How much does being a white female help in graduate school admissions?

[BlueRobin]

Quoted from another website:

"high GPA at mediocre school + studying your ass off for a 760 GRE (general) quant after you score a 710 math SAT in high school (despite being part of IB program), and be white, and yep you're accepted to an engineering PhD program at MIT.
 
Have a lower GPA than person 1, probably lower test scores, but be a white female? You're in too."

 
How true is this? I'm in this exact situation. White female, high GPA, mediocre school. I'd like to attend graduate school in either statistics or data science. I don't actually want a PhD; I want an MS. However, I don't want to drop $50,000 on an MS when I can go to a PhD program for free and drop out after getting an MS. That being said, I want a degree from a top-ranked program, and I'm worried about my chances of getting into a top-ranked PhD program, but confident about my chances of getting into a top-ranked MS program. Since I want a top-program more than I want the free tuition, I'll spend the $50,000 if need be.

So basically I'd like to know how much of an extra edge being a white female gives me. Will it really help me be accepted into a top-ranked statistics or data science PhD program?

I'd like to stay in the Northeast, so these are the schools I am considering: John Hopkins, Harvard, Carnegie Mellon, Penn State, Columbia, Cornell, Yale, NYU, and Rutgers.

How would you rate my chances at getting accepted into each of these schools, keeping in mind that I am a white female? Please rate my chances for both the PhD and the MS programs (where applicable). I am providing additional information below for referencing. Thank you.

My strengths: high GPA, expected high GRE scores, president of my university's math club, relevant industry experience (summer internships), good writing skills which should translate into a strong personal statement

My causes for concern:

1-The math major at my school isn't that rigorous: real analysis, complex analysis, topology, etc. aren't offered. (To provide a frame of reference, these are my (expected) math courses: Calculus x 3 (through multi-variable calculus), Probability x 2, Linear algebra, Econometrics, Operations research, Differential equations, Biostatistics, Financial mathematics, Finite mathematics, Life contingencies x 2, and a Senior thesis.)

2-I have no serious research experience. I will be doing a senior thesis next year, but it doesn't involve heavy-duty research.

3-My school is very small, and the math department even smaller. To be quite honest, I will probably be the first student to apply to a math related PhD program in a long time. I am unsure how this will play out in my recommendation letters. I have strong relationships with my professors, and they know me well, but I am worried that they won't write me strong recommendation letters because they are asked to do so very infrequently.

To repeat my question, how would you rate my chances at getting accepted into a statistics/data science MS/PhD program at John Hopkins, Harvard, Carnegie Mellon, Penn State, Columbia, Cornell, Yale, NYU, and Rutgers? Keep in mind that I am a white female.

Edited December 12, 2013 by BlueRobin

[123hardasABC]

Wait, what? Why should I keep in mind that you're a white female? Admissions isn't gonna,...or at least they're not supposed to anyways. I mean, yeah, being a white female probably would make you the program's demographic minority, but you shouldn't be considering it as a factor in your application. What's important now is that you demonstrate your mathematical abilities (grades and test scores) and have solid letters of recommendation to vouch for it. Whether or not that race/gender mumbo-jumbo is true, don't think of it as so. That person got into a program because he studied his ass off for the quantitative test, not because he's white -- that's what you should be thinking.

[Igotnothin]

I'm thinking this is a farce. If it isn't I have to say the OP's candidness is refreshing!

[dasgut]

How true is this? I'm in this exact situation. White female, high GPA, mediocre school. I'd like to attend graduate school in either statistics or data science. I don't actually want a PhD; I want an MS. However, I don't want to drop $50,000 on an MS when I can go to a PhD program for free and drop out after getting an MS. That being said, I want a degree from a top-ranked program, and I'm worried about my chances of getting into a top-ranked PhD program, but confident about my chances of getting into a top-ranked MS program. Since I want a top-program more than I want the free tuition, I'll spend the $50,000 if need be.

 

So basically I'd like to know how much of an extra edge being a white female gives me. Will it really help me be accepted into a top-ranked statistics or data science PhD program?

 

Are you asking us to help you steal a seat from someone who actually wants to get a PhD?

[cyberwulf]

A couple of things:

 

1) It isn't a good idea to try to "sneak" into a PhD program if you have no intention of finishing. Faculty will be disappointed and upset if they discover that you never wanted a PhD in the first place; do you really want these people writing your letters of recommendation?

