The Consortium for the Advancement of Undergraduate Statistics Education (CAUSE) and the American Statistical Association are happy to announce the 2025-26 undergraduate statistics project competition (USPROC). The purpose of USPROC is to encourage the development of statistics and data science skills, to enhance presentation skills, and to recognize outstanding work by undergraduate statistics and data science students.
There are two submission cycles this academic year. The first submission deadline is Thursday, December 18, 2025, and is for class and research projects happening in summer/fall 2025. The second deadline in June 2026 is for winter/spring courses and projects, and for year-long projects. Winners will be announced within 3-4 months of the submission deadlines.
There are two main categories for submissions to the competition:
- Undergraduate Statistics Class Project Competition (USCLAP): This competition is for undergraduate students who are taking a statistics/data science course at the introductory or intermediate level, in which a class project is part of the course work (either required or optional). Project submissions are a short report/paper (up to 3 pages). When submitting, a project needs to be entered with one of two levels:
- Introductory Level: A data-focused project completed as part of a first course in statistics or data science (with or without a calculus prerequisite, but no prior statistics or data science course). The method of analysis should not extend beyond logistic regression.
- Intermediate Level: A data-focused project completed as part of a second or third course in applied statistics, or as part of a DataFest competition. Projects from a first course in statistics or data science may also be included if the method of analysis extended beyond logistic regression.
- Undergraduate Statistics Research Project Competition (USRESP): This competition is for undergraduate students who conduct research projects related to statistics or data science, either methodological or applied. The types of research projects may include research work from summer REU research projects, senior-level research projects (part of coursework), or independent research projects (e.g. honors, capstone) that are not based on a specific course that students are taking. Project submissions are a paper (up to 20 pages).
General Rules:
- A student can be an author of only one project submitted to each competition (USRESP and USCLAP). Multiple submissions from the same student (as the corresponding author or a co-author) to either competition (USRESP or USCLAP) is not allowed.
- A project can only be submitted to one of USRESP or USCLAP --- not both. Projects can only be submitted to the competition once.
- If fewer than 5 submissions are received in a category, then these submissions will be rolled into the next round of submissions.
- Faculty sponsors with more than 3 submissions in a category may be contacted as part of the evaluation process of their students' submissions.
The Electronic Undergraduate Statistics Research Conference (eUSR), which runs each fall, is a FREE online conference where undergraduate statistics & data science students present their work, learn more about careers in statistics & data science, and acquire valuable information about applying to, and succeeding in, graduate school. All undergraduate students and faculty are invited to attend. For more information click here.
Sponsored by:
