Harvard HDS
It's essentially a DS program in every way -- the required courses are just offered under the Biostatistics department. You don't need to know biology to take them. The Capstone is typically a semester-long DS project done in collaboration with one of Harvard's affiliated hospitals, such as the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
Course selection is extremely flexible -- you can freely take courses from MIT, Harvard, and other schools within the university.
Admission Threshold & Standards
15-20 students per year. Mainland China undergrads are from Tsinghua, Peking, and C5 universities. US undergrads mainly come from prestigious schools like UCB, UCLA, UIUC, UMich, UPenn, UChicago, UCSD, and UofT.
- University of Colorado Denver, Economics+Math undergrad, GPA 3.99, multiple internships at securities firms, one year RA at Peking University
- Mount Holyoke College Statistics undergrad, GPA 3.9, six-month RA at home institution
- UIUC Statistics+Economics undergrad, GPA 4.0
- USC undergrad, GPA 3.95, multiple DS internships
- UofT AI undergrad, GPA 3.9, multiple RA experiences
- Wake Forest University undergrad, CS+Statistics, multiple DS internships
- City University of Hong Kong Applied Mathematics undergrad, GPA 4.01, multiple DS internships
- UNCC Economics+Statistics undergrad, GPA 4.0
Job Outcomes
Placement has always been 100% (intern + full-time). Incomplete statistics from previous cohorts include Goldman Sachs, Facebook, Verily, Wayfair, Aetna, Microsoft AI, Google, BCG, etc.
PhD Transfer
Almost nobody around me pursues a PhD -- everyone is job hunting. However, research resources are very abundant. You can reach out to professors affiliated with Harvard's hospitals to do research.
There are many research and internship opportunities, as the school collaborates with major hospitals and research institutions in Boston.