Khaball

I have family in the greater SF area. Thanks cyberwulf for the suggestion, and DMX for your thoughts.

I imagine the separation is mostly between the depth of mathematics background and research experience. It seems that, at least for Stanford, the GPAs are similar (listed on their site as 3.9 for Master's and 3.94 for PhD). Although the lack of a third digit on the former perhaps boasts what it is intended to obscure... Couldn't tell from poking around a few department sites if there was a GRE Q difference between Master's and PhD students. Thank you creed, and biostat_prof, for the feedback thus far. I have another concern: Would Calc III or a Probability Class be more beneficial to my ventures?

Hi all, I'm thinking about applying for Masters for Fall 2014. My profile: Work Experience: 1.5 Years as of now at a top shop (like GS, MS, BlackRock, Pimco). Two projects were statistics/scripting focused: Built an R model to forecast loan default rates for a foreign central bank client using a logistic regression Designed a process for emulating insurance liabilities using a portfolio of financial securities (basically a regression with the liabilities as the dependent variable iterated over different security types as predictors) GRE: 167 for both Quant and Verbal UG GPA: 3.5 at a well-reputed business school (like Wharton/Stern/Haas/Sloan) Coursework includes: Regression/Forecasting Models: A Financial Engineering: B+ Forecasting Time Series: A Multivariate Regression: A- Calc I Honors: A- Calc II: B+ I suspect my academic background is my weakness (I have a 3.5 and the average at Stanford is 3.9), but I hope that my work experience compensates for it. Not sure how much the personal statement matters, but I do believe I have a decent reason: did statistics-focused projects at work, grew more interested in statistics, and sometimes wondered what else I could have done better if I had more education in statistics. I plan on fortifying my academic background with Linear Algebra in the summer and Real Analysis in the fall. Does the prestige of the school I take these at matter? I would prefer to get this done cheaply. Should I get 2 academic recommendations and 1 professional one, or 1 academic and 2 professional ones? My professional references know me better and are more familiar with what I can do. Should I send 4 LoRs to Stanford (2 and 2)? They say they do take 4, but prefer 3. I will be applying to other schools as well, but Stanford and UC Berkeley are my top choices. Do I have a realistic shot? Lastly, does actually visiting the department matter? Thanks in advance for any responses.