Candidates for entry in October 2002 will be able to apply for these courses, and those people who are admitted to read Mathematics in October 2001 may be able to apply to transfer to one of the joint degrees. A new course The Oxford degree courses in Mathematics have for many years included options in Statistics. Because of the continued strong demand for statistical knowledge, both from employers and from prospective undergraduates, the University has recently approved proposals for joint degree courses in the two disciplines.
Statistics are of course numbers which are in some sense descriptive.
As an academic study we are concerned with the underlying, largely mathematical, theory relating the characteristics of a population to the statistics drawn from some sample of its members. Statistics, like Mathematics, is an intellectual discipline in its own right, and also an essential tool in many other fields of study. Most mathematics graduates find that the knowledge they have gained as undergraduates is to some extent directly applicable in their careers. This is probably more true of statistics than of any other branch of the subject. Statistics at Oxford The Department of Statistics has sixteen academic staff.