan/CMU/Duke. Admissions for biostatistics/OR is somewhat less competitive than statistics and I can see you get into really good biostat/OR programs. For example, Northwestern and Cornell have a very good OR program and I think you have good chances at those. Meanwhile, you could also consider top schools in Canada like Toronto and UBC.

Your mathematics and statistics background is lacking and I am guessing your undergrad institution is not super famous. With that said, I don't think you have a shot at the schools you listed. If I were you, I would first do a master's in statistics and take real analysis and mathematical statistics. If you do well in your master's, you probably have a shot at schools at the level of UGA/Michigan State.

Thank you so much for your advice. For anonymity reasons I won't say exactly which school I plan to attend but it is one of McGill, Waterloo and UBC.

It appears that the description of my last poll is misleading and the result may be biased, so I am reposting the last poll. I would like to hear about your opinions towards the above programs. If you were admitted to these programs, which one would you choose?

Thank you for everyone's response. I have no prior experience in machine learning but I am open to research areas I've not yet considered. It appears that ARWU places Waterloo ahead of UBC and McGill while QS statistics ranking places UBC and McGill ahead of Waterloo. Which ranking is a better proxy of the academic reputation?

Although I did causal inference research during my master's, I'm also open to other research areas. I have found areas such as functional data analysis and spatial data interesting. McGill's Biostatistics department seems to be pretty small and focused and I prefer larger departments with more research areas.

Seems that many people vote for UNC. Is it worth it to turn down a funded offer and accept UNC, which does not guarantee funding?

I am fortunate to have been admitted to the Statistics PhD program at UBC, Waterloo and Biostatistics PhD program at McGill, UNC (unfunded) and Florida and I am having a hard time making a decision, so I would like to seek out advice from you guys. It seems that the academic placements at UBC and UNC are very good, and McGill is a better research fit as they have a group of people doing cutting-edge research in causal inference. Florida is relatively new but there are a few faculties I would like to work with. Waterloo has a large statistics department with a focus on applied side. Obviously UNC has the best reputation but I don't think it sensible to pay for the tuition and living cost for 5 years.

Is anyone still waiting on UNC Biostatistics PhD? I emailed them on the 16th but still haven't received a reply.

I haven't heard anything yet but today I found that a new section 'NC Residency Checklist' was added to my portal.

I am also waiting on UNC Biostatistics. A few days ago they told me that all the remaining applications were on the waitlist. According to the result section, UNC probably hasn't sent out many rejections yet so there may be a large waitlist. I think the probability of getting off waitlist is low at this point.

Undergrad Institution: One of UBC, Toronto, Waterloo Major(s): Math/Statistics Minor(s): GPA: High 80s, 90+ in math/stat courses Type of Student: International Asian Male GRE General Test: Q: 170 (96%) V: 153 (60%) W: 3.5 (39%) GRE Subject Test in Mathematics: 870 (89%) TOEFL Score: Waived Grad Institution: Same school Concentration: Statistics GPA: ~90 Programs Applying: Statistics/Biostatistics PhD Research Experience: Part time RA with an assistant professor during undergrad. Graduate RA resulting in a master's thesis. Both related to causal inference. Paper submitted to Statistics in Medicine. Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Nothing major. Pertinent Activities or Jobs: TA for undergrad statistics courses Letters of Recommendation: One from my master's supervisor (associate prof), one from a senior prof who I took grad math stat with. One from an assistant prof whom I did my undergraduate research with. Math/Statistics Grades: Calculus 1-3 (A+;A+;A+). First year Algebra (A+). Linear Algebra 1-2 (A+;A+). ODE I (A+). Intro to Prob (A+). Intro to Statistics (A+). Real Analysis I (A-). Real Analysis II (A-). Measure Theory I (A+). Abstract Algebra (B+). Complex Analysis (A+). Mathematical Statistics I (A+). Mathematical Statistics || Casella & Berger (A+). Graduate Statistical Inference (A+). Applied Probability (A+). Stochastic Processes (A+). Applied Linear Models (A-). GLM (A). Time Series (A). Experimental Design I (A+). Experimental Design II (A+). Survival Analysis (A). Missing Data and Causal Inference (A+) Applying to Where: Biostatistics PhD: Pennsylvania - Rejected Michigan - Rejected UCLA - Rejected McGill - Accepted Minnesota - Rejected UNC - Waitlisted Florida - Pending Johns Hopkins - Rejected Berkeley - Rejected Statistics PhD: Wisconsin - Rejected Stanford - Rejected UBC - Accepted Penn State - Rejected UIUC - Rejected Toronto - Rejected Waterloo - Accepted Wharton - Rejected Some take-aways: The competition among international students has gotten very stiff in recent years. I got accepted into 3 Canadian schools I applied but got rejected across the board for US schools. I imagine that my Canadian background was looked upon favourably during admission at UBC/McGill/Waterloo. However, it appears that even for tie-2 schools like Penn State/UIUC/UCLA, the bar for international students to get in is still very high. This may have something to do with the current political climate in the US as many schools are restricting the number of international students that can enroll. With that said, there are some very strong programs in Canada or even Europe that you can consider. These programs have strong faculty members consistently publishing in top journals as well as solid placements records. If you look at UBC, the placement data indicate that over half of their graduates ended up with a faculty position, which is better than some of the tie-2 programs in the US. I encourage future applicants to look into Canadian schools as well. If you do well in these programs, you will be in a very good shape in academic market after graduation.

