Statistics Grad School

Graduate School
1

Hi, I’ll be applying to statistics/biostatistics PhD programs this coming fall and I was wondering my chances of getting into some programs. I know there is no way to pinpoint chances and they can be unpredictable, but I’d like to get some ballpark feed back. Here’s some info about me.

School: Pretty unknown state school
Major: Mathematics
GPA: 3.3
Major GPA: 3.7
Junior Year Math GPA: 3.92

Reading GRE: 158
Quant GRE: 162

Other info:

I will have at least one rec letter from a professor that is not from my home institution.
I am a black male.
I completed one REU.

I want to go to school in the research triangle in North Carolina: NC State, UNC, Duke

Also applying to:
U Penn
Chicago
U of Maryland

I have no safety school yet.

Thanks for the feedback.

2

Is there a specific reason you want to attend a university in the Research Triangle? Because typically one selects PhD programs on the basis of their research interests and the potential advisors there, not geographical location.

UNC and Duke are top 10 programs; NC State is a top 10-15ish program. Chicago and Penn are also top-ranked programs. Statistics is not my field, but it strikes me that 89th percentile on the Q section for a stats program might be a tad low, and your cumulative GPA is also a tad low too. You say that you have done one REU; have you done any other academic-year research? If not, then I’d say that you’re a borderline/not-very-competitive candidate. You might have better odds at Maryland, which seems to be more of a mid-ranked program.