Columbia Stats Interview (technical questions?)

[the_variational_guy]

Hi all, I am fortunate to receive an interview invitation from Columbia's Stat PhD program (my dream school!). Does anyone want to share about the interview format, especially whether there would be technical questions? Based on what I heard, some say the 20 to 30-minute interview is all about research experience/follow-ups, while some told me that some linear algebra/statistical concepts are involved.

 

(p.s. Another interesting observation: Columbia interviewed the whole shortlist back in 2022, and held no interview last year, then gave out many interviews this season. It's so unpredictable :).

[bayessays]

I've never heard of an interview asking linear algebra questions anywhere, but anything is possible - you should really just be prepared to talk about your research and your interest in the program.  I had an interview once that got a little technical about statistics stuff, but I was coming in with a master's degree and professional work as a statistician.  It's really going to come down to the individual interviewer - there are probably weird people who are going to quiz you about irrelevant math, but there's not really anything you can do to prepare for that anyways.

[Stat Assistant Professor]

So, I work in a department where we also interview a long list of graduate applicants. I am not sure if Columbia U. does it differently, but the way our interview works is basically like this.

1. In the first half of the interview, we (one of the faculty in the department) typically ask the applicant some questions based on their application. So if we see that the applicant is the co-author on a manuscript, we usually ask them to explain their contribution to the paper, what challenges they faced and how they overcame them, etc. If the applicant has teaching/tutoring experience, wrote or is writing a thesis, worked as a Research Assistant or did an REU, or mentioned some research interests in their statement of purpose, then we often ask about that. We don't "quiz" the applicant about their knowledge of their stated research interests -- it's more like, how did you become interested in this area? If there was one or two semesters of weaker grades, the applicant also has an opportunity to explain this.  

2. In the second half of the interview, we ask the applicant if they have any questions for us, and we answer their questions to the best of our ability. This is probably one of the most important parts of the interview, as it conveys your interest in the program and shows that you have done some research about the program. If an applicant does not have any/a lot of questions or if they say something that comes across as a "red flag" (like the applicant confusing our program with a different one -- it's happened before!), then it might give us pause and cause them to be rated down a little bit. But if the interviewee asks very thoughtful questions, then it can definitely help improve their rating/ranking. 

After the interviews are conducted, the admissions committee meets again and re-scores/re-ranks all the applicants, and then the top [x] ranked applicants are sent first-round offers. Everyone else on the long list is kept on the waiting list and has to wait to see if spots open up.

Edited February 15 by Stat Assistant Professor