Hanyuye

I have interviews and acceptances from michigan, cornell, nyu, osu, and uva. but i was waitlisted at ohio u. weird, huh?

sick brags all around in this thread

Thank you for your reply. I am really appreciated it.

I am going to take these two course this summer. I think they will help build my resume a lot.

There are some information I want to add. I will ask two stats professors from my current program and one biology professor who I have done research with to write me letters. I don't think the letters they write will be terrible. In addition, I am interested in going to industry (such as pharmacy or clinic companies) after finish PhD program (definitely not academia), do you have any suggestions of which schools I should definitely apply?

At last, since my GPA in undergraduate school is not high (although I do have good scores for math and math related courses) and I was Biology major, I am wondering how much the admission committee will take my master grades into account. Will getting a master degree help me a lot compared to students who are math majors coming from undergraduate school directly with high GPAs (such as 3.85+)?

Thank you in advance!!!

I would ask these professors after the spring semester, especially if you will have them again.

Oh really? One of their faculty members told me that they only accept the 2, sometimes 3, students per year. Quite conflicting information!

The difference with Yale is that, from what i understand, the program is really small and they only accept 2 (sometimes 3) students a year. So I think that even though they aren't top 20 nationally, it's still very competitive. On top of that, it seems that the applicant pool was also very competitive this year for phd programs.

I'm sorry. I think you've mostly missed the boat. There are a few schools that accept late applications, but at this point it would be for admission only (no funding). I know I finally made my decision to go for applied math (instead of pure) January 10th. By that time 80% of the deadlines had passed or were too close to make. It made me wish I had just written two statements of purpose back in October and applied to both types of programs and made my decision after applying. In your situation, I would start looking for any schools that do Spring admissions with funding.

Do you have a copy of http://www.ams.org/programs/ams-fellowships/asst.pdf ? That was the first resource I used in looking for schools whose deadlines hadn't passed. It looks like the University of Fairbanks may be accepting applications until 3/31 and University of Arkansas Fayette maybe goes until 3/15? If you look at the guide, be sure to skip all of the schools that have: "Master's Only: Yes" in the upper right hand corner. Be careful because some of the deadlines given are actually the later deadline for the master's program instead of the Ph.D.

All depends on ones major.

I read gradcafe, but I never posted. This is my first post.
I always see question with "what are my chances?" & most of these people have perfect GPA & GRE score.
So, when I was applying for graduate school, I was so worried.

I have a low GRE score, but I got accepted to all the grad schools that I applied!
I applied to UT Austin, Georgia tech, UF, & UCLA. They all accepted me.

So, I just want to let other people know that you have a chance & GRE is just one part of the application.

My major is engineering.
My GRE score is Verbal 147, Math 159, & Writing 4.0

A real analysis course is an important prerequisite for Statistics Phd.

I'll be applying next fall, so I'm just trying to get a feel for the types of students certain schools accept.

Please post your GPA, GRE scores, domestic or international, any other relevant info. Following this, please post the schools you initially applied to and then which schools you were accepted.... If you'd like, also share where you received offers for funding

Congratulations to both of you! I am thinking of applying for Biostatistics PhD programs in Fall 2013, and the schools you mentioned above are all in my list. Could you please tell me what kind of background you have, like GPA, GRE, having a master degree or not, so that I can have a better sense of positioning myself when I am applying this year.

Sorry I cannot help you make any decisions, but definitely your reply will help me a lot! Thank you!

I didn't even know Duke had a biostats program. Do you know how connected it is with the actual stats dept.? If you work with those professors, then it might be something to look into. That being said, I know UMN is ranked very well in biostats, but obviously the name isn't quite up to par with Duke overall.

I'm facing a similar problem. I've been admitted to my top two schools for a PhD in biostats: Harvard and UW-Seattle. But I too am facing the ranking crisis too because I'm international also (Chinese). While Washington is very good in biostats, it's obviously not the same name as Harvard in China. Though the research at UW fits me better overall. So I'm a bit stuck as far as choosing, not to mention possibly being swayed to other programs too because of the nice funding they've given me.

