insert_name_here

Absolutely UW. Anyone telling you it is even close, or a discussion at all, is lying.

I think the Berkeley masters program is great, but it is worth noting that the following sentence is written in bold at the top of the program's homepage: "The focus is on tackling statistical challenges encountered by industry rather than preparing for a PhD." Unless you've had specific assurances beforehand, it would seem ambitious to plan on doing research in such a program. I don't know Stanford's program as well, but in general it's best to assume that being a masters student in a department won't help you get in as a PhD student, and that you'll have a hard time finding meaningful research work. (I would expect, but can't verify, that neither of those departments has had a single masters student move onto their stats PhD program in the past 5 years).

I suspect people could be more helpful if you named particular departments

Your list looks pretty reasonable, I'd expect you to get into at least half on your "others" list. I'd add a couple more higher ranked schools that may fit your academic/personal interests (CMU? UW? Berkeley?)... I wouldn't say you're super likely to get into those places, but definitely not a waste of money.

It's also possible they will accept your reference letters/SOP over email, cash your check for the application fee, and never read your application (it happened to me). They then got very rude when I pointed out they had made a mistake. (CMU waitlisted me, one of the only stat depts that didn't accept me). So, be very very clear over email. And, if you see a bunch of acceptances go out and you haven't heard anything, email them ASAP.

Without going into details, the CMU admin has a history of surprising incompetence on these types of things. I'd be sure to be crystal clear in your emails.

I've never heard of anyone caring about a Ph.D's GPA, in any setting. I have a Ph.D, and honestly don't even know what my GPA was.

The above advice is good. Particularly if your work colleagues don't have PhD's, which would make their letters much less helpful.

Calling Berkeley/CMU particularly mathematical is a bit of a reach. While they can both be mathematical if you want, you can also graduate from Berkeley without taking a single probability/measure theory class. CMU also requires all students to do a faculty-supervised data analysis project over two semesters... not many departments have that. Fully agreed on Stanford though - to them, if there isn't a mathematical proof, it isn't statistics

Also sorry OP that this thread has gotten distracted - I did an applied stats PhD at a top school, and got some exposure to admissions, feel free to DM me if you have any other Qs.

Lol so uhhhh this guy just spam downvoted all my recent posts again? If you agree this is childish, can you just stop it? Or maybe some mods can do something... I sincerely have no interest in this sideshow.

I'll just add - if I were OP, I'd ignore most of what's being said in these past couple of posts. There's certainly some truth to it, but also some reaches... I'm not going to engage beyond that.

This guy has a history of posting... offbeat takes. (The last time I downvoted one of them, he actually went back through my history and downvoted every one of my posts). If you want to be a statistician, it's probably a good idea to go to a stats program. While your advisor is important, so are your required courses/quals/classmates/seminars/etc. Most of the profs he listed are pretty theoretical (makes sense they're in a math dept), OP seems more applied. For stat ML generally, they're a fine school but putting them at the same level as Berkeley/Stanford is a bit much. I hear MIT's OR department is great, is pretty applied, although I don't think that's quite what you're looking for. Their EECS dept may be worth a look if you want to do that type of ML, it'd be a reach admissions-wise, but not completely crazy (though the advisors you'd be looking at are entirely separate from the listed advisors)

For OP - pick whatever programs you are interested in going to, irrespective of ranking, and apply to 5-10 of them. You won't get into all of them, but you'll certainly get into some. If you want stats programs with a decent applied group (which I'm guessing you do, based on your research), I'd particularly recommend Berkeley, UW, CMU. Maybe UW in particular, if you want strong biostats exposure.

If top 5 means Waterloo/Toronto/McGill/maybe UBC, it's worth throwing in an application to Berkeley/Stanford. FWIW, Berkeley has accepted otherwise remarkable students without real analysis, though it is rare. Columbia is less competitive than CMU/UW, they'd be worth a shot regardless your undergrad school.