Student paper competition

Frequently Asked Questions

• Exactly who is eligible for the competition?
• Why is the deadline so close to the beginning of the year and the end of the winter holidays?
• What does the letter from the faculty member need to contain?
• Do you acknowledge submissions?

Exactly who is eligible for the competition?

Anyone who is a student (graduate or undergraduate) at a university. We do ask for a faculty member (usually the student's mentor or advisor) to certify student status in the fall term before the competition. In the past, all of the entrants have been graduate students, but undergraduates could make substantial contributions in a new field like statistical computing. We do ask for a CV as well so that the committee judging the entries can be calibrated about an entrant's educational level.

One correspondent asked if high school students could enter. We don't prohibit this, but realistically high school students might be at a disadvantage against graduate students close to finishing their PhD.

Why is the deadline so close to the beginning of the year and the end of the winter holidays?

We want to give entrants who are not selected the opportunity to submit their paper to the Joint Statistical Meetings as a regular contributed paper. The deadline for this is usually at the very beginning of February. So in order to get the papers to the committee, have them read the papers, discuss them, and make a decision, and inform those who are selected and those who are not, we need an early submission deadline.

What does the letter from the faculty member need to contain?

Two things:

• A certification of your student status in the fall term before the competition.
• If the paper is jointly authored, an indication as to how much is your work.

We recommend that you ask your advisor to send the letter early, if possible before the holidays because people are often late getting back and the time span between the end of the holidays and the deadline is very short. We will open a file for your entry when we receive the letter and wait for the rest of the materials to arrive.

Do you acknowledge submissions?

We do acknowledge by email only, so be sure to include an email address. If you want to call me I will acknowledge receipt of your entry by phone. I don't have staff to do a mail acknowledgement.

J.R. Lockwood
Statistician
The RAND Corporation
4570 Fifth Avenue, Suite 600
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
voice: 412-683-2300 x4941
lockwood@rand.org