jim94

Anyone heard back from UNC biostatistics PhD? I emailed them last week and was told that I was on the wait list and should expect to hear from them soon.

They look at your individual courses. If you did well on proof-based courses like real analysis, you would have a better shot at top 5 programs given your strong reputation of undergraduate institution. In general, you need good grades in math and stat courses. You did perfect on GRE Quant and your verbal and writing are more than enough so there is no need to worry about that. I would say working on recommendation letters because in these top schools so many applicants have similar profiles as yours and this is when recommendation letters differentiate you from others.

Your GPA and research experience should get you into any top 15 programs I would say.Your mathematical background should be sufficient enough for applying for biostat and I do not think they expect you to take any pure math courses. If you are interested in theoretical statistics, then some real analysis and algebra courses would be helpful. From what I have learnt on school webpages, even if you are short of some courses, you are still able to make up during your first year in phd. The most important thing is your learning and research ability demonstrated in your package, which are pretty strong in your profile. My suggestion is that you can give a shot at some top programs.