PS In your Candidate Statement you may indicate what areas of specification you are interested in (we encourage you to do so).The short essay provides you with an opportunity to tell us what interests you about Statistics, what your goals are, and what you hope to accomplish in your graduate studies. There is no need to tell us more about your grades, test scores, and course work in your essay—your transcript and other supporting material will provide this information. Instead, you should use the Candidate Statement as an opportunity to tell us about aspects of yourself that are not apparent from your transcript, such as extracurricular projects you have completed, work experience you have had, and so on. If you have completed graduate work elsewhere, your statement should include your reasons for wanting to change institutions or degree programs. This part of your statement is essential if you have completed more than two years of graduate study at other institutions. Fee The application fee is $90. The fee is nonrefundable. A waiver of the fee can be considered; see the fee waiver within the online application for further information. University regulations forbid us from admitting students who have not paid the fee or obtained a waiver; no exceptions are permitted. If you are applying to our Ph.D. program and would like to be considered for our M.S. program if not admitted, you will need to pay both the application fees for the programs. If you are applying both to Statistics and to another University of Chicago program, you will submit separate applications and supporting materials to each program. The only exception is standardized test scores: all departments are able to access each other’s GRE and TOEFL records. RL Letters of recommendation provide insight into abilities, strengths, and weaknesses that cannot be reflected in grades and test scores alone. You should select referees who know your work well and will write a frank and detailed letter of appraisal of you and of your likely success in our graduate statistics program. Letters that speak to your mathematical or statistical abilities, any special experience that you might have (in statistical applications, for example), or your potential for research are particularly welcome. Choose the people who will write letters of recommendation for you with care and observe the protocols of courtesy by letting them know that you will submit their contact information with their permission. After you submit their contact information, your referees will receive an email including the recommendation deadline, information pertaining to your right of access to view recommendations, and a link for submitting a recommendation. By following this link, referees can type a recommendation directly on our application website or upload a PDF file. If your referees have any difficulties submitting letters, please instruct them to contact admissions@galton.uchicago.edu for help. Three letters of recommendation are required. Two additional letters may be included if you think the circumstances warrant it. Transcript A copy of your transcript from each undergraduate or graduate institution you have attended is required. Scanned or unofficial copies are sufficient for the admissions process. We only require official transcripts from students who ultimately join our program. Your transcript and grades indicate the depth and breadth of your interests, as well as your performance in each of your courses. We have no minimum grade point average (GPA) for admission to our programs, but we do not view poor grades favorably, especially those obtained in statistics and mathematics courses. It may be unclear from your transcript whether you have met the prerequisites for our program. For example, your transcript might show that your math courses were "Mathematics I" and "Mathematics II"; such uninformative course titles leave us in the dark about your math background. In these cases, we recommend that you include, in addition to your transcript, a list of the topics covered in each course that would be relevant to our program. You may upload your list on the "Statistics Supplement" tab in the online application. You may also use this supplement to explain your school’s grading system, address any unusual or low grades you received, or comment on other aspects of your transcript.