Another Profile Evaluation for Future Biostat Applicant

[Bruins2013]

Hi guys, I noticed there are some experienced applicants/faculty members posting here so thought I'd post my profile for feedback. Interested in Biostat programs, and I'm planning to apply for the 2014 fall cycle. What kind of programs do you guys think I should apply to? (I'm thinking a few reaches, a number of reasonables, and a few safeties)

 

Undergraduate: UCLA

Major: Math/Physics Double

GPA: 3.63 (~3.4 in Physics, ~3.7 in Math but with 1 B- and rest A/A-)

Math Courses: 2 quarters of real, 2 quarters of probability/stats, 1 quarter of upper div linear alg, abstract alg, complex, numerical analysis, diff geometry

GRE: haven't taken but should be around 160 verbal and 170 math with a strong score in writing

Experience: Haven't been able to get much research experience in undergrad, been involved with some leadership roles in unrelated campus clubs

Applicant Type: Domestic

 

Thanks guys!

[echlori]

Just curious, why biostats? Any particular area of interest?

 

Hi guys, I noticed there are some experienced applicants/faculty members posting here so thought I'd post my profile for feedback. Interested in Biostat programs, and I'm planning to apply for the 2014 fall cycle. What kind of programs do you guys think I should apply to? (I'm thinking a few reaches, a number of reasonables, and a few safeties)

 

Undergraduate: UCLA

Major: Math/Physics Double

GPA: 3.63 (~3.4 in Physics, ~3.7 in Math but with 1 B- and rest A/A-)

Math Courses: 2 quarters of real, 2 quarters of probability/stats, 1 quarter of upper div linear alg, abstract alg, complex, numerical analysis, diff geometry

GRE: haven't taken but should be around 160 verbal and 170 math with a strong score in writing

Experience: Haven't been able to get much research experience in undergrad, been involved with some leadership roles in unrelated campus clubs

Applicant Type: Domestic

 

Thanks guys!

[Biostat_Assistant_Prof]

If you do as well on the GRE as you assume you will and have 3 good LORs, then Im guessing you'd have a reasonably good shot at schools ranked 4 and beyond. There may be an outside shot at the top 3 (Harvard, Hopkins, Washington), but if next year is as competitive as this year, then I think it'd be unlikely because your GPA/Math grades are good, but not outstanding.

Don't worry about relevant research experience hurting you, most applicants don't have it.

This is for PhD programs too.,, if your applying to Masters, you'd probably get in everywhere (except maybe Harvard or Hopkins)

If I were to give you a list of 10ish schools to apply to, this is what it would be

Reaches - choose 2 from: Hopkins, Harvard, and Washington

Reasonable - UNC, Minnesota, Michigan (if you'd be ok with a funded fast track MS/PhD), Emory, Brown, Penn, UC Berkeley

Safeties: choose 1 or 2 from pretty much any school that is listed in the rankings that isn't listed above... Examples: UCLA, Boston, Pitt, etc.

...this is info comes from everything I've read and learned over the last year on this forum while figuring it all out for myself.

[erb8884]

You seem to have similar stats as me, and I got into both UNC and Michigan. I'd say that you have a decent shot at Harvard/UW/Hopkins and a really great shot at everywhere else.

[Bruins2013]

Just curious, why biostats? Any particular area of interest?

 

I agree not a traditional route for someone with Math/Physics background, but I enjoyed my Math courses a lot more than my Physics courses. I was thinking either Applied Math or Stats for grad school, and my brother told me about Biostats which he also ended up choosing (with a similar background as me). Not 100% sure on area of interest and that will depend on where I end up going, but so far I like high-dimensional data and methods research.

 

If you do as well on the GRE as you assume you will and have 3 good LORs, then Im guessing you'd have a reasonably good shot at schools ranked 4 and beyond. There may be an outside shot at the top 3 (Harvard, Hopkins, Washington), but if next year is as competitive as this year, then I think it'd be unlikely because your GPA/Math grades are good, but not outstanding.

Don't worry about relevant research experience hurting you, most applicants don't have it.

