carolbells

@Sea Salt 
 Most people do 3+3 in Year 1 and 2+2 in year 2 (that's what I'm doing). There are several people who do something like 4+3 in year 1 and then 3 in the following Fall to graduate a semester early but this isn't very common 
I'm still debating on doing the practicum since there's lots of classes that I really want to take and doing a practicum would take time off of them. I think practicums are helpful when you don't have an internship lined up or something but if you do, I wouldn't stress about doing the practicum unless you really want to. Practicums are conducted within the university, I don't think you'd work with outside companies on it.
 

1) So far I've mostly taken classes required for all DATS students including Stats, Machine Learning, and Big Data Analytics. Electives so far include databases, forecasting analysis, and probability models in marketing. Classes have been online this school year. Since classes are recorded many people don't show for the live lectures but classes sizes highly depend on the classes you're taking. I say average is about 30-50. So far the most interesting class is Probability Models in Marketing - it's one of the most popular classes in Wharton and the professor is a really good orator. 
2) Depends on the particular class - the forecasting analysis class is in Wharton and pretty much everyone I knew who wanted to get into the class was able to get in. The probability models in marketing class is much harder to get into due to its popularity. They only allowed about 15 people outside of Wharton to get into the class. Usually it's not really a problem
3) There are company events that shared to all DATS students but from what I know, they aren't limited to only DATS students - anyone outside of the program can attend them as well. There's only about 50ish students in each year's cohort so we're a small bunch and it wouldn't make sense to only have programs for just us. There is the Data Science General Assembly, Wharton Analytics Fellows, Penn Data Science group, etc. that also allow students interested in DS to meet up. It's a bit hard to say how strong the community is due to the program being remote at the moment but I think it's pretty reasonable.
4) I personally got my internship on my own without anyone from Penn. I think most of my peers experienced the same. There are career fairs and stuff like that but ultimately the students are the ones who put in the effort to get the internships. I find that most of the companies at the career fairs are centered around the East Coast which I'm personally not interested in so I didn't pursue the pipelines that the school might have offered. Most of us found internships outside of Philly in places like Seattle, SF Bay Area, Boston, Chicago, etc.
5) I think everyone I know lives off campus - but usually only several blocks away. I don't know anyone who lives in Sansom place.
Hope this helps!
 

Yes I'm currently attending UPenn and I'm really enjoying it so far. I mainly chose UPenn over NYU because I wasn't a fan of night classes and like the flexibility of UPenn's program. I'm able to take classes in Wharton and count them towards my degree, for instance.
Despite UPenn being a newer program than NYU I found that all of my peers were able to get internships in data science, data engineering, ML engineering related roles for this summer, so employers definitely do not look down on it.
I didn't get accepted to Columbia's program but I would have chosen UPenn's program even if I had gotten in since Columbia's cohort size is quite big, only lasts 1.5 years, and most of their classes are at night.

I interviewed with them in early March and still haven't received any response yet. Not sure what to make of it.

About 2 hours ago

@indigo_squirrel_6 Depends on what you want to prioritize. If you want to graduate quickly with low tuition but potentially sacrifice getting a thorough data science education in multiple subjects, choose USF. Otherwise I'd choose NYU.

@hellobello April 4 for me. I'm most likely going to decline the offer so good luck!

Thanks, I’m glad to hear it. Good luck with the rest of your schools!

@hellobello @sotos 5 non-technical questions. You have two tries per question, so I wouldn't sweat it.

@Bulmicoa I'm not completely sure about who gets interviewed, but it looks like several others got an interview with Columbia about an hour ago. I haven't received anything myself.  ?
I read that there's some technical questions but I don't know the details

@S_Ashleigh Congrats on your acceptances! I didn't apply to Northwestern for personal reasons, but its program is quite strong. I would only choose Columbia because of its location in NYC but if that doesn't matter with you, Northwestern's a great program - class size of 40,  successful alums, etc.
edit: grammar

Accepted to University of Pennsylvania's MSE in Data Science program today