 

2) Being a female might give you a bit of an edge if you were applying to pure math programs, where women are very much under-represented. But there are a reasonable number of female students in stat and biostat, so in those fields you're unlikely to get any bonus points for having two X chromosomes. As to race, there *is* an advantage to being a domestic student (some funding is restricted to U.S. citizens and permanent residents, particularly in biostat), but domestic students are predominantly Caucasian so among this group it is far more advantageous in terms of admissions to be a minority.

[finalrez]

I don't think there's a full enough profile here to speculate on your chances of admissions to specific schools, but to your question "Will being a white female give me an edge in statistics and data science programs?" the answer is probably yes (even if it isn't politically correct to say so).  You will get more of an edge for being a domestic student than for being female.  You will also probably get more of an edge in stats programs than in biostats programs, but stats programs are typically a bit more competitive so that may even things out. 

 

As an aside, my opinion is that it is in really poor taste to apply and take a PhD slot if you have no intention of finishing the PhD, but that's another topic...

[wine in coffee cups]

I'd like to attend graduate school in either statistics or data science. I don't actually want a PhD; I want an MS. However, I don't want to drop $50,000 on an MS when I can go to a PhD program for free and drop out after getting an MS. That being said, I want a degree from a top-ranked program, and I'm worried about my chances of getting into a top-ranked PhD program, but confident about my chances of getting into a top-ranked MS program. Since I want a top-program more than I want the free tuition, I'll spend the $50,000 if need be.

Just want to warn you that going to an academic statistics PhD program where you take theoretical coursework for the first couple of years is not necessarily going to be great preparation for a job. If you are pretty certain that you don't want a career in research, I would advise against this route.

 

Assuming you have no full-time work experience, you would probably have an easier time preparing for a solid entry level job by ponying up for an applied statistics/data science MS and taking more practical coursework than torturing yourself on the PhD track. From what I gathered from the people who left my PhD program last year, the person with the most work experience had by far the easiest go of job hunting. The others were cramming in CS electives to patch up their backgrounds because they were stumbling on technical questions on interviews, database-y things. They weren't getting asked about things they had learned in required courses, like properties of exponential families or the Neyman-Pearson lemma.

 

You would also have better support in job hunting coming from a more professionally-oriented program. Faculty know a lot about getting an academic job, but usually not much about the kinds of jobs you would be looking for. And burning bridges is never a great idea.

[BlueRobin]

 

I'm thinking this is a farce. If it isn't I have to say the OP's candidness is refreshing!

 

It's not a farce. Thanks for the compliment... I guess? I'm assuming you picked up that I know next to nothing about graduate school... If I'm completely off the wall with the schools I'm applying to please let me know! I'd rather find out now than be rejected from everywhere next year.

 

 

I don't think there's a full enough profile here to speculate on your chances of admissions to specific schools

 

What other information do you need to evaluate my chances? I provided everything I could think of.

 

Just want to warn you that going to an academic statistics PhD program where you take theoretical coursework for the first couple of years is not necessarily going to be great preparation for a job. If you are pretty certain that you don't want a career in research, I would advise against this route.

 

Assuming you have no full-time work experience, you would probably have an easier time preparing for a solid entry level job by ponying up for an applied statistics/data science MS and taking more practical coursework than torturing yourself on the PhD track. From what I gathered from the people who left my PhD program last year, the person with the most work experience had by far the easiest go of job hunting. The others were cramming in CS electives to patch up their backgrounds because they were stumbling on technical questions on interviews, database-y things. They weren't getting asked about things they had learned in required courses, like properties of exponential families or the Neyman-Pearson lemma.

 

You would also have better support in job hunting coming from a more professionally-oriented program. Faculty know a lot about getting an academic job, but usually not much about the kinds of jobs you would be looking for. And burning bridges is never a great idea.

 

This is solid advice. I will definitely take this into account. Thank you!

 

 

So putting aside the issue of attending a PhD program when all I want is a MS (I have no qualms about this but I don't plan on debating it here), how would you rate my chances for acceptance into a top MS/PhD program in statistics/data science? (You can leave out the DWF factor this time. I personally think that it will give me a leg up in certain schools, although not in all, but I should hear about my chances in general, and perhaps more people will answer this way.)

 

I think I'll start a new thread with a more appropriate title as well for my revised question. Thank you!

Edited December 13, 2013 by BlueRobin