JS99

Undergrad Institution: Big State School Major(s): Math and Econ GPA: 3.9 Type of Student: Domestic, white man GRE General Test: Q: 168 V: 160 W: 4.5 GRE Subject Test in Mathematics: It was canceled for the pandemic, might’ve taken it but who knows Programs Applying: Statistics PhD Research Experience: Year-long research grant in econometrics, leading to a paper (not published) but presented at a conference at my uni Year-research assistantship, in the field of deep learning and NLP, paper to be published Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Nothing special, university-specific awards Letters of Recommendation: One letter from first research experience and another from the second research experience, last letter from a math professor that I had for many of my upper level math classes. Math classes: Calc III (A), Basic Concepts of Math (A), Real Analysis I and II (A), Linear Algebra (A), Differential Eqs (A) Stat classes: Probability theory I (A), Probability Theory II (A), Mathematical Statistics (A), Data Analysis and Stats Computing (A), Intro to Machine Learning (A) Misc classes: Mathematical Economics w/ Linear Algebra (A), Econometrics I and II (A), Python Programming (A), Data Science (A), Cloud Computing (A) Applying to Where (All Statistics PhD): University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Admitted University of Michigan-Ann Arbor Admitted University of Wisconsin-Madison Admitted Carnegie Mellon University Rejected Harvard University Rejected University of Chicago Rejected Columbia University Rejected University of Washington Rejected University of Toronto Rejected UCLA Rejected Rice University ~Ghosted~ UNC Chapel Hill ~Ghosted~ UPenn ~Ghosted~ Reflection/Advice: Very happy for the outcome but boy was it stressful. I probably could’ve skipped out on a few schools that weren’t as solid a fit but I was nervous re: covid so I just applied to a bunch. If you’re like me and prone to stress, my advice is to just not apply to grad schools during a pandemic! In all seriousness, I would recommend finding out how competitive your app might be from a trusted source (or this blog) as that is essential for your strategy of where to apply. Also, make sure you have enough time to apply, its extremely time-consuming.

Saw some recent rejections from Stats PhD at UPenn on the results page; also there were a few acceptances some time ago. I haven't received anything! Anyone else in the same boat/know whats going on?

Thanks for the feedback! I guess I didn't really make myself as clear as I should. I am mostly interested in high-dimensional inference and machine learning techniques as they apply to the social sciences. Right now I am working on a project that employs the word2vec technique on several financial documents. I am learning about neural networks and this is a great interest of mine; many of the economics programs unfortunately do not interest me very much. I'll check out some of the QMSS PhD programs, but I am particularly interested in statistics programs as they appear much more empirical.

Heyo yall, I'm currently applying to some PhD programs in stats and I'm trying to gauge how competitive I will be. Undergraduate Institution: R1 state school, top 100ish US News, not particularly well-known Major: Mathematics and Economics Minor: Data Science GPA: 4.00 Type of Student: Domestic white male (I am not straight tho I have absolutely no idea if I should include this on my app) Research Interest: Econometrics, applied statistics in social sciences, ML GRE Score: 168Q/160V/4.5, no math subject test cause it was canceled Math classes: Calc III (A), Basic Concepts in Math, an intro to proofs class (A), Real Analysis I and II (A), Linear Algebra (A) Stat classes: Probability theory I (A), Probability Theory II (A), Mathematical Statistics (A), Data Analysis and Stats Computing (A), Intro to Machine Learning (in progress) Misc classes: Mathematical Economics, basically a lot of linear algebra and its applications (A), Econometrics I and II, at the graduate level (A), Python Programming (A), more programming and data science courses (in progress) Research Experience: Year-long research grant in econometrics, leading to a paper (not published) but presented at a conference Currently a research assistant, using Python to do natural language processing in the social sciences, currently drafting a paper on Machine Learning techniques that coincide with this project Work Experience: Just some work as a data manager Sophomore year to pay some bills Awards: Dean's list all semesters 2nd prize for Econ paper in my department Letters: Currently deciding on three of the following, in order by how strong I think they'd be: Sociology professor who I am working with right now, publishes applied sociology papers Econ professor who I worked with on my econometrics paper, publishes applied econ papers Math professor in all of my proofs class including real analysis where I was one of the best students, does not publish anymore Math professor in prob theory II where I succeeded after going to office hours a lot, publishes stats papers Schools: University of North Carolina, University of Chicago, University of Washington, UPenn, Wisconsin-Madison, UCLA, University of Toronto, University of Michigan, Colombia, Carnegie Mellon, Penn State, Iowa State Any other school suggestions/letter suggestions or any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks yall