Statistic PhD profile evaluation Fall'21 (not so great GPA)

[StatCramer]

Hi everyone,

I'm an international student currently doing my Master's in Applied Mathematics from a top 20 university. I am looking to apply for a Statistics PhD program but I'm not sure which tier university I have the best chance of getting into. My Master's GPA is not the best (3.54) with Bs for Numerics and Analysis courses. But I have A/A- for all the stat courses I have taken. I am currently working with a well known professor on my Master's thesis but does not have any publications yet.

My undergraduate was not from a US university and it was in Statistics and computer science and I have only taken calculus sequence and diffequ as math courses in my undergrad. I was the top of my batch and also received a gold medal for best performance in statistics at the graduation. I struggled with numerical analysis and real analysis graduate courses in my Master's as I have not taken these courses in my undergraduate. Do you all recommend addressing struggling with analysis courses in my personal statement? I know that most Statistics PhD programs looks at pervious math course grades heavily so I don't even know whether I have any chance at getting into a school..

Please let me know which universities you think I should apply to or you think I don't have any chance of getting into a top 50 school. I don't want any sugar coating because I know I'm not the best student but I love learning and would love to continue doing what I love to do.

Really appreciate this forum and thank you all for your comments in advance. This would be really helpful.

Type of Student: International student with Master's from a US institution

Master's Institution: US News top 20 Applied Mathematics program university

GPA: 3.54

Undergrad Institution: Not a well known Asian university

Major: Statistics

Minor: Computer Science

GPA: 3.86

GREs:

• General GRE (166 Quantitative / 156 Verbal / 4 Analytical Writing)

Research Experience: (No publications yet)

• Currently doing research on my Master's thesis project
• One year experience on designing and conducting human behavior research as a RA at a US institution.
• Best research award for my undergraduate research work at the undergraduate institution. 

Upper Level Coursework :

• 5000 level at the US institution
  • Applied Analysis(B)
  • Numerical Analysis I/II (B)
  • Mathematical Statistics I/II (A)
  • Statistical Laboratory (A)
  • Spatial Statistics (A-)
  • Machine Learning (A)

Other:

• I received gold medal for best performance in statistics at the graduation ceremony at my undergraduate institution.

[Stat Assistant Professor]

Given your profile, the advice I gave in the other post remains the same. I think you need to focus on schools ranked lower than USWNR top 60 and also apply to some unranked PhD programs as well. If your ultimate goal is industry, then that is not a problem at all.

If your ultimate goal is academia, I would like to point out that there was one person whose PhD was from the University of Illinois at Chicago (an unranked program -- and they combine math, statistics, and computer science all in the same department) who got an Assistant Professor job at the Iowa State University Department of Statistics this past year, which is a really good Statistics department. And the school where I got my PhD (ranked ~40) hired someone whose PhD was from University of Cincinnatti a couple years ago, and he is really killing it. This scenario may not be "common," but it goes to show that your record of achievement is what really matters above all else.

In addition, most primarily undergrad institutions outside of the very elite ones (i.e. colleges without PhD programs) care even less about PhD granting institution -- passion for teaching and interdisciplinary research with undergrads is what matters most. So if you are open to jobs at PUIs, that is also something to consider.

Edited October 20, 2020 by Stat Assistant Professor

[StatCramer]

33 minutes ago, Stat Assistant Professor said:

Given your profile, the advice I gave in the other post remains the same. I think you need to focus on schools ranked lower than USWNR top 60 and also apply to some unranked PhD programs as well. If your ultimate goal is industry, then that is not a problem at all.

If your ultimate goal is academia, I would like to point out that there was one person whose PhD was from the University of Illinois at Chicago (an unranked program -- and they combine math, statistics, and computer science all in the same department) who got an Assistant Professor job at the Iowa State University Department of Statistics this past year, which is a really good Statistics department. And the school where I got my PhD (ranked ~40) hired someone whose PhD was from University of Cincinnatti a couple years ago, and he is really killing it. This scenario may not be "common," but it goes to show that your record of achievement is what really matters above all else.

In addition, most primarily undergrad institutions outside of the very elite ones (i.e. colleges without PhD programs) care even less about PhD granting institution -- passion for teaching and interdisciplinary research with undergrads is what matters most. So if you are open to jobs at PUIs, that is also something to consider.

Thank you!!! I really appreciate your advice. 

[Stat Assistant Professor]

I'm not saying prestige doesn't matter at all. It can make a difference, and there are many benefits to going to a top school (like a greater number of "superstars" and professors who are internationally recognized, possibly more job connections, etc.). But at the end of the day, you make your own success. Above all else, departments want to hire somebody who has a good record of scholarship and the *future potential* to continue producing quality research after they're hired. And you can accomplish that with a PhD from any reputable school (though it might be easier to build a track record at a top school). A hiring committee is *not* going to be like, "This person has two papers in JASA/Biometrika/Annals/JRSS and seven total papers, but their PhD is from the University of Illinois at Chicago? We won't consider them at all."  

 

Edited October 20, 2020 by Stat Assistant Professor

[bayessays]

If you go to a lower-ranked department, make sure there are people who are actively publishing in top statistics journals (not from 20-30 years ago) and you can be successful.  I purposefully chose an unranked department over a top one because I knew there were people I wanted to work with. Just a warning that the UIC story above is an extreme outlier -- Ryan Martin was briefly a professor at UIC before moving to NCSU (a top department) and he is probably one of the most prolific young statisticians, and the Iowa State prof is one of his old students.  It is unlikely there are any advisors like him at non-top-50 departments today.

[Stat Assistant Professor]

Right, the PhD advisor and the research area both matter a great deal. For example, it is typically going to be harder for a probabilitist to get an academic job than a statistician, even if the probabilitist went to a "top" school (the demand isn't as high, so if you do go into probability theory, you have to be *really, really* good at it to land an academic job at a research university). There are also some unranked programs that have good people, like University of Cincinnati and University of California-Santa Cruz where there are/were a lot of good professors like Bruno Sanso and Abel Rodriguez (Rodriguez recently moved to UW Statistics) who have a strong track record of academic placements.

I just meant to convey that success is not determined only by the prestige of PhD institution (although that does help), but also by a proven record of good scholarship, PhD advisor, postdoctoral experience, research area, etc.

Edited October 20, 2020 by Stat Assistant Professor

[StatCramer]

Thank you for your advice. Since I'm currently working with a professor whom I admire a lot and is a great advisor I believe that finding the right person to work with is the most important thing regardless of the university ranking. Do you recommend writing to a professor that you like to work with before applying?