The number of applicants in statistics Ph.D. programs

[tamy]

Hello follow statistics/math students,

 

Out of curiosity, I wonder if the number of applicants in stat graduate programs is increasing. It seems likely since I saw some stat departments are saying they have lots of applicants in this year. (even more than 600 applicants) Frankly, it is hard to believe 600 applicants for less than 20 spots though I have heard entering statistics graduate programs are getting more competitive.

 

Is there a increasing trend for overall all graduate degrees? or only for stat fields? for only master program not the Ph.D. program? Only for this year? or have it been increased? What do you predict in 10 years when these applicants will finish their degrees? What do you think? How do you predict in 10 years? Any open thoughts are appreciated!

[Stat Assistant Professor]

Yes, there are more applying. Some schools are indeed getting around 600 applications (I know for a fact that NCSU, UNC, and Florida got this many), though this figure is probably number of Master's and PhD applicants combined.

[Stat Assistant Professor]

University of Washington probably had around that many too. According to their Graduate school, they had 532 applications last year.

 

https://www.grad.washington.edu/about/statistics/admissions/admissions13.pdf

[tamy]

University of Washington probably had around that many too. According to their Graduate school, they had 532 applications last year.

 

https://www.grad.washington.edu/about/statistics/admissions/admissions13.pdf

 

Thanks! This is really good chart! It helps figuring out the admission process slightly as well as comparing other dept., too.

Why do the many applicants submit to those schools such as NCSC, UNC, Florida, UW.? I know their programs are pretty decent though.

[Stat Assistant Professor]

Statistics is a very in-demand skill right now and a lot of "sexy" jobs are requiring advanced degrees in statistics (data scientist, biostatistician, etc.). That, plus the stagnant economy for entry-level positions, is probably why the number of applications has gone up a lot (the brutal economy for entry-level workers also explains why graduate applications are up all across the board in all disciplines, except probably law school).

 

It used to be the case (and probably still is, to a degree, at many universities) that as long as the adcom thought you could handle the coursework and saw that you had completed at least the bare minimum of Calc I-III and linear algebra, you would get admitted to a stats Master's program. So with that in mind, perhaps a lot more people decided to apply to stats programs. But now Masters admissions are more competitive too at a lot of places.

Edited March 21, 2014 by Applied Math to Stat

[tamy]

That's good point the prerequisites for master program are commonly taken for most of major. Also, the wide-range of job marker is attracting.

Many international students (who have strong math background) also tend to apply statistics/applied mathematics programs as well, so I might be boost the number of the applicants as well. 

[stats_applicant]

University of Washington probably had around that many too. According to their Graduate school, they had 532 applications last year.

 

https://www.grad.washington.edu/about/statistics/admissions/admissions13.pdf

 

I believe that number is for masters + Ph.D. combined.  This year Washington had 280 applicants for the Ph.D. program.

[tamy]

I believe that number is for masters + Ph.D. combined.  This year Washington had 280 applicants for the Ph.D. program.

WOW! that is really big number for the Ph.D. program!

[Stat Assistant Professor]

Yeah, I think it is 200+ at a lot of schools. Stanford had 124 applications for its PhD program last year, even with the math subject GRE requirement. I can only imagine that the number was double or more at a lot of schools that don't have this requirement. 

[ashramsoji]

It used to be the case (and probably still is, to a degree, at many universities) that as long as the adcom thought you could handle the coursework and saw that you had completed at least the bare minimum of Calc I-III and linear algebra, you would get admitted to a stats Master's program. So with that in mind, perhaps a lot more people decided to apply to stats programs. But now Masters admissions are more competitive too at a lot of places.

 

Well that makes me feel fucking great considering I am wrapping up my requirements now and have applied for a few MS programs......

[StatPhD2014]

Well that makes me feel fucking great considering I am wrapping up my requirements now and have applied for a few MS programs......

 

 

which programs some are still not difficult to get into

[Stat Assistant Professor]

Yeah, there are still a bunch of statistics Masters programs that do "conditional acceptance" (that is, if you haven't completed some of the prerequisite math classes, you can take them while in the Masters program but not receive credit for them). These programs are typically unranked or not highly ranked, but this doesn't matter as much for Masters-level jobs. The fact that such programs exist suggests to me that there are still a lot of Masters programs that aren't *that* competitive.

[Stat Assistant Professor]

PhD applications are certainly much more competitive now though. University of Washington had 280 PhD applications for 8-10 spots. Florida had around 300 for that many spots too. It must be similar at most other places too.

[statshopeful2014]

Duke has some data up on this years cycle,http://gradschool.duke.edu/about/statistics/admitsta.htm.  Looks like applications were at an all-time high for PhDs...and foreign applicants as a percentage have gone down over the years (meaning competitiion for a domestic applicants is getting fiercer.)  I've got a year and half until I apply, hopefully the job market recovers well enough that applications will go down by then!    

[clurp]

I think 2013-2014 means those are the admissions numbers for applicants to the 2013-2014 academic year, i.e. last year's admissions cycle.

 

I suspect it's gotten slightly more competitive since then.

 

I wonder what this means for the academic job market for PhDs (and more general job market, for that matter). One one hand, more people pursuing stats means more competition. On the other hand, it means more demand for people to teach statistics. It seems like statistics programs aren't expanding as quickly as might be warranted.The expanding market for statisticians in industry might also mitigate competition in academia. Who knows. 

Edited March 23, 2014 by clurp

[ashramsoji]

which programs some are still not difficult to get into

 

GW, Georgetown, and UMD

 

All my recommendations are finally in so I'm hoping I'll hear from them soon.

[cyberwulf]

It's not quite so dire; UW may be targeting an incoming class of 8-10, but they will admit ~20-25 to try to hit that number. So that actual admit rate is closer to 8% than 3%... if that makes you feel any better.

[Stat Assistant Professor]

It's not quite so dire; UW may be targeting an incoming class of 8-10, but they will admit ~20-25 to try to hit that number. So that actual admit rate is closer to 8% than 3%... if that makes you feel any better.

Thanks for the info. I knew that most programs over-admitted to achieve a target size for incoming class, but I didn't know it was by quite that much. It seems common for most stats PhD programs to have acceptance rates around 10% or lower though.