Opinion: UoPitts vs Berkeley Statistics.

[king.od]

Hi, I need help with deciding where to go. I got into both M.A at Berkeley, M.S at UWashington, and Ph.D (full funding) at University of Pittsburgh. Normally, I would take Pittsburgh’s offer without thinking but the thing is that I wasn’t confident enough to apply for Ph.D at both UW and Berkeley at first and considering apply to those two after I got my Master.

Now, I am stuck, because to me Pittsburgh is the safety option and I do not know that well about their statistics department. What should I do now, should I ask Pittsburgh to defer the offer for one year since if I attend Berkeley, it will take only 9 months to finish the master degree, then reapply to more Ph.D’s program including Pittsburgh?

My main research interest is Theoratical Stat and Probability Theorey, which is why I prefer Berkeley than any other schools since they have a very strong research group in these areas. Another note is that money is not really a big problem to me so if I spend time doing an extra year for Master would not be a cost problem. 

 

 

[GoPackGo89]

Last time I looked at Berkeley's M.A in stats it was VERY industry oriented and not a good fit for someone wanting to go on for a PhD. If you were trying to improve your odds of admission at top 30 schools then I would think Washington would be the better choice?

[bayessays]

There's a huge difference between getting into the MS programs at those schools and the PhD programs.  There is no guarantee that you'll do better next time around and it will cost a lot of money. You could post your profile and we could give you more advice. But you probably won't be able to improve your results by getting a 1 year master's, especially not enough to get into a top 5 program. 

[king.od]

On 3/28/2018 at 8:00 PM, GoPackGo89 said:

Last time I looked at Berkeley's M.A in stats it was VERY industry oriented and not a good fit for someone wanting to go on for a PhD. If you were trying to improve your odds of admission at top 30 schools then I would think Washington would be the better choice?

Thanks. I looked at M.S. program at UW and to me it seems like their programs also industry oriented yet they both said that there Master programs are not developed to prepare for Ph.D program. 

[king.od]

36 minutes ago, bayessays said:

There's a huge difference between getting into the MS programs at those schools and the PhD programs.  There is no guarantee that you'll do better next time around and it will cost a lot of money. You could post your profile and we could give you more advice. But you probably won't be able to improve your results by getting a 1 year master's, especially not enough to get into a top 5 program. 

Thank you, I am concerned because I didn’t apply for Ph.D at both UW and Berkeley at first. That’s why i want to try to apply one more time. 

My profile is good but not stellar:

Major: Math/Stat

GPA: 4.0 (from decent public institution)

GRE: 166 Q/151 V/3.5 AWA (this is my weakness in my application)

(no subject, planning to take it soon)

International/ Asian/ Male.

LOR: 1 strong from well-known Professor/advisor in statistics, 2 good.

no research experience (another disadvantages)

Classes took: Methods of Data Analysis I, II, Probability I, II, Experimenta design, Probability simulation, stochastic processes, introduction to analysis I, II ( Advanced Cal), Metric spaces and topology, Mathematical Statistics I, II, Linear Algebra I, II.

also, I do not know much about the statistics department at UoPitts I wonder If you know more info about them, can you let me know? Thanks

Edited March 29, 2018 by king.od

[bayessays]

Is that correct that your quantitative score was a 151? If so, I'd say you should be thankful that you were able to overcome that and get into Pitt - that's awesome. It's a smaller program, but I personally think they have some interesting active researchers.  I'd recommend looking at their faculty profiles to see if they interest you. It's in a good city and in probably the coolest academic building ever (the cathedral of learning).  If you don't have a 163+ on the GREQ, I'd say you should accept the the Pitt offer.

[king.od]

18 minutes ago, bayessays said:

Is that correct that your quantitative score was a 151? If so, I'd say you should be thankful that you were able to overcome that and get into Pitt - that's awesome. It's a smaller program, but I personally think they have some interesting active researchers.  I'd recommend looking at their faculty profiles to see if they interest you. It's in a good city and in probably the coolest academic building ever (the cathedral of learning).  If you don't have a 163+ on the GREQ, I'd say you should accept the the Pitt offer.

I just edited it, I got 166Q, 151V. Sorry about that. I know that pitts have awesome biostatistics department, but i do not know much about their stat department. Also, I mean i can try to improve my GRE, but I don’t know is it worth retaking so I think I might want to ask them to defer the admission until next year.

