Fall 2021 Statistics/Biostatistics Applicant Thread

[trynagetby]

Does anyone know if UT Austins QS and U.S News rankings are deceptively low? I got into Duke, Umich (Ranked Top 10 programs), and Wisconsin but got waitlisted at UT Austin (Top 50). I'm super grateful/happy for my acceptances and not complaining. I'm just curious if this means that the rankings are not reliable at all.

[Vibsong]

17 hours ago, possumvibes said:

I submitted it back in early November.

Okay! Congrats on the admit!!?

 

[bayessays]

33 minutes ago, trynagetby said:

Does anyone know if UT Austins QS and U.S News rankings are deceptively low? I got into Duke, Umich (Ranked Top 10 programs), and Wisconsin but got waitlisted at UT Austin (Top 50). I'm super grateful/happy for my acceptances and not complaining. I'm just curious if this means that the rankings are not reliable at all.

UT is newer and smaller so yes it is under ranked. It is also in a location that many many people want to live in, unlike the midwestern schools which many people don't even apply to.

[Spark]

5 hours ago, skibayes said:

Yeah I'm in the same boat. Haha I also was starting to wonder whether they somehow lost my app, but if there's two of us that seems less likely!

Well that makes me feel a little better! I wonder what's up. At first I figured I just didn't get in and was gonna get an email with the rejects, but then all sorts of decisions came out so now I have no idea. Maybe it's just a bit all over this year? Or they lost both of our apps, hah, but hopefully not.

[Spark]

5 hours ago, Taudin said:

It's happened to me too. Maybe it could mean they're gonna offer us masters admits... unless they came out already.

I already have my MS, so I wouldn't expect to be getting a master's admit... but it does seem like if they're gonna reject everyone left they would have already?

[Taudin]

2 minutes ago, Spark said:

I already have my MS, so I wouldn't expect to be getting a master's admit... but it does seem like if they're gonna reject everyone left they would have already?

Yeah, that's a good point I hadn't considered. Some of us already have / will have their masters. If under the assumption that both waitlist and rejection notifications have been sent, I don't know what to make of it. Unless there's like a waitlist for the waitlist, ?

[confusedbear]

Are Washington and Chicago finished sending interviews/offers now, or will there be more?

Also I haven't seen any CMU - they haven't started, right? 

[csheehan10]

 

20 minutes ago, confusedbear said:

Are Washington and Chicago finished sending interviews/offers now, or will there be more?

Also I haven't seen any CMU - they haven't started, right? 

I think Chicago are done - I got a rejection anyway.

[Spark]

4 hours ago, Taudin said:

Unless there's like a waitlist for the waitlist, ?

You think at that point they'd just say waitlist, but who knows. It seems like if they were going to reject all of us, they would have already, so maybe they're just doing batches this year. Or just giving us hope to reject us in the future, haha.

Did you get the request for your fall transcripts in December? I've been wondering if they just send that to everyone or not. Not that it matters, all we can do is wait and hope that a badger hasn't eaten our applications ?

[Taudin]

8 minutes ago, Spark said:

You think at that point they'd just say waitlist, but who knows. It seems like if they were going to reject all of us, they would have already, so maybe they're just doing batches this year. Or just giving us hope to reject us in the future, haha.

Did you get the request for your fall transcripts in December? I've been wondering if they just send that to everyone or not. Not that it matters, all we can do is wait and hope that a badger hasn't eaten our applications ?

Yeah, I actually did get that request and I was thinking that everyone else did as well. You're right, that's all we can do, lol. It's all so ironic to me since I submitted my application on November 6,  pretty early as well thinking it would expedite some sort of decision. Guess not.

[Spark]

20 minutes ago, Taudin said:

I submitted my application on November 6

I submitted my application the day it was due, so it looks like there's no effect there. Well, guess we'll see if we ever hear... I'm just trying to convince myself it isn't automatically a rejection at this point ?

[storyny]

US news ranking of Harvard statistics is high (right after Stanford and Berkeley). But almost all of my professors say that the ranking is overestimated because of the name "Harvard". Does anyone have idea about this? I also saw someone saying NCSU Stat is better than Harvard Stat in Fall 2020 Statistics Survey.

[PhysicsKid]

14 hours ago, csheehan10 said:

 

I think Chicago are done - I got a rejection anyway.

From my understanding, UChicago PhD explicitly says that they send out in batches and this is backed up historically. Seems like once they start, they send out new batches once a week. Based on this reasoning, another round should be coming Sunday/Monday. 

