cyberwulf

If you can make a really compelling case that you had an early spell of academic immaturity which you've now put behind you, it might be worth mentioning this in your personal statement. But, in the absence of a major life event or hurdle to overcome, there's a very fine line between 'explaining' and 'excuse-making' when it comes to grades. The latter tends to reaaaalllly rub admissions committees the wrong way, so you need to tread carefully if you're addressing poor grades in a personal statement, particularly if they're mostly the result of your behavior and choices.

In my view, UCLA is pretty solid and BU is decent. Places like Berkeley, Minnesota, Columbia, and Penn are at least as good as if not better than UCLA and certainly stronger than BU.

I think that your profile will play a bit better at top biostat programs than at top stat programs. The reason I say this is that your math grades in "core" pre-requisite courses (calc, linalg, real analysis) and GRE quant score are good rather than great. Top-notch stat departments tend to be very math-focused, so there might be some concern about your ability to hack the requisite math. Biostat departments get fewer hardcore math applicants, so the math component of your profile will look relatively stronger. I would say that you might be reaching for top stat places (Chicago, Berkeley, Stanford, Duke), but are likely competitive at top biostat places (Harvard, Hopkins, Washington). If I were you, I would apply to the all the biostat places you listed (Harvard, UNC, Michigan, Boston, and UCLA), plus a couple of more applied stat departments (NC State, Carnegie Mellon, maybe Washington). You could throw some more theoretical places in there for kicks, but it doesn't sound like that's really where your interest lies. Plus, there's plenty of opportunity to do theory at any good place, even it's if it's got a reputation for being more applied.

Two things: 1) I think you may be underestimating your chances somewhat. It appears that you have a pretty strong background, though of course without seeing letters it's hard to get the full picture. If you're already at Yale, and apparently doing very well, is it really unrealistic to think that you will be accepted into the PhD program? Have faculty members told you this? 2) Your rankings are a little odd to me. If Michigan is 'realistic', then Brown and UCLA (which almost certainly have a lower admissions bar) aren't 'reaches'. And why are Ohio State, NYU, USC, and Texas 'realistic' while programs of similar quality like Pittsburgh and Iowa are listed as safeties? 3) I wouldn't write off UW, JHU, and Harvard just because you don't have a degree in math. Since you have a masters degree, you have had at least as much statistical and mathematical preparation as most students applying to those departments. I'm not saying they're not 'reaches', but if I were you I'd consider applying to a really big program (both in reputation and size) like Washington. So, if I were advising you, I think I would build a list as follows: - One of: Washington, Johns Hopkins, Harvard - Pick your favorite 4-6 from among: UNC, Michigan, Minnesota, Berkeley, Columbia, Penn, Yale, Brown, UCLA, Emory - A few 'safeties' from the remainder on your list

"Research Assistant/Associate Professor" or "Teaching Assistant/Associate Professor" can sometimes denote non-tenure track positions. However, these faculty members are often eligible to advise (or at least co-advise) students.

I would consider MUSC to be roughly on the level of Vanderbilt, Florida State, and BU; certainly nowhere near the prestige of UNC or Emory. They've lost a fair number of faculty recently, so they might be struggling a bit.

It wouldn't be totally crazy to throw applications at one or more of UNC, Michigan, Minnesota, Penn, Brown, UCLA, and Berkeley. They're probably reaches, but your current list seems a tad too conservative.

Yes, this is totally fine.

Your list is fine, but be aware that none of those places are really known for their biostatistics departments. I think your "top end" should probably include schools like Boston U, Pittsburgh, Emory, and Brown.

I think you will have a pretty decent chance of admission at good biostat departments. From your list of stat departments, it seems like you are not opposed to Midwest schools, so I would recommend adding both Minnesota and Michigan biostat to your list; they are on about the same level as UNC.

