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2015 Admissions General


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Small is an understatement; as far as I know they only take 1, maybe 2 people per year. I think that also means that it actually is quite competitive. I've heard good things about it though. I would think that it could be a bit lonely, but you have access to good faculty, there's a lot of faculty support, you have quite a bit of freedom to customize your curriculum, and because it's in the business school the funding is fairly generous. You also get at least some access to classes in the Statistics department.

 

On the other hand, keep in mind that it is Econometrics and Statistics. So there's going to be more of an emphasis on the Econometrics part than a traditional Statistics program, which can be either a good or bad thing depending on your interests.

Booth has quite a few Bayesian statisticians doing work I think is pretty interesting that is pretty far removed from classic econometrics (Gramacy, Lopes, McCulloch, Polson, Taddy). Most of the co-authorships on the papers I like appear to be with each other and collaborators at other universities, though, not so often with current Booth students. Seems like kind of a shame to me not to have more students involved. The student thesis proposals/defenses for the econometrics/statistics students don't sound that reflective of the methods work those faculty are strong in. Is there a mismatch between the research interests of the students and faculty there, what's going on?

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Booth has quite a few Bayesian statisticians doing work I think is pretty interesting that is pretty far removed from classic econometrics (Gramacy, Lopes, McCulloch, Polson, Taddy). Most of the co-authorships on the papers I like appear to be with each other and collaborators at other universities, though, not so often with current Booth students. Seems like kind of a shame to me not to have more students involved. The student thesis proposals/defenses for the econometrics/statistics students don't sound that reflective of the methods work those faculty are strong in. Is there a mismatch between the research interests of the students and faculty there, what's going on?

 

Well, that wouldn't be the most surprising thing would it? I think a lot of traditional stats applicants either wouldn't know about or wouldn't necessarily want to go to a Econometrics and Statistics program housed in a business school. As far as I know it's a unique program. They probably mostly get econ-stat crossover types who might actually be more interested in the econometrics stuff. I don't know about their placements, but I also imagine there are worries that you'd have issues placing into a stat department.

 

That said, I actually agree that they have a surprisingly good stat faculty with a lot of work being done outside of just econometrics. I also know that at least one of their more recently admitted students is pretty interested in Bayesian stuff, so maybe they're targeting different applicants? Or it's just one-year luck.

Edited by ar_rf
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Interesting... it appears as though a bad subject GRE may have sunk me with Stanford. I had a 750, 71%, and all of the posted profiles are 850+. It seems odd that they would weigh such a silly test so highly, especially for someone like myself who has a heavy math background (A+'s in functional analysis, measure theoretic probability, stochastic calculus, real analysis, measure theory I + fourier analysis, measure theory II, research + letter in abstract harmonic analysis, plus various non-analysis pure math courses) 

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Well, that wouldn't be the most surprising thing would it? I think a lot of traditional stats applicants either wouldn't know about or wouldn't necessarily want to go to a Econometrics and Statistics program housed in a business school. As far as I know it's a unique program. They probably mostly get econ-stat crossover types who might actually be more interested in the econometrics stuff. I don't know about their placements, but I also imagine there are worries that you'd have issues placing into a stat department.

 

That said, I actually agree that they have a surprisingly good stat faculty with a lot of work being done outside of just econometrics. I also know that at least one of their more recently admitted students is pretty interested in Bayesian stuff, so maybe they're targeting different applicants? Or it's just one-year luck.

 

They keep a list of first jobs upon graduation. Indeed, no one has placed in a statistics department, but quite a few have placed in Finance/Economics departments. I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing--just depends on one's research interests. Still, many more have ended up working for the public or private sector (e.g., the Fed, Goldman, BCG). So if one really wants an academic job, maybe it is not the best place to go after all.

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Interesting... it appears as though a bad subject GRE may have sunk me with Stanford. I had a 750, 71%, and all of the posted profiles are 850+. It seems odd that they would weigh such a silly test so highly, especially for someone like myself who has a heavy math background (A+'s in functional analysis, measure theoretic probability, stochastic calculus, real analysis, measure theory I + fourier analysis, measure theory II, research + letter in abstract harmonic analysis, plus various non-analysis pure math courses) 

 

I don't think that this necessarily hurt you. Judging from the results, it seems like they exclusively admit people who have at least taken the exam. Granted, the lowest score I could find of the admits was 820, but I did not see a single person who was admitted that had not taken the exam. It's probably the most competitive program out there, given the school's reputation, the program's reputation, as well as the location. Congrats on Washington. You have an amazing fallback if Stanford doesn't work out.

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I don't think that this necessarily hurt you. Judging from the results, it seems like they exclusively admit people who have at least taken the exam. Granted, the lowest score I could find of the admits was 820, but I did not see a single person who was admitted that had not taken the exam. It's probably the most competitive program out there, given the school's reputation, the program's reputation, as well as the location. Congrats on Washington. You have an amazing fallback if Stanford doesn't work out.

 

Stanford is one of the only schools (the only?) that requires the math gre in the application (source). I've heard rumors that they've accepted applicants without a math gre before, but even if they are true I'm sure that it has to be an exceptional case.

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What does everything think? Will any school send out acceptances/rejections before the end of the day?

My bet, based on historical patterns, is on CMU coming out. Maybe Berkeley as well, depending on what's happening there...

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Good new, guys!  I've just been accepted into GWU's PhD program in Biostatistics!  I was only able to apply to local programs (JHU, UMD, and GWU) for personal reasons .  After essentially being rejected from JHU (emailed the graduate director inquiring about it) I was worried I wouldn't get in anywhere, so you can imagine how relieved I'm feeling.  

 

As for funding, the professor who emailed me said they wouldn't be able to notify me until late next week as the funding decisions have yet to be finalized.  Based on last year's results, non-funded offers seem to be the rule rather than the exception, but then again someone on another forum did mention that with the recent massive donation that the school received last year, they might be able to award a few grants/fellowships/assistantships this year.  Anyway, I'm trying not to get too excited, but I can't help it. Woohoo! 

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Sorry to hear, CommonerCoffee, dynamic89, and Anakin. Does this mean they are coming out as we speak? I'm nervously refreshing my inbox every few seconds. 

 

I suppose all we know at this point is that some rejections were sent this afternoon. The message hit my inbox at 4:47PM EST.

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Bummer for those who didn't get in. I'm also still waiting to hear, not sure how long it takes. 

 

It seems odd that they are sending out rejections before acceptances too, I've never seen this before. 

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