Graduate Program
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Welcome!
If you are looking around this web site, you are probably trying to decide whether to go to grad school in statistics, and if so, which program to join. Since we very much hope that you will give ours serious consideration, we have tried to include as much information as possible about statistics as a discipline, the program at Iowa State University (both for MS and PhD candidates), the department, what life might be like as a professional statistician and of course, about making the move to the Midwest.
Before you get started, here are some interesting facts about the Department of Statistics at Iowa State:
- The Statistical Laboratory, which forms part of the department, was the first statistics unit created in the country. It dates from 1933 and is still in operation. We are one of the largest departments of statistics in the nation (and in the world). As of today, we have about 38 faculty (depending on how you count) and 140 graduate students. During any one year, anywhere between 10 and 15 graduate students receive their PhD in Statistics.
- The department is highly regarded and highly ranked. According to the latest National Research Council rankings, we are 8th on the quality of our PhD educational programs and 13th on the quality of our research programs. When you think that there are well over 110 departments in the nation who offer the PhD degree in Statistics, these rankings become quite impressive. Among Research I institutions, our department ranks #5 for all and #3 for public universities according to a recent US News and World Report article.
- According to the latest National Science Foundation data, the mathematical sciences at Iowa State (statistics and mathematics) rank 8th in the nation on the amount of research funding received from agencies such as the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and other federal agencies.
Regardless of your interests, you will find that we offer a wide range of courses from which to choose and that our faculty, staff and students are involved in research projects in areas that range from nano-technology to survey sampling. Strong research groups in bioinformatics and computational biology, statistics for engineering and physical sciences, social and survey statistics and public policy, education, data visualization and statistical computing, environmental and spatial statistics, statistical theory and probability and many others provide a rich educational environment and a lot of different options for you.
If you decide to submit an application (and we hope you will), please read the admissions page to find all the forms and other information you will need. We offer financial aid in the form of teaching or research assistantships. In addition, through funding from the National Science Foundation and other sources, we have been able to offer generous fellowships to particularly strong applicants. While we accept applications essentially year-round, your chances of receiving funding are better if you apply early.
Unless you happen to be from the Midwest, you will probably know little about Ames, Iowa and this general region. Is it cold in winter? Is it a welcoming place for international students? Can I get my daily cappuccino over there? Are there good concerts, restaurants, book stores in Ames? To find answers to those important questions and more, you might wish to check out our page on living in Ames.
We hope that you find answers to all of your questions, but if you don't, please don't hesitate to contact any of the students, faculty or staff in the department. In particular, the Directors of Graduate Education Dean Isaacson (dli@iastate.edu) and Alicia Carriquiry (alicia@iastate.edu) will be delighted to hear from you.
Important contacts
Director of Graduate Education
Department of
Statistics
102 Snedecor Hall
Iowa State University
Ames, Iowa 50011-1210
tel. 515-294-3440
FAX
515-294-4040
email: statistics@iastate.edu