Edited March 29, 2018 by king.od

[insert_name_here]

To be blunt, IMO you'd be unlikely to be accepted in the PhD program at Berkeley or UW, either this year or next. If you want to do a PhD, I'd take your best offer to do a PhD, which sounds like Pitt.

Edited March 29, 2018 by insert_name_here

[king.od]

13 minutes ago, insert_name_here said:

To be blunt, IMO you'd be unlikely to be accepted in the PhD program at Berkeley or UW, either this year or next. If you want to do a PhD, I'd take your best offer to do a PhD, which sounds like Pitt.

Thank you for being honest, do you know much about the faculty at Pitt? Also, if I decide to apply again this year, what can I do to strengthen my chance getting into some better programs since I do not really think about applying for Ph.D until last month.

[insert_name_here]

I don't know much about Pitt.

If you wanted to reapply (which I would not recommend), there are plenty of areas to improve. Note though that applications will be due in November/December, which means you have very little time to change things. In particular, you won't get a good LOR from a master's program in that short a timespan. The main three areas for improvement would be

- Getting meaningful research background, and the improved LORs that come with them

- Taking more advanced mathematical coursework. If you want to do probability research, you should really have at least one class in rigorous measure theory

- Improving your English - I know this is hard, but it is clear you aren't fluent and that will limit you

[king.od]

28 minutes ago, insert_name_here said:

I don't know much about Pitt.

If you wanted to reapply (which I would not recommend), there are plenty of areas to improve. Note though that applications will be due in November/December, which means you have very little time to change things. In particular, you won't get a good LOR from a master's program in that short a timespan. The main three areas for improvement would be

- Getting meaningful research background, and the improved LORs that come with them

- Taking more advanced mathematical coursework. If you want to do probability research, you should really have at least one class in rigorous measure theory

- Improving your English - I know this is hard, but it is clear you aren't fluent and that will limit you

Thank you, LOR(s) and GRE are definitely on my to do list when I reapply. It is just hard to find research opportunities since REU is domestic only and professors at my school mostly give them to grad students.

About advanced mathematics coursework, I have taken all possible advanced probability/stat classes that are joint with grad students at my school. The only class I haven’t taken is Real Analysis, which I’m planning to take this Fall. But I asked faculty, professors at UC Berkeley and UW about Measure theory (Real Analysis) and they said that it does not make a significant difference whether I have taken it before applying for Ph.D. Still it’s on my to do list before I reapply. 

[Bayesian1701]

Go with Pitt.  It’s a PhD program, funded, and there are no guarantees that you will do better next year even with a masters.  It’s very possible that even if you reapply, take the Math GRE and do well, and get a masters you won’t get a much better offer.  And I don’t think it would come off well to reapply to Pitt after you rejected them.  They’ll then know that they are your safety school and that you don’t really want to go there.  If you hate Pitt leave with a masters and reapply later.   I think reapplying is a stupid idea.  It’s risky and expensive.  It’s probably going to take an unfunded masters degree that will cost you tens of thousands of dollars, you would be delaying your entry to the workforce which again would result in lost money, and then spend $1000-2000 on applications.  Four people are telling you that this reapplying is a terrible idea.  Read the past profiles of international students who got into top programs.  I think you will see that a masters, research experience, and a good math GRE score are not enough to guarantee a spot.  But now you have a guaranteed spot at a top 40 program.  

[Stat Assistant Professor]

Given your profile, I would not think of Pittsburgh as a "safety." 

As a non-domestic student, the bar is going to be way higher for you at top schools. For reference, one of the Associate Profs in my Department got his PhD at Stanford, and he finished top of his class from his college and scored in the top 4 in the National Mathematics Olympiad in his home country. And there are enough international applicants with stellar profiles like this (finished in the top 5% of their class, perfect scores on the Mathematics Subjects GRE, won nationwide contests and math Olympiads  -- particularly from China and India) that the top schools really do have their pick of the cream of the crop. For international students like the ones I've described, Pitt might be a "safety."

Also, admissions to mid-ranked/lower-ranked programs is still going to be quite competitive. I am graduating from a program that is ranked in the 20-30 range in Statistics, and the acceptance rate for the PhD program here is between 5 and 10 percent. I would not be surprised if it is like that at Pitt and other similarly ranked programs.

Edited March 29, 2018 by Applied Math to Stat