2020 Applicant Profiles and Admission Results for Statistics/Biostatistics

[StatsG0d]

On 3/21/2020 at 2:53 PM, Fred210 said:

 

School - Stanford University, Waitlisted (I.e. Rejection with honors)
School - UC Berkeley Statistics / Rejected
School - University of Washington, Seattle Statistics, Rejected
School - University of Washington, Seattle Biostatistics, Rejected

School - Carnegie Mellon Statistics, Rejected

School - Harvard Statistics, Rejected

School - University of Chicago Statistics, Rejected

School - John Hopkins Biostatistics, Rejected

 

This is crazy. In general, it's a good idea to apply to a wide range of schools, but I am still surprised you did not get accepted to at least one of these programs. Next time, try applying to a wider range.

[MLE]

Super late to the party

Undergrad Institution: Public flagship, known for stats
Major(s): Statistics and Mathematics
Minor(s): Spanish
GPA: 3.8
Type of Student: Domestic White Female

GRE General Test: taken cold
Q: 166 (89%)
V: 164 (94%)
W: 4.5 (57%)
GRE Subject Test in Mathematics:
M: AWFUL, only submitted to Stanford

Programs Applying: Statistics PhD
 
Research Experience:

• Assorted quarter-long projects + presentations not super related to stats during freshman/sophomore year
• Summer fellowship doing mathematical modeling at government institute, no publications
• REU in topological data analysis, conference poster, helping teach a related short course in fall
• Two years on an applied Bayesian project, first author on manuscript, conference poster
• Applied capstone project, conference poster
• Senior honors thesis in causal inference

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Phi Beta Kappa, Dean’s List, a silly award for “best teamwork” at a data hack but I’m proud of it, some travel awards if that means anything, and a university system wide award (all campuses) for outstanding students

Pertinent Activities: Statistics tutor for 2 years, grader for some intro stat courses, statistics club president (a ton of diversity outreach), director of a statistics directed reading program that I founded to try to encourage more diversity in the major, algebraic statistics reading group

Related Work Experience: None. Working at a call center sucks, don’t do it.

Letters of Recommendation:

• One lecturer I took a class from, also my boss at the tutor center. Fairly well known in statistical education. We’re quite close and they wrote a strong letter, likely emphasizing creativity/character.
• Lecturer I wrote my applied Bayesian paper with.
• A very well-known professor in the department who I took a class from but have no research involvement with.  

While I think my letters were all strong, I really should have asked my thesis advisor or even my REU advisor to write me a letter. In hindsight, I think omission of these letters was a bad idea and maybe appeared to reflect poorly on my research abilities. I was worried about the weight of a letter from a well-known professor who I didn’t do research with versus a less-known, more junior professor who I did work with. I wasn’t sure how to strike a balance between these things. I think I gave the admissions committees a lot of insight into my character and my love of statistics, but less into my research abilities and potential which is likely what admissions cares about.

Math/Statistics Grades:  

• Math: Calc I, II, III (A, A, B), Multivariable Calc (A-), Intro to Proofs (A), Diff Eq (A), Linear Algebra (A), Linear Analysis (A-), Intro Real Analysis I, II, III(A, A-, A-), Abstract Linear Algebra (B+), Probability I, II, III (A, A, A-), Rings (A), Groups (A), Differential Geometry I, II (B, A), Topology (A), Metric Spaces (A-), Measure Theory (A-), Stochastic Processes (A)
• Stats: Math Stats II, III (A-, A-), Experimental Design (A-), Applied Regression (A), Resampling (A), Non-Parametric Statistics (A), Machine Learning (A), Statistical Thinking (A), Grad Math Stats I, II (A-, A), Grad Stochastic Processes (B+), Grad Bayesian Statistics (A), Grad Network Statistics (A), Grad Linear Models (A), Grad Survey Sampling (A)
• Other: Java I, II (A, A-), Scientific Computing (B+), Biological Modeling (A), Grad Stat Computing (A)

Results:  

• Berkeley – Statistics PhD/ Rejected / Admitted (oops?)
• Chicago – Statistics PhD / Admitted
• Duke – Statistics PhD / Admitted
• Cornell – Statistics PhD / Admitted
• UNC – Statistics PhD / Waitlisted / Admitted
• Wisconsin – Statistics PhD / Waitlisted / Withdrew
   
• Stanford – Statistics PhD / Rejected (a waste of money in light of Math subject GRE score!)
• CMU – Statistics PhD / Rejected
• Harvard – Statistics PhD / Rejected
• Columbia – Statistics PhD / Rejected
• Yale – Statistics PhD / Rejected
• UT Austin – Statistics PhD / Rejected

Misc:
On a sort of interesting note, three women with similar profiles at my school all applied to roughly the same set of programs. One stronger (+academic legacy), and one more econ focused. I was told by one professor that some schools admit only the top 3-5 women, so the same few women are admitted to all schools and the cohorts end up wildly unbalanced. I’d be interested in knowing if/how this came into play, especially since we are all from the same institution.

Anyway, if you’re reading these profiles and feeling generally bad (like I did!), you’re better than you think you are and I believe in you. You have value beyond your research experiences and admission results. Be kind to yourself- it's not worth going super hard and burning out.

Edited June 8, 2020 by MLE
formatting