This is for PhD programs too.,, if your applying to Masters, you'd probably get in everywhere (except maybe Harvard or Hopkins)

If I were to give you a list of 10ish schools to apply to, this is what it would be

Reaches - choose 2 from: Hopkins, Harvard, and Washington

Reasonable - UNC, Minnesota, Michigan (if you'd be ok with a funded fast track MS/PhD), Emory, Brown, Penn, UC Berkeley

Safeties: choose 1 or 2 from pretty much any school that is listed in the rankings that isn't listed above... Examples: UCLA, Boston, Pitt, etc.

...this is info comes from everything I've read and learned over the last year on this forum while figuring it all out for myself.

 

Yes, I will be applying to PhD programs for the most part. I think this is sort of the list I have in mind as well. Rec letters should be okay but not phenomenal since I don't have much research experience. I'm guessing they will be "did well in class" type of letters.

[Eracer]

Whatever you do don't wait another year to apply.  From the department people i've talked to this year was by far the most competitive, even for masters programs, and it's only going to get more competitive next year!

[cyberwulf]

I think most of the advice here is pretty good. You probably have a better shot at UW than Harvard/Hopkins due to # of students they admit.

[creed_the_third]

Whatever you do don't wait another year to apply.  From the department people i've talked to this year was by far the most competitive, even for masters programs, and it's only going to get more competitive next year!

Yeah, the current trend is not very encouraging to future applicants (as myself)... Hopefully the job market will improve to perhaps lighten the pressure. I had a talk with one of my professors about which schools I should aim for and was quite surprised when told that I would be competitive at all the top schools, but I don't know if he has been keeping up with the recent trend in application numbers/strength.. I think my chances are very very slim at top departments looking at some of the other peoples profiles/success here and in the result section. :/ Anyway I wish the OP luck, he seem to be in pretty good shape coming from UCLA and being domestic student.

Edited March 13, 2013 by creed_the_third

[Biostat_Assistant_Prof]

Whatever you do don't wait another year to apply.  From the department people i've talked to this year was by far the most competitive, even for masters programs, and it's only going to get more competitive next year!

 

I feel the same. Admittedly, my knowledge of the applicant pool for Biostatistics in general comes 99% from what I read and observe here on gradcafe... But regardless, if this website is an indicator of how things are in general, then this year was much more competitive years past (given the amount of applicants posts in the results forum, the amount of discussion in this sub-forum, and the credentials of students admitted to specific programs). 

 

... It seems like the big secret of how awesome biostats is, is now out of the bag and everyone wants to get in on it.

Edited March 14, 2013 by Noco7

[creed_the_third]

... It seems like the big secret of how awesome biostats is, is now out of the bag and everyone wants to get in on it.

Bound to happen... good job prospects (in academia as well as industry), good pay, not much barrier of entry in form of prereqs and overall interesting area.

[Eracer]

Bound to happen... good job prospects (in academia as well as industry), good pay, not much barrier of entry in form of prereqs and overall interesting area.

 

Yeah, but the flood of new graduates will kill the good pay and prospects.  Better get that industry experience and faculty spots soon!

[creed_the_third]

Yeah, but the flood of new graduates will kill the good pay and prospects.  Better get that industry experience and faculty spots soon!

Perhaps on the master level, but if you have a phd I still think prospects will be good a long time. I'll be applying to stat instead of biostat though since I don't want to pigeon hole my future in one area (and I'm not any more interested in applying statistics to biodata than any other type of data).

Edited March 14, 2013 by creed_the_third

[echlori]

If you do as well on the GRE as you assume you will and have 3 good LORs, then Im guessing you'd have a reasonably good shot at schools ranked 4 and beyond. There may be an outside shot at the top 3 (Harvard, Hopkins, Washington), but if next year is as competitive as this year, then I think it'd be unlikely because your GPA/Math grades are good, but not outstanding.

Don't worry about relevant research experience hurting you, most applicants don't have it.

This is for PhD programs too.,, if your applying to Masters, you'd probably get in everywhere (except maybe Harvard or Hopkins)

If I were to give you a list of 10ish schools to apply to, this is what it would be

Reaches - choose 2 from: Hopkins, Harvard, and Washington

Reasonable - UNC, Minnesota, Michigan (if you'd be ok with a funded fast track MS/PhD), Emory, Brown, Penn, UC Berkeley

Safeties: choose 1 or 2 from pretty much any school that is listed in the rankings that isn't listed above... Examples: UCLA, Boston, Pitt, etc.

