Shostakovich

If you want to become a quant, I think QuantNet is a great place to start. Finance is a very saturated field nowadays, PhD Finance programs are very competitive with hundreds of applicants sometimes competing for a few spots (e.g. UT Austin says on their website they get 180-200 apps for 3-6 spots each yr). Of course if you could secure a spot in such a program like that and do well in it, you can potentially get some very high-paying jobs that you typically won't see in many science fields. Would be absolutely integral to have great track record at school in relevant courses (advanced math/econ courses) as well as proficiency with programming languages (emphasis on C). Industry experience could also help depending on what it was. MFE programs require similar credentials and could still land you decent jobs (if it's from a top program), but as it is just a masters degree it will have a lower barrier to entry and not as much of a guarantee for your future career. And as for CFA exams, I guess it's better to have them than to not have them, but my friends who took those have complained that they were almost useless even with 2-3 levels completed. If you go the Statistics route I'd look at Columbia or NYU, last I heard it is *very possible* to break into wall street coming out of Columbia's MA Statistics program and doing some good networking as those two schools are sort of the *target* schools for wall street banks, with some of their employees being students part-time at those institutions. But really there's no one route to becoming a quant if that's what you truly want to do. The guys in wall street want to see intelligence and willingness to put in hard work. Many people argue that Physics PhD's are actually the most qualified quantitative analysts. So a lot of quickly typed up mumbo jumbo here based on what I've researched/heard over the years, but hopefully it helps you.

I also agree with this notion. Baruch and Columbia are more of Finance departments, and I know that Columbia sends out MS Stats offers to MS Financial Engineering applicants who don't make the cut for that program. A lot of students and even some faculty are very industry-minded as Columbia is a target school for wall street banks. I would suspect that the Baruch program might be similar (perhaps worse in terms of going into academia since it's in their business school) so I might pay the 30K extra and go to Columbia if it were down to those two schools. But if other schools (like Rutgers/UConn/Stony) have more theoretically oriented programs at significantly lower cost I would definitely consider that path more.

Been hearing there's a lot of fake postings recently on the results survey. Highly doubt Harvard would choose just one person to be admitted via postal mail, and admit everyone else via email. I think there were at least two obvious fake postings last month (someone claiming to have UW and JHU Biostat acceptances via postal mail with nonstellar stats and bragging about connections).

Just got an email from Yale Public Health that their decisions will be delayed until March due to blizzard conditions in the area.

For those guys waiting from Yale Biostats, just got an email saying decisions will be delayed until mid-March due to blizzard conditions.

I'm 24 but already 4 yrs nontraditional. Turning 25 right before the adventure begins...

I think the notification is done in a similar manner for all the schools that use apply-yourself. Seems to me they update the website and send you an email to check the site around the same time.

UNC may be an exception to what I said. I did see that they were heavily on the applied side when they sent me an invitation to their visit day later this month. At my undergrad we had a pretty small Stats department of around 10 faculty members, and I know at least two of them had PhD's in Biostats.

I think at a top 5 Biostats department you have access to enough theory work where you would be eligible for academic positions at decent Stats departments as well. The downside (or the upside depending on how you look at it personally) is that you have to specialize in certain parts of statistical theory, so if you're indifferent to that I'd go with the Biostats department.

I talked to a professor from Michigan today, and seemed like Michigan very rarely accepts a student with just a bachelors into their PhD program. Did seem like funding wasn't too scarce for those "fast-track" MS students though, and many of them do go on to the PhD program eventually.

Above schools are all more or less tier 1 schools, and you should be in good shape to go into industry after graduating from any of the schools mentioned above. However, in academia there seems to be somewhat of a domination of academic positions at top universities by graduates from the tier 1's mentioned above (Berkeley/Stanford/Chicago/Harvard for Stats, Harvard/UW/Hopkins for Biostats). Of course that is not to say that you can't succeed in academia with a PhD from a lower-ranked institution, just that higher-ranked institutions tend to be able to provide more tools for success (more renowned faculty, bigger facilities, more rigorous programs, better brand names, etc).

Being familiar with the UC campuses what I can say is that the top 3 departments (Berkeley, UCLA, Davis in that order) likely far outclass all the other UC's in terms of both their reputation and department sizes.