This should probably be in the Math&Stats sub-forum, but in any case, I think you will find it tough sledding to get into the PhD programs at most of the places on your list with the possible exception of Iowa, Pitt, and BU. Your best bet might be to start in a good Masters program (where your chances of admission are better) before moving on to the PhD.

That score is fine. Remember, under the old system an 800 was 88-92nd percentile!

No.

Ask "can you tell me a little bit about what you're currently working on?" You'd be amazed by how many prospective students never ask this on visits. Even if you don't understand all the details, I can guarantee you the professor will be happy you are showing and interest, and be glad to expound about their work.

Well, math is a rather different beast than stats in terms of applicants; there are a lot more exceptional applicants in the former than the latter. That being said, you have to remember that where you went to school matters *a lot*, but for anonymity reasons people tend to omit that from their online profiles. If your school really is a Top 10 public, then a 3.63 might get you a longer look than a 3.9 from a second- or third-tier institution.

I think you're actually underselling yourself; places like Brown and Columbia are likely "safeties" for you. If you want to add some Cali schools, I would include Stanford (stat), Berkeley (biostat) and possibly UCLA (biostat). If you're interested in MCMC, I would also consider throwing an app at Carnegie Mellon (stat) since as a Bayesian-oriented place I assume they have some people working on that stuff.

I believe that Harvard gets something on the order of 300-500 applications, and they admit around 20. The admissions bar is crazy-high for students from outside the U.S., but it's not a total longshot if you're a domestic student with a good (eg. >3.8) GPA from a "name" school. Historically they have admitted a small group of "elite" students early, and quite a few very late (eg. beginning to middle of April).

I think that's a reasonable idea. Make sure you go to a top-notch stat place for your Masters, and it wouldn't hurt to find a place where a non-negligible fraction of Masters students go on to do a PhD in the same department. The easiest route into a PhD program for you may be to impress enough people locally that they are happy for you to "upgrade" into the PhD track.

Though it's really not a huge deal because personal statements won't make or break your application, I would aim for somewhere between a specific project idea and "I want to do some kind of statistics!". I think your best bet would be to mention that you're really interested in MCMC methods, and in particular simulated annealing, but stop short of laying out the specific research questions you think you'd like to answer. As I said, it's not likely to matter much, but you want every admissions committee to think they have a shot of attracting you to their school. If you are very specific in your statement, a good place which doesn't have people in that specific research area might see you as a longshot to come to their department and decide to pass in favor of someone else. It's good to show that you've thought about interesting potential research topics, but ultimately most students end up working on something very different than what they imagined entering graduate school. Hence, it's important to convey that you're also broadly interested in statistics/biostatistics and would be happy working in other areas.

I suspect that at least some of those folks majored in statistics, not math, or at least had a dual math-X major, where X was a non-STEM field. Those students are unlikely to have had many more 'core' math courses than the OP. They may have had more exposure to applied statistics (or various random math courses), but exposure to and performance in these classes doesn't matter nearly as much as many seem to think. Also, that random sampling of 35 presumably included many foreign students, almost all of whom indeed have math/stat degrees. The proportion of domestic students who haven't seen much more math than the minimum listed for admission is non-negligible, I assure you. I was admitted to top 10 departments out of undergrad without doing the math GRE. My colleague in the office next door was admitted to similar places out of undergrad without doing the math GRE. Many of the students we admit to our department are also admitted to good stat programs without the math GRE. Few of these students have substantial research experience. I don't know what else to say. See, I think the disconnect here is that you are thinking that excellent performance in a large number of math courses at a well-regarded school, research experience, and a good math GRE score are the minimum required for admission to a Top 20 place. In reality, if you have those, you are essentially a slam-dunk for many top 20 places, and probably have a very good shot at getting into a top 5 department.

sisyphus is right; you are in a good position for most of the places on your list. Top stat schools might be slight reaches, particularly if they have smaller Masters programs, but given your fairly strong record I wouldn't write anywhere off as impossible.