...this is info comes from everything I've read and learned over the last year on this forum while figuring it all out for myself.

 

This seems reasonable. For biostats I pretty much applied to UW (rejected), Michigan (wait-listed), UCLA and BU (both still pending). You've got one advantage over me in that you're domestic rather than international.

 

 

 

You seem to have similar stats as me, and I got into both UNC and Michigan. I'd say that you have a decent shot at Harvard/UW/Hopkins and a really great shot at everywhere else.

 

 

erb8884, which of the two are you choosing? 

[Shostakovich]

Yeah, but the flood of new graduates will kill the good pay and prospects.  Better get that industry experience and faculty spots soon!

 

I think you should still be okay if you manage to get into a good program and do well. I don't think the number of offers being made by top programs will necessarily budge too much, but what will go down is the acceptance rate at those programs (as suggested in the recent years).

[biostat_prof]

It's hard to know for sure, because a lot depends on recommendations. (And if you are a minority, it is an entirely different game.) That said, I think your GPA is on the low side if you want to be competitive to at any of the "top five" departments. (As I have noted elsewhere, I don't see any justification for placing UNC/Michigan on a lower tier than UW/Harvard/Hopkins, and they are both clearly a step up from Minnesota, for example. But I don't really want to have that debate again on this thread.) The admissions game has become so competitive these days that it seems like most people admitted to those departments have GPA's of 3.8+ (particularly in advanced math courses) along with stellar recommendations and usually some research experience. Granted, really strong recommendations or outstanding research can compensate for lower GPA's, but it doesn't happen often. Well, it does seem like UNC and Michigan will occasionally offer admission without funding to applicants with weaker credentials, but from my point of view an admissions offer without funding is essentially a rejection. (I would strongly advise against attending any PhD program in stat/biostat with a reasonable guarantee of funding for at least 4-5 years.)

 

If you are serious about attending a top-ranked department, your best bet would be to do an MS and try to polish your resume a bit. Otherwise it can't hurt to apply to the top-ranked departments if you have the patience (and money) to do so, but I would definitely have plenty of other schools on the list. If you do attend a lower-ranked program, I would strongly advise you to find out about the availability of funding and the school's placement record, as well as the attrition rate. I know many lower-ranked schools sometimes don't have money to fund all their students for the amount of time it takes to finish a PhD, so students end up either dropping out or taking out loans, both of which you would want to avoid.

[kgbfan]

It's hard to know for sure, because a lot depends on recommendations. (And if you are a minority, it is an entirely different game.) That said, I think your GPA is on the low side if you want to be competitive to at any of the "top five" departments. (As I have noted elsewhere, I don't see any justification for placing UNC/Michigan on a lower tier than UW/Harvard/Hopkins, and they are both clearly a step up from Minnesota, for example. But I don't really want to have that debate again on this thread.) The admissions game has become so competitive these days that it seems like most people admitted to those departments have GPA's of 3.8+ (particularly in advanced math courses) along with stellar recommendations and usually some research experience. Granted, really strong recommendations or outstanding research can compensate for lower GPA's, but it doesn't happen often. Well, it does seem like UNC and Michigan will occasionally offer admission without funding to applicants with weaker credentials, but from my point of view an admissions offer without funding is essentially a rejection. (I would strongly advise against attending any PhD program in stat/biostat with a reasonable guarantee of funding for at least 4-5 years.)

 

If you are serious about attending a top-ranked department, your best bet would be to do an MS and try to polish your resume a bit. Otherwise it can't hurt to apply to the top-ranked departments if you have the patience (and money) to do so, but I would definitely have plenty of other schools on the list. If you do attend a lower-ranked program, I would strongly advise you to find out about the availability of funding and the school's placement record, as well as the attrition rate. I know many lower-ranked schools sometimes don't have money to fund all their students for the amount of time it takes to finish a PhD, so students end up either dropping out or taking out loans, both of which you would want to avoid.

 

 

Would you mind elaborating on this point?  Our profiles are similar, and I happen to be an ethnic minority, so I'm just curious.  

Edited January 29, 2015 by kgbfan