PhD in Statistics Fall 2020 Profile Evaluation

[Dandelion_97]

Hi all,

Please give me some recommendations about the list of schools that I chose based on my below profile:

 

Undergraduate Institution: top #1 Regional North 

Majors: Computer Science and Mathematics (Double major)

Cumulative GPA: 3.81/4.00

Math major GPA: 3.96 | CS major GPA: 3.97

Type of Student: International Asian Female

Relevant Courses:

* Math:

• Calculus I,II,III (all A)
• Foundation of Higher math (A)
• Linear algebra (A)
• Abstract Algebra I,II (A-, A)
• Real Analysis (currently taking - got A for mid term grade)
• Probability & Statistics I (A)

* Computer Science:

• Discrete Data Structure (A)
• Numerical Methods (A)
• Database Management System (A)
• Advanced Database (A)
• Computer Security (A)
• Machine Learning (A-)
• Operating System (currently taking - got A for mid term grade)

GRE General Test: 323 (Verbal: 155 - 68% | Quantitative: 168 - 93% | AWA: 4.0 - 57%)

Research Experience: I have one-year research with Math professor from school on Baseball analytics. We use statistical methods to create a new way to calculate Wins Above Replacement which demonstrates each player’s performance impact on the whole team. 

I intend to do 2 research courses next semester: one in Healthcare Analytics and one in Topology (Math) but I don't know if I can state it in SOP.

Work Experience: Summer Internship at IGT - Business Intelligence Intern: I used SQL, Tableau, and analytical thinking to analyze company’s lottery data to create dashboards and reports.

Letter of Recommendation:

• One from my research professor
• One from my CS professor who has known me for 4 years. I took every class that I can with him.
• One from my Abstract Algebra professor who I took class with from freshman year.

Schools that I am considering:

Reach: Carnegie Mellon University (#8), Texas A&M College Station (#20)

Medium: UC Davis (#31), University of Texas Austin (#50), University of Virginia (#69), WPI (PhD in Data Science)

Safe: University of South Carolina (#74)

Please let me know if I have a chance to be admitted in any of those schools. Any suggestions are highly appreciated. Thank you so much in advance!

 

[Dandelion_97]

Just a clarification: my undergraduate institution is ranked #1 in U.S. Regional North.

As the deadline is approaching, could someone please give me some comments? I really need help on this!!

[BL250604]

If your school isn't #1, I think you'll be okay if the name carries weight, in my opinion. 

As for your list, I think you may be underselling yourself a little bit. I would look at adding a few more mid - top tier schools. Schools like Michigan, Penn State and Minnesota may not be bad to add.

Personally, I can speak a lot to South Carolina. I think it is probably a safe bet given your profile. 

Currently, my brain is split between a proof I was working on yesterday and writing this (damn your Dirichlet distribution!) so I'm sure I'll write a follow up later with more schools. Hope this helped a little.  

 

[Dandelion_97]

Thank you so much for your response! I probably will consider Penn State and Minnesota. The only reason that I did not put Minnesota in the list is because their priority deadline is Dec 5, 2019 and I don't think I can make it. But they still consider application after the deadline right? They said the final deadline will be mid of March. 

For Michigan, I looked at it requirements and this school seems to prefer Master's knowledge which I don't have. 

For South Carolina, I wonder if you have any information for its funding. I read through its website and it said the funding may be up to 3 years of full time study. They do not guarantee any type of funding for PhD student though.

Good luck with your Dirichlet distribution and I am looking forward to your response!

[BL250604]

Plenty of information for you! I would say that Michigan does not discriminate between applicants in terms of MS or not. I know plenty of people who got in straight from undergrad. Everyone I met during my visit actually came straight with a B.S. or B.A., so I would not let the dissuade you!

As for South Carolina, funding is for your full program. Assuming you meet the requirements for for teaching (TOEFL, etc.) as an international student, you shouldn't have a problem actually teaching. For students who did not meet the proficiency requirements, they do grading. The department is very proud to say that it fully supports its students for the full term of their Ph.D., and actually supports a number of masters students as well!

