Quant Student Q&A

[MissData]

Hey All! I am a first year graduate student in the quantitative area, and I went through the application/interview process last year. There were a few students who I knew who were incredibly helpful in answering my questions and being an excellent resource. I don't think I would have gotten through the process without them. So I'd like to offer myself up to do something similar this year. I know applications are very close to due and soon interviews will be abound. So I want to answer questions that people have.

 

WHO AM I: My name is Amanda, I go to Ohio State, and I work with Andrew Hayes. Last year I applied to 5 schools: Arizona State, Ohio State, UNC- Chapel Hill, UCLA, and UBC. I was accepted at all of these schools with the exception of ASU. I went to interviews at all the schools and have insight about each of them. I did my undergraduate at the University of Washington with a BS in Psychology and a minor in math. I took a year off to manage a social psychology lab and take graduate level courses.

 

I'm happy to answer quant specific questions, or general questions. I probably have more insight about quant but that won't stop me from giving my opinion.

 

SHOOT!

Edited November 20, 2014 by MissData

[ck926]

Hey All! I am a first year graduate student in the quantitative area, and I went through the application/interview process last year. There were a few students who I knew who were incredibly helpful in answering my questions and being an excellent resource. I don't think I would have gotten through the process without them. So I'd like to offer myself up to do something similar this year. I know applications are very close to due and soon interviews will be abound. So I want to answer questions that people have.

 

WHO AM I: My name is Amanda, I go to Ohio State, and I work with Andrew Hayes. Last year I applied to 5 schools: Arizona State, Ohio State, UNC- Chapel Hill, UCLA, and UBC. I was accepted at all of these schools with the exception of ASU. I went to interviews at all the schools and have insight about each of them. I did my undergraduate at the University of Washington with a BS in Psychology and a minor in math. I took a year off to manage a social psychology lab and take graduate level courses.

 

I'm happy to answer quant specific questions, or general questions. I probably have more insight about quant but that won't stop me from giving my opinion.

 

SHOOT!

Not a question....but I just have to say how incredibly jealous I am that you work with Andrew Hayes! That is AWESOME! 

[MissData]

Not a question....but I just have to say how incredibly jealous I am that you work with Andrew Hayes! That is AWESOME! 

Haha, thank you! He's a really great guy, and super nice. I feel incredibly lucky.

[husker123]

If you don't mind sharing, I have several questions:

 

 What was your background before applying to those programs?

 

What were your GRE/GPA scores?

 

How did you decide between the 4 acceptances?

 

Did you reach out and individually speak with professors from those programs before applying?

 

Thanks!

[MissData]

If you don't mind sharing, I have several questions:

 

 What was your background before applying to those programs?

 

What were your GRE/GPA scores?

 

How did you decide between the 4 acceptances?

 

Did you reach out and individually speak with professors from those programs before applying?

 

Thanks!

 

Sorry for the delay. Here's my answers to your questions. Please feel free to follow up. I'd also like to add that my case is just one, and I know people who've come from many different kinds of backgrounds and gotten into great programs.

 

Background:

I did my undergrad at the University of Washington. I did two years at a community college, and then transfered there my junior year. I got into the honors program in the psychology department, which pairs you with a faculty and you work in their lab for two years and do your own independent research project. I worked with a social faculty member there and did my thesis on goal congruity theory and it's applications in increasing women's participation in science, technology, engineering, and math. I completed a BS in psychology and minored in math. After I graduated I spent a year as the lab manager of the social lab that I worked in while I was an undergrad and collaborated on a few social and one quant project. I made a point to present posters at conferences like SPSP, and some undergraduate conferences.

 

GRE/GPA Scores:

Quant: 162

Verbal: 169

Writing: 5

GPA: 3.78

 

Deciding:

Going in, Ohio State and UCLA were my top two schools. There were multiple people at the schools that I was interested in working with and they are well regarded programs. The May before I interviewed, I gave a talk at UCLA and made a point to contact the professor I wanted to work with at UCLA and asked if we could meet. We met and got along great. I really like her approach to mentorship, and she has a good track record and her work is really interesting to me. The other two schools UNC and UBC were easy for me to say no to. The adviser at UBC was AMAZING, but their funding packages were not livable in Vancouver. All of their students were living with family in the area, which was not something I could do. UNC, though the program is amazing, paired me with an adviser I was not interested in working with, and I don't agree with their method of when you TA versus RA during your time there. I think if they had paired me with a different adviser I would have seriously considered it. The students there obviously loved it, and a lot of the faculty there are great and doing very well. Not to mention Chapel Hill is a really low cost of living but fun area.

In the end UCLA versus OSU came down to the adviser. I had applied for the NSFGRF (which I highly recommend everyone look into). When I didn't get it, I got a really short email from the prof at UCLA essentially saying "Too bad." But, my adviser at OSU sent me a long email noting how my experience this year would set me up well for trying again next year. He was so supportive when I felt so defeated, I knew that was how I wanted my relationship with my adviser to be. I am a person who needs support when I need it and distance most of the rest of the time. My adviser does that very well, and it made everything very easy. Additionally (and this wasn't THE deciding factor but I think it's important) my adviser at OSU nominated me for an incredibly competitive fellowship that gave me a much bigger stipend than the usual and a lot of reduced TA time, whereas the prof at UCLA nominated me for a Diversity Fellowship that was not as competitive and there were other options for what she could have nominated me for. It made me feel like my adviser at OSU had a lot of faith in me, whereas maybe not so much at UCLA. In the end I'm very happy with my decision, I don't feel like I burned any bridges, and I hope I get a chance to work at those other schools in the future. It's a tricky deicision and I highly recommend sitting on it for as long as you can. There is a date that you must respond by, but don't let anyone pressure you to answer before then.

 

Reaching Out:

Like I said above, I actually met with one of the professors before I applied. It was mostly luck that I was giving a talk at that school, but I definitely think that set me above and beyond. I emailed Dr. Hayes before applying, and he has since noted that he really only seriously considers the students who emailed him before. I also emailed my POI at UBC just to see if he was taking students. I didn't email UNC because I wasn't very invested in going there, but my mentality about it was that if I got in there it would make the offers more competitive from other schools. I emailed ASU, my POI said he was not taking students, but that the program as a whole was taking students (they didn't actually), so I wasn't particularly hopeful.

My general recommendation is to contact them before hand. Ask if they are taking students. Ask what papers they have out are most representative of their current pursuits. Make sure you're very polite, but also remember that they are looking for curious minds, so make sure to ask more than surface questions. You can always ask about details of the program that aren't available online. I asked most of my POIs if the programs were supportive of students pursuing a Masters of Statistics/Applied Statistics/Biostatistics because that was something I was interested in doing.

 

Hope this helps!