roguexgirl

Sure, here they are: http://econ.duke.edu/uploads/assets/2009ApartmentSurvey.pdf http://studentaffairs.duke.edu/sites/default/files/2008%20Apartment%20Complex%20Report_2.pdf

Hi all, I'm going to Duke this fall and am currently looking at apartments. Me and my friend are going to share an apartment, we're currently looking at the Georgetown by Trinity, at 1000 Duke Street. It seems like it'll be a 10-minute walk to a bus top then i can take the East-West shuttle to get to my building. Does anyone have any opinions about this area? I read the housing report on it, but it was based on only 6 residents and I'd like to hear more if possible. Neither of us have a car, so I'm really looking at closeby places where we can take the bus. I'm mainly concerned about safety - I know it's been said that Durham can be a bit shady, but I just wonder... how shady is shady? Can I still walk from the bus stop home safely if it's not dark yet? Thanks a ton for any suggestion/ help!

Dear all, Thank you sooooo much for all the input, I really appreciate it, as well as all the valuable comments/ recommendations/ advice around this forum. You guys are awesome :-).

Hi all, After the dreadful months of applying/ waiting, the downs of rejections and the ups of acceptances,I've come down to a few schools to pick from: Ohio State, Boston University, and Duke. All are for PhD in Statistics. I've been to BU and Duke for visits. I couldn't attend the Visit Day for OSU but I was in a mini research program there two years ago, so at least I have an idea about the area/ school. I'm not sure whether I'd want to go for academia or industry after graduation yet. Here are my thoughts: Duke: Pretty much what everyone has been telling me to pick. Ranking-wise, it's the best. They give me a very decent financial package, with a semester without responsibilities. My strongest impression during my interview day was that they're very into themselves, and into Bayesian Statistics. This seems to be one of the "negatives" when I hear people talk about Duke, but somehow I wasn't bothered by this. I had a great interview day, enjoyed many of the conversations with the faculty, and there are at least 2-3 faculty there whose research areas I'm interested in. I also like the fact that most students there graduate after an average of four years. My main concern is, should I be worried about this the Bayesian extremity? Will this, in any way, later make it harder for job placement? Ohio State: Again, I couldn't come down for the visit day. Good thing about the dept; quite large, so there will be several choices regarding research areas. I've talked via phone with a few professors there and I enjoyed the vibe I got from it - not necessarily about their own research areas. I've also received the First year fellowship, so that'd be one full year without responsibilities - quite nice. However, a couple people have mentioned to me that as a state school, maybe the funding will not be as stable? I never thought of this before, but I might as well throw it out there to think about. Boston University: I talked to about 5 professors and 2 students there. The visit day was just for me, and I wasn't able to talk to as many prof3essors as I had hoped. I'm very very interested in the work of one professor there, but that's the only one (from the 5 I talked with that day). Pros: Right in Boston, which is my favorite city ever. Close to many other institutions. They also mention a lot about interdisciplinary, and it seems so from all the website digging, but I didn't quite feel as strong about that as what I felt during the Duke visit. Cons: Lowest of all the ranking. They offer me a slightly higher (20% higher compared to Duke) but then of course it's more expensive to live in Boston. I'm not sure whether the fact that there's no separate Math & Stat depts should be considered a pro or a con. So for now, I'm slightly leaning more towards Duke because of the higher ranking, great impression from interview days and decent stipend package. I'd really appreciate if you have any other things to chip in. Are there any other great things about OSU/ BU that I missed? Are job placements for one institution significantly better than others? Does anyone know about academia placements for these three? Thank you a lot!

Did everyone hear back from Columbia and/or UC davis already?

Hi Choctick, I sent my rec letters via postal mail. Two were received, one was lost. Lisa contacted me asking for it - I asked my rec letter provider to re-send the letter via email and re-mail the form via postal mail. I also asked another person to do the same thing just in case. The next day my app showed "Letter received, waiting for form in postal mail" - somewhere along those lines. And my guess would be the same as others, that you are waitlisted.

Rejected by CMU. CMU, you've no idea what you've missed out .

Got my first definite rejection from UW. I'm dealing with it much better than I thought. it's kind of a relief actually :-). Good luck to all!

sisyphus, did you receive an email about being on the wait list? Thanks! I never got any notification from UW (and I checked the spam folder too), nothing on the app website... and I guess UW is done with their wave of acceptance.. :|

Oh count me in. I've been obsessively refreshing the gradcafe result page and my email.... :|

I checked and it says "In Review", which is why I was confused. At least it's something :-), and the professor I talked to also mentioned TA-ship, so it's hopeful. I hope you get funding, OSU student :-).

OSU called and told me they nominated me for a fellowship, and also invited for a campus visit... but never mentioned an acceptance . And now with quite a few more UW acceptances I'm getting slightly more nervous. I guess I just need one '"yes" from somewhere, anywhere to calm down and patiently wait lol.

I didn't mean to say that Harvard is the most/ only hard program to get in - I typed this post around 2 in the morning and was ready to hit the bed :-). I said that because I've heard several students saying that Harvard is hard to get in both in general and especially for international students. I also consider several other schools on my list to be long-shots: Berkeley, Chicago, JHU for Biostat, etc. I'm slightly afraid that I have too many reach schools in my list, but I figure it's worth a try. Cheers,

Thanks a lot cyberwulf & sisyphus1! @sisyphus1: Thanks for the suggestion! I've applied to most of them already, have a couple more with deadlines in January that I'll work on over the break. Good luck to both of us :-)!

Hi all, If anyone could chip in school suggestions/ advice/ profile evaluation for me, I'd really appreciate it! Undergrad institution: Small Liberal art college, top 35 US News I think. Major: Mathematics Minor: Economics GPA: 3.88 overall, 3.92 for major. Currently in an Applied Math Master's program at a large public university, very small program though. GPA: 3.914. Type of student: International GRE: 156 Verbal, 168 Quant, 5.0 Writing. No GRE Subject. LoR: all 3 from professors, 1 from an undergrad professors, 2 from graduate courses. One of 3 comes from a statistics professor. Program applying: Statistics, Biostatistics, PhD. Interests: Applied Statistics esp in health research & education research. Interested in an academic career. Coursework: Math: Calc I - III, DiffeQ (ordinary & partial), Linear Algebra, Real & Complex Analysis, Abstract Algebra, Math Finance, Numerical Analysis, Numerical solutions to PDEs. Statistics: Probability, Mathematical Statistics I & II, Regression Analysis, Stat Computing, Mixed Model & Longitudinal data (Spring 2013), Time Series (Spring 2013). Research: - REU in Applied Math, Brown University - Group Projects for Master's programs, one is about Power Grid Dynamics, the other one about Molecular Dynamics. Work experience: - Tutor/ Grader/ TA since 1st year in college. - Currently lead discussion for an Intro to Statistics course. List of schools so far (in no order): Harvard (very long shot I know), Berkeley, University of Washington Seattle, Duke, Ohio State, Carnegie Mellon, University of Chicago, John Hopkins, Columbia, Boston U, UC Davis. Main concern: Not much research experience in Statistics. I performed statistical analysis in all of my projects, but that's about it, no specific Statistics projects/ research so far. Also will a change from Applied Math to Statistics too much of a change in the route? Will schools think that I'm not focused? Also, do I really need to go into specific areas of interests in the SoP? Like missing data, MCMC, etc? To be honest, I don't have a clear idea about such specific things yet so I'm slightly worried. Any comments are welcome. Thanks a lot!