Actually I'm not much help. I'd be curious to hear other input about this issue!

Hi all! I am having a hard time choosing between two Master's programs, the MS biostats at Duke U School of Medicine and the MS biostats at U of Minnesota School of Public Health.

I know that UMN's biostats program has a high ranking (currently No.7 according to amstat) , very good faculty and good reputations within the field of biostats. The Duke Biostatistics Department is very very new, but the School of Medicine is very well-known. And Duke has an excellent Stats Department, so I believe that the new Duke Biostats Program should be good also.

Also, as I am an international student, the fame of the school is a quite important criterion for me becuase the employers from my country might not care about the quality of the program as much as the reputation of the school.

So, I am choosing between a program that has good reputation in the field of biostats, good student outcomes but not so well-known internationally, very cold weather VS. a program that is new, the student outcomes are currently unknown but the school is very well-known for both biomed and stats.

Any suggestions please?? Thank you very much!!!

i'm also in the club of sub 3.0 with a masters phd offers. i had a 2.97 in undergrad. i went back and did a masters with a near-perfect gpa. this cycle, i did extremely well getting offers from 3 top-10 departments.

getting into a masters program doesn't seem terribly difficult, if you are willing to pay. many masters programs are cash cows for their university. however, they also have the resources to make someone an attractive candidate. i found that i was able to get everything i needed, as long as i was willing to work for it. i put a lot of work into getting myself into the right classes and building relationships with faculty. the masters not only provided me with a chance to show i could do top level work, but also gave me some really excellent references and a lot of ideas that were the basis of my statement of purpose

BUMP!

Hoping someone would answer this. I'm applying for at least 10 schools myself.

If you take some graduate statistics classes the you can no doubt get the jobs the BioStat's get and more. From what I understand, BioMath has a stronger emphasis on the biological side than BioStat (which generally will focus on design and analysis of experiments).

So short answer - a lot.

These are really two quite different fields. Wiki says:

[biomathematics] aims at the mathematical representation, treatment and modeling of biological processes, using a variety of applied mathematical techniques and tools.

The science of biostatistics encompasses the design of biological experiments, especially in medicine and agriculture; the collection, summarization, and analysis of data from those experiments; and the interpretation of, and inference from, the results.

So, a biomathematician might be interested in deriving a set of differential equations describing how a particular protein transports ions across a cell membrane, while a biostatistician would develop and apply statistical techniques for establishing whether higher concentrations of that protein in (say) blood are associated with a disease.

Job prospects for biostat grads are good: they are employable in private industry (often pharmaceutical or medical device companies) or in the public sector (FDA, CDC, universities). Biostatisticians are involved with most post-Phase I clinical trials (and increasingly pre-clinical studies as well!), so there's a pretty big demand.

I don't know as much about biomath, but I get the impression that it's more of a "niche" area, where certain companies and research institutions have small groups working on the modeling of biological processes. Would be interested to hear from someone more familiar with the field.

Personally, I don't know much about CMU's program, but other programs have a tendency to vary about how they do their admissions. I know for a fact that at UCLA, for example, the committee may accept students into the MS program even though they applied to the PhD program because they need further training. I have also heard of other schools doing the same. You can still go into a PhD program with an MS; in fact many institutions accept a number of PhD students from their MS programs. And for Biostats, there are plenty of MS programs that will provide TA/RA positions that can cover the cost of tuition plus some $ on the side, and then you can save your guaranteed funding from a PhD program for your later years of education.

The competition to get accepted to a PhD program in Biostatistics also varies by institution, with higher caliber programs and more famous institutions receiving more applications. From my professors who have served on admissions committees, a strong math and applied background is important, but strong oral and written communication skills are crucial as well. You can definitely boost your chances of acceptance if you do well on the Verbal and Analytical Writing GRE and construct strong supporting essays for your application. Majoring in math is great and all, but not required.