skibum1981

me too. i feel strongly that they could have sent this email ages ago...

I'd def go to Princeton over MIT but not sure about the other two. Those are just for my interests however...

Arghghggh waste of a post in this thread. Start another thread.

Stanford. No question about it.

Fortunately I didn't receive that email, but I'd imagine at this point it's only a matter of time! Or maybe I'm on the waiting list? It's getting awfully close to 4/15...

-- Jr./Sr. Level course on Probability Theory -- Jr./Sr. Level course on something else from stats (regression, analysis of variance, time series, something like that) -- Real Analysis Also, make sure your linear algebra course was abstract and rigorous. The linear algebra that's taught along with differential equations in some schools, for example, doesn't count.

I can't speak for SAS and the others, but Matlab is such a joke to learn that if you spend more than 4 hours getting comfortable using it, something is wrong with you. This is provided you have any programming experience whatsoever. If you have no programming experience, then yes, spend some time on that. It'd be a good idea to take an intro CS course...

Yeah I also applied for PhD.... I'm gonna send you an email!

Yeah I haven't heard anything either. I'd imagine that either makes us rejected or WL.

At least the following: -- Probability Theory Course -- Stats Course (basic decision theory, parameter estimation, moment generating functions, sampling, etc.) -- A rigorous linear algebra course (at should get through SVD at the very minimum, and hopefully to some other factorizations like QR and Cholesky) -- Real Analysis with some basic topology mixed in (hopefully covering a touch of Lesbesgue integration if possible) Also, I'd learn a vector-based programming language (i.e., Matlab) and know generally how to program well, as well as learning some basic data structures and search algorithms, etc. Courses beyond the above that probably every PhD applicant has: -- Stochastic Processes -- One other stats class: Theoretical Stats (Decision and Estimation), Analysis of Variance, Time Series.

If you're paying either way, I'd do JHU b/c it's half off.

Quinn how exactly did you go about applying to those schools? Chicago aside, said schools are not very good in comparison to Berkeley, Stanford, Univ of Washington, Duke, etc... and if you were going to apply to an ivy, Cornell should have probably been it (or Harvard if you want to do biostats).

Call them.

I personally don't know enough about them to judge, but my guess would be Northwestern. Maybe check NRC rankings?

Depends on what your goals are, and also if you're able to get an adviser in the stats dept at Stanford... Did you apply to MS&E?

not usually

Columbia GSAS will send out decisions, but if you want to know your result right now, all you have to do is call: Dood Kalicharan Department Administrator Phone: 212.851.2130 Fax: 212.851.2164 Email: dk@stat.columbia.edu She'll ask you to send an email to verify you are who you say you are. Then she'll tell you the result.

Call them...

Whatever decision you make you'll have great options. But FYI, at least in EE and Statistics (my main two interests), Berkeley has a better reputation than Cal Tech.... so the "essence" argument doesn't quite convince me! But I'm not sure about your particular field so....

If you're foreign, I'm not sure, but you might not be able to work at some of the labs. Also, right by Cal Tech is NASA JPL.

Also, retaking the GRE would be stupid. That's not why you didn't get a spot.

Chances are slim you'll get off the MIT waitlist IMO. You should contact them directly and ask the following questions: 1) Intended class size? 2) Offers made? 3) Students on the waitlist? 4) Do they ever take students from the waitlist, and if so, how many? Even if the numbers look in your favor, it's a huge roll of the dice...

Call the dept. They'll tell you the decision...

This is the truth: No school cares about the standard GRE beyond getting scores that look questionable. What does "questionable" mean? Questionable means below 750 on quant, below 450 on verbal, and below a 4 on the analytical writing. The same is not true of the math subject test, but it's definitely true of the regular GRE. Don't believe me? I was an EECS undergrad, top of class, and got rejected from MIT EE with high GREs. My friend, ranked lower but still ranked high, who had a publication (I didn't), scored a 710 on the quantitative section, and got in. MIT's EE department accepts about 2% of its applicants...

Accepted: Cornell (wait on funding), Michigan Rejected: Berkeley, Brown (App Math), Columbia Waitlist: Duke, Washington Pending: Chicago, UCLA