[Noulli]

@Dandelion_97  Last year, I applied and was admitted to some of the same schools that you are here considering. I see that you have divided the schools into classes based on the rankings from USNWR--a strategy that I used as well. I would, however, be careful,of considering a lower-ranked school on that list as potentially easier to gain admittance to than a higher-ranked school. Some other important considerations would be the size of the program, the overall prestige of the institution (e.g., I think it was recently mentioned by someone on this forum that some of the Ivy League schools tend to be more selective than their rankings might indicate), and the fit between your proposed research interests and those of the faculty members at the institution. It s difficult to tell how much the last factor influences the admission decision at a given institution, but for your own benefit, it would be beneficial to find places where there is at least some compatibility.

[Oliverrrrrrr]

I think your profile is very favorable and safe for your list. But I want to ask why bother pursuing a PhD? It seems that your research experiences are very data-oriented and not theoretical. I think you can go to top data science MS programs like Harvard or Columbia. Does learning to code & use database and then finding a DS or SE job fit your need? Thanks.

[Dandelion_97]

@Oliver Shu Hmm.. I don't think that I can get in MS programs at Harvard or Columbia as my undergraduate school is not prestigious but thank you for your support. Through the internship, I had a chance to use coding into analyzing data. However, I felt like I need something more theoretical to deal with data. That's why I decided to pursue a PhD degree with a concentration in computational statistics or machine learning. I don't know if that suits me or not but for now I am just nervous and hope that one school will accept me. Will see how it goes  

[BL250604]

14 hours ago, Dandelion_97 said:

@Oliver Shu Hmm.. I don't think that I can get in MS programs at Harvard or Columbia as my undergraduate school is not prestigious but thank you for your support. Through the internship, I had a chance to use coding into analyzing data. However, I felt like I need something more theoretical to deal with data. That's why I decided to pursue a PhD degree with a concentration in computational statistics or machine learning. I don't know if that suits me or not but for now I am just nervous and hope that one school will accept me. Will see how it goes  

I didn't come from a top tier undergrad (I came from a very good LAC), and got into Columbia, NYU and Georgetown for M.S. programs. 

Edited November 26, 2019 by BL250604

[Oliverrrrrrr]

On 11/26/2019 at 6:51 AM, Dandelion_97 said:

@Oliver Shu Hmm.. I don't think that I can get in MS programs at Harvard or Columbia as my undergraduate school is not prestigious but thank you for your support. Through the internship, I had a chance to use coding into analyzing data. However, I felt like I need something more theoretical to deal with data. That's why I decided to pursue a PhD degree with a concentration in computational statistics or machine learning. I don't know if that suits me or not but for now I am just nervous and hope that one school will accept me. Will see how it goes  

Sure. I think U South Carolina is super safe for you. So don't get too nervous and you should be more confident about yourself. Relating how your experiences form these thoughts about theory and computation in your PS will surely be a plus for you.

[Dandelion_97]

@BL250604@Oliver Shu Thanks so much for your responses and support. However, I am still really unconfident and confused because some people told me that it will be hard for me to be accepted in Ph.D. programs without any publications or acknowledged research paper. I just did one research at school. Do I have any chance to be admitted to the Ph.D. program or should I apply to Master instead?

[omicrontrabb]

@Dandelion_97 Very few PhD applicants in statistics have any publications. It’s difficult to get involved in statistics research without a graduate degree in statistics.

You have a very solid profile and you should be able to get into some great PhD programs. Since you’re an international student and didn’t go to a super famous university, I think you’ll have a tough time getting into CMU. But you should have a good shot  at TAMU, Penn State, NC State, Ohio State, etc.

[Taxxi]

1 hour ago, omicrontrabb said:

@Dandelion_97 Very few PhD applicants in statistics have any publications. It’s difficult to get involved in statistics research without a graduate degree in statistics.

You have a very solid profile and you should be able to get into some great PhD programs. Since you’re an international student and didn’t go to a super famous university, I think you’ll have a tough time getting into CMU. But you should have a good shot  at TAMU, Penn State, NC State, Ohio State, etc.

