Preparation for (Bio)Statistics PhD

[StatsG0d]

On 3/28/2018 at 4:19 PM, bayessays said:

Unless you do poorly I don't possibly see how this could be the case. In mathematics graduate school, taking grad classes is essentially a prerequisite for attending a good program. But somehow all stats programs have gotten together and decided that taking advanced courses in the discipline you're going to spend your life studying is somehow a negative thing?

Let's suppose you went to a PhD offering institution and took half their courses. I think it raises some eyebrows. Why is this person leaving when they're only one or two courses away from finishing a PhD at the program they're at? I think professors don't want students coming in with any "ideas"--they want to shape their students. I know of at least two people who were great students and took PhD classes, only to get lots of rejects when it came to application time. 

If you're going to take PhD-level classes, you should consider taking classes that are not part of the PhD curriculum at other institutions. That would be my advice.

[statfan]

35 minutes ago, footballman2399 said:

Let's suppose you went to a PhD offering institution and took half their courses. I think it raises some eyebrows. Why is this person leaving when they're only one or two courses away from finishing a PhD at the program they're at? I think professors don't want students coming in with any "ideas"--they want to shape their students. I know of at least two people who were great students and took PhD classes, only to get lots of rejects when it came to application time. 

If you're going to take PhD-level classes, you should consider taking classes that are not part of the PhD curriculum at other institutions. That would be my advice.

It may be due to weakness in other parts of their applications. It is very common that strong applicants have several phd-level statistics courses and I personally think it helpful to get exposed to grad courses early to see if graduate school fits you. Another advantage of doing this is that you can move onto research faster than others.

Edited April 2, 2018 by statfan

[Stat Assistant Professor]

For PhD programs in pure mathematics, I think it is indeed true that having taken graduate level courses in math will strengthen your application for math PhD programs. However, I think this is because PhD adcoms in mathematics have concerns about the level of mathematical rigor/preparation of domestic applicants (who admittedly tend to have been exposed to much less mathematics than international students). So having taken graduate math courses alleviates their concerns about domestic students being able to handle the graduate coursework.

But in other PhD programs like Statistics, Economics, and Finance, I tend to think that taking more mathematics courses will boost your application moreso than taking classes in those disciplines (however, I am only hypothesizing this, I do not know if that is indeed the case).