Profile Evaluation-Statistics PhD Fall 2022

[StatB]

Undergrad Institution:- A State University in India ( Country Rank:- 151-200)

Program:- Bachelor of Science (Hons.) [ 3 year ]

Major:- Statistics

Minor:- Mathematics, Economics

GPA:- 10/10 (Major), 9.6/10(Overall) [ Best Science Undergrad Award ]

Type of Student:-  International Asian Male

Math & Stat Courses:- Classical Algebra+Trigonometry(9/10), Coordinate Geometry+Vectors(9/10), Calculus(10/10), Mathematical Analysis (10/10), Diff. Equations (9/10), Abstract Algebra(10/10), Linear Algebra+Mechanics(9/10), Numerical Analysis (10/10), Probability-I, II, III, IV (10/10 in all), Stat. Methods- I, II (10/10), Stat. Inference-I, II (10/10), Applied Stat I (10/10), Stochastic Process+Biostat+Applied Stat (10/10), Sample Survey(10/10), ANOVA+Design of Expt. (10/10), Multivariate Analysis+Operations Research (10/10),  C Programming (10/10)

Research/Internship:- One summer internship in a reputed institute (learnt some advanced math), Bachelor Dissertation on Skew-Normal Distribution (literature review+one new direction discovered by me)

 

Graduate Institution:- Indian Statistical Institute

Programs attended:- Master of Statistics [ 2 year ]

Percentage:- 71/100

Courses:- Analysis-I (51/100), Linear Algebra+ Linear Models (83/100), Prob. Theory (75/100), Measure Theoretic Prob. (66/100), Martingale Theory (67/100), Large Sample Theory (69/100), Stat. Inference-I (58/100), Stat. Inference II (70/100), Robust Statistics (72/100), Non-parametric+Sequential Analysis (74/100), High Dimensional Inference (73/100), Regression (71/100), Multivariate Analysis (75/100), Sample Survey+Design of Expt. (64/100), Intro Computer Programming (75/100), Time Series (76/100), Stat. Computing-I (75/100), Stat. Computing-II (73/100), Pattern Recognition+ML(70/100), Resampling Techniques(70/100)

 

GRE(general):- 158 (Verbal), 169 (Quantitative), 4 (AWA)

GRE(Mathematics):- 77 percentile

Research/Project:- Many projects as a part of course. One 6 month project paper on High-Dimensional Inference

LORs:- Good

 

Programs applying:- PhD Statistics(main preference) + PhD Bio-statistics(those where I can find work related to my graduate project)

Schools:- Any recommendation for both the programs will surely help me. For Statistics, I am aiming for some universities like University of Texas, Austin, University of Connecticut, University of Iowa, Iowa State, Ohio State type of universities. 

 

 

[Stat Assistant Professor]

What does your percentage at ISI roughly translate to on a 0.0-4.0 GPA scale? From what I gather, it isn't like 90-100 is an A, 80-90 is a B, etc. like in the U.S., because I saw that somebody who had 88 percent from ISI graduated "First Class with distinction," and they were admitted to UPenn Wharton. So is anything over 80 considered an A at ISI? I wouldn't be surprised if an 80 is considered very good at ISI given how rigorous this institution is. 

 With a bit more context about your academic performance (especially in comparison to your peers at ISI), we can give more tailored advice. Thanks!

[StatB]

Thank you very much @Stat Assistant Professor for your reply. Yes, your guess is perfectly correct. Though we never pondered over converting our grade to 0.0-4.0 scale, but the conversion is never done in that way. We have been told by senior students that either the admission committee will be aware of the grading pattern at ISI or the recommendation letter writers explain it if the university have no faculty as an alumni from ISI to gauge the marks. A percentage more than 75 earns someone the title "First Class with Distinction", the highest class in our institute. Anything above 60 percent but less than 75 percent is termed as "First Class", and so on. Yes, percentage above 80 is really considered to be very good here. Very few (normally the top 1 or 2) student secure around 88-93, and they often apply to universities like Stanford, Berkeley, Upenn. Sometimes a highest score in a course itself lies in the range 80-90. Nevertheless, I will not say that I achieved very good grades but a percentage above 70 is here considered as somewhat okayish. I suppose the median grade among those who are applying for PhD is around 75. However, there were some students in my batch who took courses like "Optimization", "Signal & Image Processing" where they were easily able to score more than 90. On the other hand, I along with a few students" dared to take some mathematically rigorous courses like "Measure Theory" & "Martingale Theory". So sometimes it depend on the course combination of the student. 

[Stat Assistant Professor]

Thanks for the clarification. I think you should aim for schools around the general tier of Ohio State, UIUC, University of Florida, Rutgers. I think you would have a decent shot at those schools. You can apply to a few that are ranked above that (as you correctly conjectured in your original post, your chances would be better at large state school programs) and a few ranked below 40 like UConn, UIowa, etc. and maybe a few even below that just for good measure.

[StatB]

Thanks a lot @Stat Assistant Professor for your detailed advice. I am really grateful to you for your time and effort in giving suggestions to me. I will do as you directed.