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.

The main purpose of letters is to demonstrate your research potential. So, it's a good idea to get letters from people you did research with. If you co-authored something with them, surely you spent time with the hospital prof, or one of their students/postdocs. Particularly given you have no other research letters.

Unless you had a whole bunch of deep conversations with the COPSS winner, go with the hospital person you did research with for your letter. I'd add a school or two to your list, but it looks reasonable (Maybe a "dream" school, and one or two lower ones). You've got great grades from a great school, don't stress.

All domestic students can get in state tuition after one year, so I doubt saving one year in state (~$10k) matters too much.

Just to add some anecdotes (independently of OP), in my experience top students from Waterloo/Toronto/McGill don't have much trouble getting into top-5 PhD programs. UBC may be in the same tier, idk as many people from there.

This is good advice. I'd encourage you to apply to 1 or 2 "dream" schools, even if your odds aren't great. Mix that with some Canadian masters (where you'll have no trouble), and 5+ lower ranked schools, and you're set. My personal approach would be to stay in Canada unless you get into a top (Berkeley/Harvard) program. Admission rates are ~3x lower for international students at top schools in the US, so you're likely to get into a worse school there than in Canada. Places like U of T are great, probably better than a 10-25 ranked PhD program in the US. Plus, America isn't the best place to live at the moment, especially compared to Canada (coming from a Canadian who moved to the US)

https://web.stanford.edu/~chen96/index.html

I think you can be a bit more aggressive in picking schools. If you're interested in US schools, I'd throw in an application at some top places that interest you (maybe Berkeley/UW/CMU). I wouldn't expect you to get into those places, but wouldn't be completely shocked either.

Being in state makes you cheaper for only one year (not the whole degree) vs out of state (~$10-20k difference), so it may help a bit, but not a ton

Being both domestic and URM are big factors in admissions. I'd ballpark being domestic increases your acceptance rate by ~2-3x. URM is harder to say concretely, but is definitely a substantive, positive factor.

This is bad advice. It's very unlikely an extra year would get you into Stanford (without blowing my anonymity, I can say this with high-confidence) Berkeley/Stanford level schools will be somewhere between very unlikely and impossible (the fact you're international makes this much harder, unfortunately). I don't know as much about less competitive schools, but you are fairly strong, and I wouldn't be surprised if you got into some schools in the 5-15 range. I wouldn't suggest taking a gap year, unless maybe you had something exceptionally cool to do for that year. COVID or not, life goes on... I'd focus all your time on your research between now and application deadlines, that's what is likely to make the biggest difference.