Is it really that difficult to get into CMU unless the undergraduate university is super famous? I am wondering if this is true in my case as well... (I see a PhD student from the very top university but not from my university) I was almost decided to give it a chance but maybe I will fall back ?

[Edited] Adding some information about PhD students and removing redundant things. Still, the scope of mathematics taught in Carnegie is quite narrow so I was keep hesitating about applying for it. Would I have chance to take classes from other universities or something if there is no class that I want to take?

[Edited] Screw it, I might as well just apply for it cause why not. As for the OP, I also think you should apply for more higher-tier universities. I used stochastic processes and statistics frequently at my work but I cannot read most of the research papers either: sometimes it takes way too much time to read them at my level of training.

 

Edited December 1, 2019 by Taxxi

[omicrontrabb]

@Taxxi It's just quite difficult to get into CMU in general. They are one of the top programs and focus a lot on machine learning which is really hot right now.

Compared to the OP, you went to top 3 university in South Korea, so a top 100 university in the world, and you said you think you'll get 90%+ on the Math GRE. That would make you a standout applicant.

The OP has a really good profile and I think should definitely still apply to CMU and other similar schools. They're reaches, not impossible.

[Taxxi]

3 hours ago, omicrontrabb said:

@Taxxi It's just quite difficult to get into CMU in general. They are one of the top programs and focus a lot on machine learning which is really hot right now.

Compared to the OP, you went to top 3 university in South Korea, so a top 100 university in the world, and you said you think you'll get 90%+ on the Math GRE. That would make you a standout applicant.

The OP has a really good profile and I think should definitely still apply to CMU and other similar schools. They're reaches, not impossible.

Unfortunately I got 860(87%) and it will hurt me at the top universities... I think it is kind of an embarrassing score for a quant haha...

I am still thinking of opting for Michigan or other places where I can study stochastic processes and probability as well. I am trying my best to find a potential advisor looking through the faculty members.

Sorry for hijacking the thread, OP. I just wanted to check the chance of getting into CMU.

 

 

[BL250604]

On 11/30/2019 at 1:41 PM, Dandelion_97 said:

@BL250604@Oliver Shu Thanks so much for your responses and support. However, I am still really unconfident and confused because some people told me that it will be hard for me to be accepted in Ph.D. programs without any publications or acknowledged research paper. I just did one research at school. Do I have any chance to be admitted to the Ph.D. program or should I apply to Master instead?

As mentioned above, I would not worry about publications. Very few applicants have them. It certainly helped me to have a submission under review at a journal as it reaffirmed my research ability. However, I needed that to make up for poor academic performance one semester. I would not worry about this whatsoever.

My previous recommendations and comments still stand. I'm excited to see where you end up. 

Best of luck!

[Oliverrrrrrr]

On 12/1/2019 at 2:41 AM, Dandelion_97 said:

@BL250604@Oliver Shu Thanks so much for your responses and support. However, I am still really unconfident and confused because some people told me that it will be hard for me to be accepted in Ph.D. programs without any publications or acknowledged research paper. I just did one research at school. Do I have any chance to be admitted to the Ph.D. program or should I apply to Master instead?

Oh my girl, really be confident. It's about deadline and you should just go ahead with your PhD application without making big changes. Really forget about publications, how can undergraduates have top publications like Annals, JASA, etc. Look at

 for a detailed reference of publications. Build confidence by finding your advantages. I believe your cs background, research projects (shown in RLs), passion for research (show it in your PS!) and gender are sure to make you stand out from PhD applicants!

[Dandelion_97]

Hi all, it's me again. So South Carolina's professor just sent me an email to set up a phone call next week. Did any of you experience through a phone call with graduate committee? What do I need to prepare and expect then? Thank you!

[BL250604]

23 minutes ago, Dandelion_97 said:

Hi all, it's me again. So South Carolina's professor just sent me an email to set up a phone call next week. Did any of you experience through a phone call with graduate committee? What do I need to prepare and expect then? Thank you!

This is normal. It depends who you are speaking with. Feel free to PM me and we can chat more.