This might be field-dependent, but I generally discourage students from contacting professors to say "Hey! I'll be applying to your department! Here's my CV, do you have any positions available?" Some professors receive dozens of these inquiries during application season, and most are simply ignored or brushed off. Why? It could just be a lack of time, but also, without access to your full application, how can a professor make an informed judgment about whether you're a suitable candidate? This is why admissions decisions are made by an admissions committee. And "oh, that person sent Prof. X an email" doesn't really carry any weight as compared to GPA/GRE/letters/statement/etc.

james8787, Your post has a lot of bad advice and misinformation (at least with regards to the OP's chances of gaining admission to a statistics department; I know less about Applied Math, but there are a couple of folks here who might be able to comment on these points as well): Then you're clearly not looking in the right places. Students without a math degree are certainly in the minority, but it's not unheard-of by any stretch, even in good departments. If by 'useless' you mean 'doesn't have a lot of mathematical coursework', then yes. But excellent performance in *any* discipline is meaningful, since it carries some information about a student's general intelligence and potential. Furthermore, I think most would view philosophy as one of the *best* qualitative disciplines to have a background in if you're going to be moving on to quantitative study in math/stats. In fact, I would likely give more weight to an 'A' in an advanced philosophy course than the same grade in a biomath course. Though research experience is nice, it isn't really that relevant or essential. Nonsense. A good performance on the Math GRE certainly helps, but I can say from personal experience that not taking it does not preclude admission to good places. Irrelevant. These courses are rarely taught at a rigorous level before graduate school, so they mean very little. Here's my advice for the OP: It wasn't clear from your original post if you've taken probability and mathematical statistics; if you haven't, that could be a limitation of your application (I suppose the same could be said for differential equations if you go into Applied Math). Otherwise, your GPA makes you competitive, but your degree of success will likely hinge on the academic reputation of your undergraduate institution as well as the strength of your letters of recommendation. Some programs do have flexibility in terms of making up lacking coursework, but generally the expectation is that you come to graduate school prepared to begin graduate-level study. You should look at some first-year syllabi for stat/AM grad programs to get an idea for the gap between where you are and where you'll need to be next September. Overall, I don't think gaining admission to a Top 20 stat program is out of the question. If you want to aim a bit higher, you might consider starting in a Masters program at a good place (eg. Top 10-15), and "upgrading" if you perform well. And, I know you said you didn't want to restrict yourself to biostatistics, but I think your profile would play pretty well there, and you might have a chance of getting into a Top 5 department. And I would take a Top 5 biostat department over a stat department ranked outside the Top 20 any day.

This is pretty much spot on. Statistical genetics/computational biology is really quite distinct and shares fewer and fewer tools and concerns with more 'traditional' biostatistics. Of course, many areas of 'traditional' biostatistics (causal inference, high-dimensional models, spatial statistics, etc.) are quite new and still developing. I don't think it really matters. If you're interested in both, might as well mention it. This isn't a barrier, as long as you're willing and motivated to learn. Most biostat faculty doing comp bio/statgen had little to no biology training before starting graduate school. All departments ranked in the top 6 or so have good people working in both more traditional biostat and comp bio/statgen. There are some overall tendencies though, which mostly have to do with what areas the most prominent faculty work in. At the risk of oversimplifying: Hopkins: Leans comp bio/statgen Harvard: Balanced Washington: Leans traditional UNC: Leans traditional Michigan: Leans comp bio/statgen Minnesota: Balanced (leans Bayesian in both)

That major GPA is a bit of a problem, but it does depend on how you got there; a couple of disastrously bad grades combined with mostly excellent ones will put you in a better place than a string of mediocrity. I think you're probably out of the running for the top 3 PhD programs, and pretty marginal for the next 4-6. After that, your chances start to improve as you move to programs outside of the top 10. You might consider starting in a Masters program (you'll have a solid shot at gaining admission to most good ones) and then moving into the PhD after that.