eternalmorning

I am a graduate student in biostatistics currently on a leave of absence. My research interest lies in applied (or computational) fields of statistics. I am also interested in Big Data, even though I do not clearly understand what it *actually* means and how it is different from current statistical methodologies. Since I haven't decided my dissertation field yet, I am thinking of making my mathematical and computational background solid. The followings are what I have been doing these days: -self-studying measure theoretic probability -learning C (I know R and Python already but want to add one more) -watching European soccer I need some advice on the effectiveness of doing those. I am not sure if it is superior to reading current papers in the fields I am interested in. I don't think I am doing completely silly things, but I would like to know if learning the lower-level programming language or theoretical probability would be beneficial considering that I am leaned to the applied fields. Any advice or recommendation will be appreciated. Thanks!

I am currently on a waitlist and I haven't heard anything back from the program. Is it possible (and common) that I will not know the result by April 15? The problem is that I already have an admission offer from another university and I need to respond by 15. I hope to get the waitlist result before I make a final decision. Do you guys know anything regarding the waitlist process?

I also heard that some of the renowned researchers in UMN are going to retire soon. I think UMN is still a good option though, and the academic placement rate (1/4) seems okay in the field of statistics.

Did anyone get a rejection from Penn State statistics? I know there are a few accepted people, but I have not heard back from Penn State yet.

I think it will be enough to "survive". It would not be enough for having a "nice" life though.

cyberwulf, I did not get clearly what you mean by "denominator". Suppose there are 10 on the waitlist and 7 of them took offers elsewhere. Then do you mean your department accepts the rest 3 on the waitlist?

I haven't got rejected by NW "yet", but I am 99% sure I will be rejected eventually because it seems like all the admission offers have been made last week.

Looking at GC posts, I think there are unreasonably many international students who applied to Wisconsin. wow.

I didn't. I saw a post that someone got an interview offer, and I thought it is weird since I haven't seen any interview offers from UC Davis in the past years.

As far as I know, Yale also requires GRE Subject Math..

I think there are two fake postings in GC. There is one who was accepted today from UW and JHU (biostat), but that guy said he (she) got the results by postal mail. This cannot be true because UW has not given out results by postal mail.

I think C+ in Real Analysis is bad and it will seriously lower your chances of admission if you applied to PhD programs in statistics/biostatistics.

Thanks, I feel a bit relieved by your comments.

I submitted my applications to two programs a few hours ago. I think my SOP was not bad, but I found that there is a serious typo (I used adj instead of noun). Do you think the adcoms will seriously care about it? (i.e. can it be 'another' excuse for rejecting me?) I am really nervous right now, but I want to be realistic. Did anyone have a similar case to mine?

cyberwulf and yipoklemot, thank you for your comments. For biostats program, I heard that international applicants hardly get funding at UNC or Michigan, so I am a bit worried. Do you know any information about it? Also, I was thinking about adding one more stats program. Do you have any recommendation that has a reasonable chance for me?