Davis has a small department, it's a graduate group in Biostatistics and is part of the Stats department. The program isn't ranked perhaps because it's not a department, just a "group" within the Stats department. On the other hand, UCLA's department is a lot bigger and is considered a top 10 Biostats department. It seems to me that in the recent times the graduates are mostly heading to industry (as opposed to academia) but they seem to be landing decent jobs in either Stats or Biostats. If you have a decision between these two departments I'd go with UCLA like other people have said. http://www.biostat.ucla.edu/public/forms/alumni/07-10a.pdf

I know Michigan is one of the few schools that provide full support to a number of MS students. But the 38k figure I saw was definitely for a phd student.

Congrats Noco, I think MS/PhD is basically like a PhD program for students getting in without a masters. Personally, I'd definitely choose Michigan over Yale or Brown (think we may already be out of the running for Brown anyhow without an interview invite, and Yale really doesn't accept many students due to their dept size). I still have yet to hear from Michigan, not sure what's going on there... But regarding UNC and Michigan I think it really depends on which area you want to specialize in. From what I know Michigan leans more towards the "newer" areas of Biostats like Statistical Genetics and Computational Bio, UNC tends to be more "old school" focusing on traditional methods although I'm sure both schools have programs big enough to support your interest in many variety of subfields... Some other "rumors" I've heard that may be of importance are that Michigan's candidate exam is difficult and that they give out generous funding (I've seen some people offered deals like 28K stipend + 10K scholarship per year in addition to the tuition waiver), but I guess those are just minor details

I have heard that in Statistics, not having research experience is not a huge barrier to getting into grad programs. The reason is that most students have not had enough statistical training necessary for proper research. Of course if you happened to have a lot of statistical exposure and have things like first-authored publications, that's a big plus.

I think Wisconsin publishes admission data somewhere on their site, if I recall correctly their admission rate is on the lower side (maybe something like 10% ish). Where did you find out that their recent placement rate has been low? Nothing from Wisconsin for me yet btw...

At least in the world of Biostatistics, UMN and Berkeley are ranked around the same. I've done research on Minnesota's program, and seems like they have a great program emphasizing the Bayesian side of Statistics. I believe their department is bigger than Berkeley's as well. Then again, there is also the weather and overall school name recognition...

I saw his/her profile (the person that got in with 161Q and 3.68) on Math GRE Forums and while the numerical data portion of the app wasn't top tier, he/she had some great softs. Also on the Emory app they seemed to care at least a bit more about research interests/fit than other programs from what I remember... The optional video supplemental may have been important as well, since I skipped it

Bump. Seeing a bunch of rejections from Emory today, I got one too. Looking at past years' results if you don't get a rejection today that could be a good sign

I think UW has become a bit more lenient towards international students looking at their admission stats which are posted here: http://www.grad.washington.edu/about/statistics/summaries/2012/rptGsisAnnual_dept2012.pdf Last year their Biostats department accepted ~15% of internationals versus ~24% for domestic, but if you take into account there's way more international applications and the fact that way more funding is available for US citizens/PRs those percentages seem reasonable. It seems like the Stats department had similar figures. I do agree though, the figures for international admissions in the years prior are not too encouraging.

I've heard of NCSU as a very good Applied Stats department. I'm not sure about the specifics of how many graduates go on to academia versus industry, but in terms of reputation it's up there in the top 10-15 at least.

I think you're in good shape, probably wouldn't start worrying for another month or so. I believe schools like Michigan and Columbia have huge masters programs, and they haven't really sent out a lot of acceptances yet (I don't think Columbia's sent out any, could be March before anyone hears anything). Berkeley is also notorious for contacting people late in the past, although their program is way smaller than the other 4 schools you mentioned as top choices. If you're still worried, there are schools with late deadlines. Johns Hopkins deadline is 2/1, although it doesn't really qualify as a safety or anything. I also know UCLA is very open to late applications for their masters program (even as late as 6/1) so that's another one you may want to give a look. Minnesota is another great program at the top of the rankings with a 4/15 deadline if you don't mind their location too much. Good luck!

SOPHAS system (for Biostats/Public Health applications) included post-undergrad courses in the "postbac" section of the GPA (but not the "undergraduate" section) as well as the overall GPA.

Congrats! I think it's a great program. To be honest it seemed like you were worrying a bit more than you needed to