csheehan10

Undergrad Institution: Oxford Major(s): Economic Minor(s): Philosophy GPA: 1st class, the conversion calculator one place made me use said ~3.8 Type of Student: EU white male Masters Institution: St Andrews Major: Statistics GPA: Distinction, approx equivalent to 3.7 GRE General Test: 168Q 169V 5.0AW GRE Maths subject test: 750 (65% percentile, didn't send to most places) Programs Applying: Statistics PhD programmes Research Experience: Wrote my master's thesis on natural language processing. Applying to Where: Harvard - RejectedCarnegie Mellon - RejectedColumbia - Rejected Stanford - Rejected NYU Stern - Interview / Rejected Cornell - Accepted UPenn - Rejected UNC Chapel Hill - Accepted UW Madison - Waitlisted / Rejected UChicago - Rejected UMichigan - Accepted Yale - Waitlisted / Interview / Accepted / Attending! UWashington - Rejected UC Berkeley - Rejected

It will not reflect badly on you to turn down a masters programme. Many people cannot afford to undertake a masters, and admission committees know this.

I'm applying for stats phd programmes in the states. My undergrad was economics and I have a masters in stats (both in the UK). I sat the GRE general in June and got Q168, V169, AW5.0, which I am happy with and I am going to submit this everywhere. When I sat the subject test in september, I got 750 (65th percentile). I'm wondering if this is low is enough that submitting it will disadvantage me, and maybe if it would be better to just not disclose it, seeing as nowhere that I am applying to requires the subject test this year.

Are any other non-US applicants finding that there are no test centres in their country offering subject tests at all? What's the best thing to do about this?

Didn't see anyone posting about this on the GRE subforum so I thought I'd ask here - is anyone else having trouble booking the GRE maths subject test for September? When I search for test centres in the UK none are shown, which seems bizarre. I've tried multiple variations of search (by city, county, country etc) and none of them show anything.

As a follow up, how strict are the top programmes when it comes to GRE? I ended up getting 168 on the quant section, unsure if I should retake to try and get 170.

I'm planning to reapply to stats PhD programmes this autumn, to hopefully start in fall 2022. I'm sitting the GRE general from home next week, and I'm unsure as to how the free score reports right at the end of the exam works if I won't start my actual phd applications for a few months. Can I choose "Report score to University X" and the university will just keep a record of it for when I apply later in the year?

I don't see why you would reapply next year unless you decide not to do a masters at all and to apply straight for PhDs next year instead. UCLA, UMich and NYU are all great universities, so if you still want to do a masters and you can afford to then I'd say to accept one of those offers this year.

My undergrad is in economics, and I'm currently doing an MSc in statistics. My favourite classes have definitely been the theory based ones (measure theory, probability theory, functional analysis), and I think I would ideally like to do research in probability theory. I'm planning on applying to stats departments where there is a decent probability research group, but I'm wondering if it would also be worth applying to mathematics departments for universities without a stats department. Or is this just too long of a shot without a maths undergrad degree?

Unless you are very (VERY) wealthy already, definitely take Duke. Any potential benefits you might get at UW or Michigan vs Duke are almost certainly smaller than the cost of attendance.

@statsguy lol what sadist made you use SAS for all of undergrad, that's just cruel.

Yeah for sure, I had half-planned to wait a year anyway but then some programmes dropped the GRE requirement so I just did 5 reach applications but planning 20ish with some safeties next time.

Thanks for this. @vramando you mind me asking how you got research positions when you weren't in university?

Unfortunately I didn't get into any programmes this year (stats PhD). I'm definitely going to apply again next cycle, but I'm a bit unsure what to spend the year doing in the meanwhile. What's best to make myself competitive for next time round? I'm currently doing a master's in statistics so will still be doing that til the end of August but I don't have hard plans after that. Internships? Get a proper job and do that for the next 12 months? Just focus on improving my application full time? Obviously a research internship would be great but these aren't so easy to find.

One thing to take note of in comparing US and European programmes is the lack of coursework in European programmes - they generally expect everyone to have a master's already, so you go straight into research and most people finish in 3 or 4 years.

congrats to all the successful candidates! if any of them feel like sharing their profile here, do feel free!

I have not, sadly. Pretty resigned to working for a year and reapplying next cycle but it'd be nice if columbia at least hurried up.

Pretty sure he means stanford is a tier above everyone else for stats.

I'm not sure how useful this is for stats specifically, as several of these programmes lack independent statistics departments (MIT has Mathematics, or Operations Research, ETH has Mathematics, Cambridge has the department of Pure Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics) so a lot of these universities wouldn't suit someone who wanted to do statistics (esp applied statistics)

@Ryuk oh have you heard from columbia? I've just had radio silence since applying

oh fair, I don't know much about biostats, i was just thinking of pure stats.

Which ones do you mean by the top 3? Is there a definitive ranking for stats phd programmes?

Has anyone heard anything at all from Columbia stats?

Michigan is a great college, and given that you have funding there it seems like a no brainer to me.

Just wondering if people have any particular insight into how good this programme is. In particular I'm curious as to how being part of the business school affects it (as opposed to the graduate school of arts and sciences or similar like most universities).