What's the best statistics path for an aspiring academic/ profile evaluation?

[Robbentheking]

Hi guys,

I've been reading through these forums for the past couple months in order to get a feel for the admissions process etc. and have learned a lot, but I guess it'd be nice to have a bit of input on my personal situation. I'm a senior studying math and am interested in theoretical statistics and probability theory. It's pretty important to me that I keep the door to academia very much open and I've read that academic placement can get really hard outside of the top tier. With that in mind, I wonder if my best option would be to focus largely on applying to masters programs to improve my profile. The issue with this that I find is that, although I haven't done exhaustive research, it seems most masters programs are very much professionally oriented, which really isn't what I'm looking for. The only ones that I have found that I really like are Chicago and Harvard, which I guess are possibilities for me, but are very competitive obviously. Anyway, I'll put my profile and current ideas for schools below, and would be curious to hear any input/advice anyone has to give, especially from any faculty. Thanks!

Undergrad: Ivy 

Majors: Mathematics, German

GPA: 3.88 overall, 3.90 Math, 3.87 German

Honors/ Awards: classic bs like dean's list, a few German department awards. (I actually got "Highest Honors" in my German major for an A on my senior thesis, for whatever that's worth)

Type of student: domestic male

GRE: Verbal 170, Quantitative 167, Writing 4.5

Math GRE: am not taking it... just didn't have the time to prepare for the regular gre, work full time, and review all that stuff well enough to expect a good score.

Relevant Courses: Integral Calc (A+), Multi Variable (A), Linear Algebra (A+), Intro to Proofs (A), Abstract Algebra I (A-), Real Analysis I (A), Abstract Algebra II (A), Real Analysis II (A), Calc. Based Probability (A+), Intro to PDEs (A+), Complex Analysis (A), Topology (grad course) (A-).

Research: None in math or statistics. I have a 40 page senior thesis in german and currently am doing an extended internship in research and development at an electronics firm, but it's largely physics based with a smattering of calculus involved. I don't think either of these will help me too much.

Letters:

-analysis professor who I had for two semesters 

-algebra professor who I had for two semesters

-topology professor

first two should be good because they both know me and what i can and can't do very well. third is probably kind of meh

 

Worries:

I think they're obvious:

 1) Lack of research, and the reliance on professors I only took classes with for letters that comes with this

 2) no math gre pretty much eliminates me from top tier PhD if my lack of research didn't already

Thinking of applying:

Masters: Chicago (first choice), Harvard, .... (any suggestions for non-professionally oriented masters that aren't so competitive? I know I have to do more research here)

PhD: I guess maybe large departments where I would have research flexibility. I guess I'll apply to places like Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, but again, I'm cautious of cornering myself out of academia by just accepting any old offer.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 20, 2016 by Robbentheking

[Residuals]

You have a solid record. The lack of a math subject test is problematic for the top departments. Madison is a really good choice for a masters given how respected the department is. In terms of other masters programs, did you look at Columbia's? The website states that its MA is for preparing people for doctoral studies: "The Statistics Department offers a flexible on campus M.A. program designed for students preparing for professional positions or for doctoral programs in statistics " 

[GoPackGo89]

5 hours ago, Robbentheking said:

 

PhD: I guess maybe large departments where I would have research flexibility. I guess I'll apply to places like Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, but again, I'm cautious of cornering myself out of academia by just accepting any old offer.

 

Does going to Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota corner you out of academia? I'm not familiar with how academic jobs go

[Robbentheking]

4 hours ago, statbiostat2017 said:

Does going to Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota corner you out of academia? I'm not familiar with how academic jobs go

Well idk really. I sort of hate the phrasing I used here now that I read it again. I don't mean to insinuate that Michigan for example is 'any old offer,' as it seems to be a very strong department with many people much smarter than me. What I'm trying to get at is I'm not just going to take a PhD offer for the sake of taking one, especially if I can get into a really good masters program and fill some of the holes in my profile in the next couple years. To be honest, I don't really know if the programs I mentioned would put me in a relatively tough spot in terms of academic placement or what the cutoff is for 'any old offer' is; it's sort of all part of my question. I've done a bit of research by just randomly looking at younger faculty profiles at schools and it would be wrong to say that all of the faculty come from top 5 programs. That being said, places like Stanford and Berkeley pop up quite a lot, especially in say the top 15 departments. 'Cornering out' is a strong phrase and again was probably poor word choice, but going to a top department seems like the path of least resistance, unless people outside of this top tier are just not as interested in academic careers on average. This is also coming from a bit of reading I've done on these forums.

I like to think that if you worked with really great faculty at a second tier department and produce good research you shouldn't have too much trouble getting a job, but who knows.