[mangobear]

9 hours ago, storyny said:

US news ranking of Harvard statistics is high (right after Stanford and Berkeley). But almost all of my professors say that the ranking is overestimated because of the name "Harvard". Does anyone have idea about this? I also saw someone saying NCSU Stat is better than Harvard Stat in Fall 2020 Statistics Survey.

To go oof that, is USWN accurate? What are the "good" stats programs lol

[trynagetby]

Harvard is also ranked that high on the QS rankings. Seems consistent.

[bayessays]

9 hours ago, storyny said:

US news ranking of Harvard statistics is high (right after Stanford and Berkeley). But almost all of my professors say that the ranking is overestimated because of the name "Harvard". Does anyone have idea about this? I also saw someone saying NCSU Stat is better than Harvard Stat in Fall 2020 Statistics Survey.

Harvard has Murphy, Imai, Meng and I don't think NCSU has any senior people quite at that level.

[TroyBarnes]

What makes a department "good." Is it the students who graduate and go on to do impactful things? Or is it the faculty there - then in schools where there are a lot of junior faculty, or younger departments, do they have a chance to rise in the rankings?

[storyny]

How about Harvard vs Berkeley? Berkeley is higher in us news and Harvard is higher in QS.  (veey close though in both rankings)

 

[frequentist]

While looking at faculty almost all top 20 or top 30 schools, I did not see many faculty members who got their PhD from Carnegie Mellon. Does anyone have any idea about this? Being somewhat large and such a reputed department, I would expect at least couple of CMU graduates in the faculty of almost all top department. I wonder if this is because most CMU graduates prefer to go work in the industry.

[stats viscacha]

On 2/12/2021 at 11:02 PM, confusedbear said:

Are Washington and Chicago finished sending interviews/offers now, or will there be more?

Also I haven't seen any CMU - they haven't started, right? 

I was wondering about CMU too, seems like they had sent offers earlier previous years. Anyone know when we might expect to start hearing back ? 

[TheMeanGene]

On 2/14/2021 at 12:31 AM, frequentist said:

While looking at faculty almost all top 20 or top 30 schools, I did not see many faculty members who got their PhD from Carnegie Mellon. Does anyone have any idea about this? Being somewhat large and such a reputed department, I would expect at least couple of CMU graduates in the faculty of almost all top department. I wonder if this is because most CMU graduates prefer to go work in the industry.

You can see some data as to where graduates go here https://www.cmu.edu/career/about-us/salaries-and-destinations/post-grad-dashboard-updated.html

 

A lot of what I am about to say is quite opinionated as I have no experience with CMU's PhD program, but I did go there for undergrad. This is a generality, and may not be true for every department, but the school has pretty poor work life balance and a general toxic working culture in my opinion. Lots of students get turned off by academia after their general experience with the school. There are also a lot of other factors that I think would steer most students at CMU to industry, e.g. strong cs reputation. Lots of tech companies heavily recruit CMU students and I'm sure it doesn't help to see your peers all leave academia for high paying "cushy" jobs (if your goal is to remain in academia).

[confusedbear]

Is it okay to drop a technical class (optimization) that I was enrolled in this semester that I listed on my applications for spring courses? It won't interfere with my graduation requirements since I just took it for general knowledge but I found myself a bit busier than expected. 

I'll check in with admissions committees just to be sure, but have other people done stuff like this before?

[statenth]

1 hour ago, confusedbear said:

Is it okay to drop a technical class (optimization) that I was enrolled in this semester that I listed on my applications for spring courses? It won't interfere with my graduation requirements since I just took it for general knowledge but I found myself a bit busier than expected. 

I'll check in with admissions committees just to be sure, but have other people done stuff like this before?

Even if they don't require it I think it's better to tell them bc you are making changes in your official records.

Edited February 16, 2021 by statenth

[bayessays]

1 hour ago, confusedbear said:

Is it okay to drop a technical class (optimization) that I was enrolled in this semester that I listed on my applications for spring courses? It won't interfere with my graduation requirements since I just took it for general knowledge but I found myself a bit busier than expected. 

I'll check in with admissions committees just to be sure, but have other people done stuff like this before?

I was terrified of stuff like this when I was applying, but I very sincerely doubt anyone will care unless it's a core course like calc 3, linear algebra, or real analysis and even then, only if they told you your admission was conditional on those classes  -- your admissions letter admits you on the condition that you graduate with your bachelors and that's likely all that matters.  I never had anyone mention when I did stuff like this (failed or dropped classes multiple times during last semester of undergrad/masters).

[StatB]

Does anyone know if TAMU and Ohio State put students in waiting list ?