bayessays

You will only have a (small) advantage in job prospects if you absolutely need to live in LA after graduating. Minnesota is a good program, and I don't see a reason to choose UCLA unless you think the city/weather is worth the extra money or you have personal reasons to settle down in California.

No reason to take time off, you have more than enough background with the classes you've already completed.

If you want to study genetics or be a part of collaborative medical/public health research, go to biostat department. If you don't want to do those things, you'd probably be happier in a stats department. There's some serious methods research outside of genetics in the biostat department, like Peter Song, but not as many options for that as in the stats department

Go to Duke for the free (and top tier) education. If you don't like research, leave with the free MS degree.

You already took analysis. You are good.

Yours is typical. A lot of people are math majors so they also have taken classes like abstract algebra and topology, but that's more of a coincidence than anything.

If your letters are good from famous people you wrote a real stats paper with, I imagine you'll get into somewhere on your list. Obviously they are all top departments though, so I definitely don't think anything is guaranteed. Just a note, UCLA is a huge outlier on your list, multiple tiers below the other programs.

What type of program are you looking at? Biostatistics? I think you're looking at programs outside the top 50 on USNews. You could also do something like quantitative psychology or some type of interdisciplinary applied stats PhD.

If you want to end up in industry, it doesn't seem to make sense to switch departments and do something more theoretical. You say your current department has 2 faculty doing stuff you're interested in - why not work with them? You only have to have one advisor, so it shouldn't matter whether your department has 1 faculty or 5 in the field. If your current department is making you miserable and you can't imagine continuing the research, then I'd consider transferring or mastering out, but I'd focus on whether switching will actually help you accomplish your goals. You can always learn more about these topics on your own, or switch directions during a post-doc, etc. Switching PhD programs is a big step that involves going through the first year or two (the worst part for many people, or at least the busiest in terms of classes/exams) all over again, which is a total waste of time.

I think your targets are reasonable but not guaranteed, and agreed about Alabama-Birmingham being at the safety level (though I hesitate to call any program safe). Drexel is closer to UAB than the other programs, though, so not sure why you have it in the "reach" category.

I'd look at biostat programs in the 55-90 range on US News. I think your motivation to go back and do well in math courses, the perfect GREs, the work experience will intrigue some programs even with the low gpa.

I think most those schools are matches, with UMich/CMU/Yale being more on the "slight reach" end. I'd feel more comfortable with the list with a few more schools in the OSU/Florida/Florida State range.

I can't comment on the M1 Chip - I assume if it's not resolved like the above user says, it would be soon, since a large % of R usage is on Macbook Pros. Definitely a good choice going for the Pro though, it will be plenty for your needs. I got an Air and the performance is a little disappointing.

Definitely not overshooting. Apply to those and any other top programs you are interested in.

A master's degree in statistics will care about your measure theoretic probability grade about as much as plumber school cares about your grade in fluid dynamics. You have so much more math than is necessary for these programs, and regardless of the Cs, nobody in their right mind will reject you because they don't think you can handle the coursework. I'm not sure where you'll be able to get funding, but those two grades are not a big concern.

Most SOPs are filled with pretty cringey stuff, so accidentally leaving in a few extra letters would be pretty low on my list of bad things you can do. If anything they'll assume you also applied to TAMU and know that you want to be in Texas! Usually if you email admissions and just send them a new draft they will update the file and then the people actually reviewing your file might never even see this. I think it's most helpful to remember when asking questions like this that adcom members are just humans so you can just ask yourself whether you would hold something like this against someone in your situation? I wouldn't, and most reasonable people wouldn't, so I wouldn't worry too much. Good luck!

I think these are definitely big reach schools. To completely make up for those math grades, you'd need to see more consistent A performance in harder courses. Can you continue in the PhD program at your own program? That would probably be your best shot at a top 10 program.

Big Ten Alliance https://btaa.org/resources-for/students/freeapp/eligibility All of these schools have at least one of a stats phd/biostat phd/math phd with stats focus. Success may vary by school and some will have stricter requirements, but I've gotten a ton of free apps this way. University of Chicago University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Indiana University University of Iowa University of Maryland University of Michigan Michigan State University University of Minnesota University of Nebraska-Lincoln Northwestern University Ohio State University Pennsylvania State University Purdue University Rutgers University University of Wisconsin Madison

Can't get much better than a profile like this, so you can definitely apply anywhere including places like Stanford. No need to apply outside the top 20 unless you really like a certain program (like UT-Austin for Bayesian statistics). I think schools like Duke and CMU are good targets.

I think these definitely fall in the "safety" range, definitely below where you should be aiming. I would apply to literally any biostat program. Top few aren't guaranteed but your profile is very good so I'd apply to most schools in the top 10.

I imagine you will be in the conversation at both Michigan and Minnesota biostat departments but probably not their stat departments.

You can just mention some broad areas like that (biost/finance) and it's fine. Most people getting an MS in stats are going to be interested in applied topics, and lots of Stanford PhD students are doing "applied" work that fits in those topics but also involves a lot of math. It won't be a big deal

What's the master's in, statistics? I'd probably include a sentence explaining the B- in real analysis but you basically have straight A's otherwise and I think people will be understanding. Schools like UCLA, UIUC, Duke Biostat, FSU seem like good targets. Other big state schools like OSU, TAMU, Iowa State. I think you'll also have a really good shot at most Biostat programs outside the top few. I'd apply to a few more schools than other people because your results might be a little more variable with the real analysis grade, but don't sell yourself short - your profile is strong.

For biostatistics, real analysis is fine, meaning that many applicants won't have more than that and also you don't need any extra math knowledge to be successful. Obviously, on the margins, more math might give a stronger signal that you will be successful - somebody who completed Harvard's PhD math curriculum as an undergrad would have a leg up because there would be no doubt he could successfully pass qualifying exams. I don't think it's worth taking extra abstract math classes (algebra, topology, etc) if you're not interested in them. Some classes in probability, statistics, computer science, and applied math like optimization/numerical analysis might be more useful.

I think it's probably not a big deal either way - your profile is very strong, so I would've assumed you could achieve that score, so I don't think it will help much but also definitely won't hurt.