[Robbentheking]

6 hours ago, arima said:

You have a solid record. The lack of a math subject test is problematic for the top departments. Madison is a really good choice for a masters given how respected the department is. In terms of other masters programs, did you look at Columbia's? The website states that its MA is for preparing people for doctoral studies: "The Statistics Department offers a flexible on campus M.A. program designed for students preparing for professional positions or for doctoral programs in statistics " 

Thanks for the ideas. I hadn't looked at the masters programs at either of those departments yet. I should have done more research before posting. I had just looked at master programs at some of the top departments and was kind of surprised the orientation was so professional

[Residuals]

You are absolutely correct on finding a top advisor regardless of school. Chicago just hired an asst. prof. who is a recent statistics PhD graduate from Yale. Yale isn't viewed among the very top departments (probably not in top 20) but this guy worked with a strong Yale faculty member to do solid research. Another Chicago hire into its statistics department is a woman who got her PhD from the department of Operations Research at Princeton. Within this department is a small statistics group with a couple very productive, young statistics researchers. She came from a department that is not even ranked (!) among statistics departments and look where she ended up. There are top end advisors at other schools (e.g., Texas A&M, ASU just nabbed a Chicago faculty member). When a doctoral student does solid research, it gets noticed.

On the flip side, there are faculty at the top three departments who have weak (dare say pathetic) academic placements of their students. This is actually an issue in that the better advisors at the top departments can only take on so many. So, the remaining students get the short-end of the stick and are stuck with "lesser" faculty at these departments and don't get placed as well as they had hoped. It would have been better for these students to be at lower ranked departments (as the examples of Yale, Princeton, etc. above) and to have worked with the star faculty members in those departments.

Edited October 21, 2016 by arima

[GoPackGo89]

8 minutes ago, arima said:

You are absolutely correct on finding a top advisor regardless of school. Chicago just hired an asst. prof. who is a recent statistics PhD graduate from Yale. Yale isn't viewed among the very top departments (probably not in top 20) but this guy worked with a strong Yale faculty member to do solid research. Another Chicago hire into its statistics department is a woman who got her PhD from the department of Operations Research at Princeton. Within this department is a small statistics group with a couple very productive, young statistics researchers. She came from a department that is not even ranked (!) among statistics departments and look where she ended up. There are top end advisors at other schools (e.g., Texas A&M, ASU just nabbed a Chicago faculty member). When a doctoral student does solid research, it gets noticed.

On the flip side, there are faculty at the top three departments who have weak (dare say pathetic) academic placements of their students.

Is the way to go about finding these top advisors to go to the math genealogy project and find out where their students end up? Some schools websites are pretty great at showing where students end up but a lot of schools I can hardly find a webpage on current students let alone recent graduate placement

[Residuals]

7 minutes ago, statbiostat2017 said:

Is the way to go about finding these top advisors to go to the math genealogy project and find out where their students end up? Some schools websites are pretty great at showing where students end up but a lot of schools I can hardly find a webpage on current students let alone recent graduate placement

When it comes to stats, math genealogy doesn't help too much. Yes, some departments show placement but don't show the specific advisor (you can figure this out with looking up the student's page or Google). Unfortunately, unless you are in the profession, knowing who the good faculty for placement are takes a bit of work. First, one can go to the department of interest and open 1 by 1 faculty CV and look if they list past students who worked under him/her.

Also, I would literally go to the top 20-30 departments and look at the faculty's alma mater (I would look only at young faculty) and see who he/she worked with. For example, if you went to Chicago's stats department, you would see the young asst. professors just hired (one from Yale and one from Princeton). Then you backtrack from their CV's. When you backtrack the Princeton grad, you find she worked under a really productive, highly recognized statistics faculty member who you would have never known about if you were thinking traditional top statistics department. It is a pain but it is worth the effort. 

Final advice when it comes to traditional statistics departments (as opposed to biostatistics). Look for the faculty who have produced students who have published in top statistics journals (JASA, Annals of Statistics, J Royal Statistical Society, etc.). Statistics is indeed interdisciplinary but if a young faculty member is publishing only in application journals (biology, medicine, etc.), then tenure is iffy at best (I know of a recent unfortunate tenure rejection of a young asst. prof. at a top 15 department).

Biostats is much more application oriented so my comments don't apply completely to those faculty.

[Robbentheking]

@arima

thank you so much! this is all really helpful 

[GoPackGo89]

4 hours ago, arima said:

When it comes to stats, math genealogy doesn't help too much. Yes, some departments show placement but don't show the specific advisor (you can figure this out with looking up the student's page or Google). Unfortunately, unless you are in the profession, knowing who the good faculty for placement are takes a bit of work. First, one can go to the department of interest and open 1 by 1 faculty CV and look if they list past students who worked under him/her.

Also, I would literally go to the top 20-30 departments and look at the faculty's alma mater (I would look only at young faculty) and see who he/she worked with. For example, if you went to Chicago's stats department, you would see the young asst. professors just hired (one from Yale and one from Princeton). Then you backtrack from their CV's. When you backtrack the Princeton grad, you find she worked under a really productive, highly recognized statistics faculty member who you would have never known about if you were thinking traditional top statistics department. It is a pain but it is worth the effort. 

Final advice when it comes to traditional statistics departments (as opposed to biostatistics). Look for the faculty who have produced students who have published in top statistics journals (JASA, Annals of Statistics, J Royal Statistical Society, etc.). Statistics is indeed interdisciplinary but if a young faculty member is publishing only in application journals (biology, medicine, etc.), then tenure is iffy at best (I know of a recent unfortunate tenure rejection of a young asst. prof. at a top 15 department).

Biostats is much more application oriented so my comments don't apply completely to those faculty.

This sounds a fun treasure hunt, thank you for your help!