STAT-BB Requirements

A Master’s degree is not required for admission to the Ph.D. program. A doctoral student must complete a minimum of 36 credit hours of formal courses (at least 27 at the 600/700 level) with at least a B average (3.0 on a 4.0 scale); at least 18 of the graduate credits must be taken in Statistics. In addition, the University requires at least 12 hours of STAT 899 or EPIB 899 (Doctoral research) given by any participating faculty member as the major advisor.

Qualifying Exam Course Requirements

Students must pass 2 qualifying exams at the Ph.D. level. Students will also need to take the course sequence aligning with the exams, unless granted an exception.

  • STAT 700; STAT 701: These courses are aligned with the Mathematical Statistics Qualifying Exam
  • STAT740; STAT741: These courses are aligned with the Applied Statistics Qualifying Exam
    Credit Total: 12 credit hours

Students can only opt out of these courses with approval from the Statistics Director. The examinations will take place twice a year in January and August at the same time as the usual qualifying exams of the STAT program. The problems required for STAT-BB students in these exams will come from and be graded by the relevant faculty members who have taught those courses. A student may take one or more examinations at a time.

Statistics Breadth Course Requirements

Students are encouraged to take the following courses for breadth requirement within Statistics. Students can opt out of these courses with approval from their advisor. Students have the option of taking any selected statistics topic courses to fulfill this requirement with the approval of their advisor.

  • STAT 410 (Introduction to Probability Theory)
  • STAT 650 (Applied Stochastic Processes)
  • STAT 702 (Survival Analysis)
  • STAT 705 (Computational Statistics)
  • STAT 770 (Categorical Data Analysis)
  • STAT Topic Courses
    Credit Total: 15 credit hours

Biostatistics and Bioinformatics Breadth Course Requirements

All STAT BB students are encouraged to take 3 courses from the list below, preferably relevant to their research. Students can opt out of these courses with approval from their advisor. Students have the option of taking other EPIB and CMSC courses to fulfill this requirement with the approval of their advisor.

  • EPIB 652 (Applied Categorical Analysis)
  • EPIB 653 (Applied Survival Analysis)
  • EPIB 655 (Longitudinal Data Analysis)
  • EPIB 664 (Missing Data Analysis)
  • EPIB 674 (Foundations of Machine Learning in Public Health)
  • CSMC 423 (Bioinformatic Algorithms)
  • CMSC 701 (Computational Genomics)
  • CMSC 702 (Computational Systems Biology)
    Credit Total: 9 credit hours

The grade in each of the four courses must be B (3.0) or better, and students must attain a GPA of at least 3.3 for the courses used to satisfy this requirement. Each of the courses used to satisfy this requirement must have serious assessments (graded homework, projects, etc.). There should be an assessment which can only be completed by the student, (for example, in-class exams or oral presentations but not homework).