Admissions

• All applications for admission should be submitted online directly to the Yale Graduate School Office of Admissions.

• All applications must include the GRE general scores and, for persons whose native language is not English, TOEFL scores. The GRE subject test is not required for the M.A. program.

• Neither the Graduate School nor the Statistcs Department has minimum required GRE or TOEFL scores for admission, but very low scores do typically decrease the chances of admission. The Statistics Department keeps no record of test scores of successful applicants.

• Almost all students in the terminal M.A. program are self-supported, either by personal funds or by outside fellowships.

• Unlike at some universities, there is no automatic admission into the Ph.D. program for students who complete the terminal M.A. degree; a completely new application is required.

• In deciding the number of applicants to be admitted to the terminal M.A. program, the Statistics Department is not directly constrained by financial issues. More important are questions such as:

  • How strong is the applicant pool?
  • How big can a class be before faculty are unable to give students the individual academic attention that is a feature of a Yale education?
  • Recommendations for admission are based solely on academic grounds: factors such as the potential for a student to successfully complete the course work, past academic record and work experience, letters of recommendation, standardized test scores, and motivation for studying Statistics.

• For 2010, about 120 students applied for admission to the terminal M.A. program. Twenty three were offered admission. Fourteen new students entered the program in September 2010.

• Tuition and Living Costs

• Application requirements and guidelines

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Course of Study

• To qualify for the M.A. degree, the student must successfully complete eight term courses, chosen in consultation with the Director of Graduate Studies (DGS) at the start of each semester. Course selections become official only with the DGS's signature.

  Full-time students must take a minimum of three courses per term. They usually complete the program in a single academic year.

  Part-time students are also accepted into the M.A. program.

• Specific requirements: It is hard to describe a typical course of study, because students come to the M.A. program with widely differing backgrounds.
  The minimal requirement is:

  • all students must become acquainted with probability theory, at least at the level of Stat 538 or Stat 541.
  • all students must learn some statistical theory, at least at the level of Stat 542.
  • all students must gain some experience at working with real data, at least at the level of Stat 530, but preferably at the level of Stat 661 or higher.

• Some examples of courses taken by recent M.A. students.

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Frequently asked questions

• Are there opportunities for carrying out independent research as part of the M.A. program? It is rare (but not without precedent) for a Master's student to have a whole course devoted to a single research project under the guidance of a faculty member. However, some of the Statistics courses (such as ``Stochastic Processes'' and many of the more advanced courses) often do have a research project as part of the course requirement.


• Am I allowed to take courses outside the Statistics Department? Yes, if you can persuade the DGS that those courses are relevant to a degree in Statistics. See courses taken by recent M.A. students for some examples. Note that some Statistics courses are actually taught in collaboration with other Yale departments. (See also the Yale Online Course Information web site, which shows many Statistics courses cross-listed with other departments.)

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Further information

Consult the Graduate School's Programs and Policies for general information about M.A. study at Yale.

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