I am fortunate to have been admitted to UBC Statistics PhD and McGill Biostatistics PhD and I am having a hard time deciding between the two. So I would like to seek out advice from you guys. My goal is to attain a faculty position. It seems that 60% of graduates from UBC went into academia while McGill did not post their data. UBC has wider range of research than McGill but McGill is a better research fit as they have a group of people doing cutting-edge research in causal inference. Also, what tier of schools in the US would be comparable to the above two schools?

For Michigan Biostatistics, I randomly checked the Wolverine portal yesterday and and there was a 'view decision' link. I clicked into it and it said 'A decision has been made. Your program of application will inform you of the decision.' However, I haven't received an email yet. Since I haven't received an interview, does it mean I am rejected?

Has anyone heard back from Michigan biostatistics? I saw some rejections posted. Did UIUC interview international students who study in North America?

Do you know any international student who got accepted or rejected?

Has any international student heard back from UNC biostatistics PhD?

I have a friend who applied two years ago. He took many advanced math courses such as measure theory, functional analysis, graduate probability theory and did very well in them, but he had no statistics research experience. He applied to ~6 schools ranging from Chicago to UNC and ended up getting into nowhere.

I kinda have the similar question. I am from a Canadian school and we do percentage grading. So 85-89 is an A and anything >=90 is an A+. Do admissions committees really distinguish 85 and 99 or they don't care that much above when grades are above a certain threshold?

I would submit it to all schools if I were you. Since the majority of the test takers apply to math phd, 84th percentile is a very good score for statistics.

It was true for UBC and Toronto before but things changed last year. I have friends who got into Toronto, Waterloo and McGill. As far as I know, Toronto expanded their statistics PhD program and now international students pay the same amount of tuition as domestic students do. This means that the school does not need to pay as much to international students as before, so they are likely to admit much more international students. Waterloo has a large statistics PhD program and admits many international students.

If you have an exceptional application on everything else, i.e strong math background, publication, amazing letters, I think it is possible to get in with that score. However, I don't think submitting this score will help you, even at middle tier programs.

The schools you mentioned are very theoretical and admitted applicants usually have very high mGRE score. You can check the grad cafe results section to verify this. With that said, I think your score may be too low for schools like Chicago/Columbia and I wouldn't submit it if I were you. I think you need at least an 80% to be competitive in top programs.

The math GRE subject score is out. I got 870(89%), which is around the average of admitted students at Stanford. With that score, should I apply to more top schools that recommend the MGRE? Is my score good enough to submit to schools that don't require it?

Thank you for your input! I just noticed that from some schools' admissions webpage (Stanford, UNC) that admitted students had average GRE verbal in the 90th percentile, which struck me as odd. I know the GRE verbal is not very relevant but I am kinda worried about myself given the averages they listed. Should I retake the test in order not to get my application trashed in the first round? I also took the GRE math subject test last weekend and I felt that I did well with the possibility of getting over the 90th percentile. For schools that do not explicitly require the subject score, would submitting 90%+ score help my chances?