>>But I was accustomed to graduate math/stat exams which were virtually all theoretical essay-type proofs
>I don't think I had anything but take-home exams at the graduate level. A lot more fair IMO.

Agreed, that was a common and sensible practice. And also why the pressure of the Actuarials sticks out in my mind ("time's up, please close your test booklets now" :) Hadn't seen anything like it since the GRE.

>I specialized in abstract algebra. I will always remember my mother's expression when I tried to explain the beauty in non-associative algebra to her. I thought she would send me to the nuthouse < bg >. I was not too crazy about statistics because I felt they were too much an applied science when I was doing my BSc. I changed my opinion after reading Mathematical Statistics by Bickel and Doksum, but not enough to work in the field.

I'm with your mother on the Abstract Algebra < s > It was fine at undergraduate level, but at graduate level with topological structures and whatnot, a little too abstract for me. I was always an appied-math/numerical analysis/differential equations/calculus geek. Abstract Linear Algebra was a pleasant compromise, though.

>Do you know Francois Collin? He has a PhD in Stats from Berkeley and, has far as I know, he is still working in Washington.

Name seems familiar...