the.dude.abides

Hey everyone- working professional in the financial industry here thinking about returning to school for an applied graduate degree in statistics or an allied field... examples of programs under consideration include Columbia's Quantitative Methods for the Social Sciences, Harvard's CSE MS, Harvard AM in Statistics, MIT's MS in OR, etc... if anyone can speak specifically to these particular programs, great.... if not, your feedback on my fitness for a more traditional MS in stats at a great school is also welcome! Type of Student: not an URM, non-traditional Undergraduate Institution: top 30 public school, top 10 stats phd program Major: econ GPA: 3.6/4.0 overall, last 3 semesters of college 3.9/4.0 with most of the stats/math/quant econ in these semesters Relevant Courses: the good Multivariate Calc (A-) first course in programming for science majors (A) econometrics (A), game theory (A) linear algebra (A-) mathematical statistics (A-) grad-level deterministic OR models (A) actuarial models (A) discrete math (B+) the bad: intro to probability (C+) the ugly: differential equations (pass on pass/fail scale) GRE: 167Q (94%) 170V (99%) 4.5 AW (80%) research exp: none recommenders: not decided yet, but safe to say they're weaker as I've been out of school for a while and haven't kept in touch with professors.. a recommendation for me would probably read something like "I don't remember him, but he got an A in my class, so the dude must be pretty smart." work exp: my career to date has been wide-ranging but recently involved analyzing large datasets (regression analysis, model building etc) using software like R, a fair amount of programming in "serious" languages like C++, etc other: some financial industry certifications that probably wouldn't mean much to people reading my application. Thanks for your time! I am relying on you to be brutally honest with me here, I can take it!