Can anyone recommend Stats PhD programs that have good alumni industry placement?
I'm applying for Fall 2018 and just recently realized I do not want to stay in academia after PhD. I'm interested in regression and building models, business/medical related fields are much appreciated due to my backgrounds. I have thought of MS programs, however, funding is an issue for me (I'm international) and thus doing PhD makes more sense.
Institution: State school ranked in top 30 of West Regional Colleges (Texas)
Major: Applied Statistics
GPA: Cumulative ~3.6 - 3.7, major GPA is probably the same or slightly higher.
GRE: Taking in 2 weeks, practice scores are in the 75th percentile only for Q and V - This will be edited once my score is in.
Classes taken:
R programming (A)
SAS (A)
Regression (A)
Time Series (A)
Calculus-based Probability (A)
Analysis I (A)
Discrete Math (A)
Linear Algebra (A)
Calculus II (C); Calculus I (B) - These are really bad, I know. It was a few years ago, back when I didn't know better.
Letters of Recommendation: I will probably get at least 2 stellar letters of recommendation.
Research: Senior project (Next semester) - This basically means nothing so far.
Work/Job: I'm currently a Calculus instructional leader (only this semester), and I was an Assistant Project Manager intern in Asia for a year (~ 5 years ago).
Other things worth mentioning: Got an Applied Associate's in Business and was doing BS in Biotech before deciding it's not good for me (after 2 years, too late) and then switched to Stats a year ago.
Concerns:
My calculus grades are weak and I'm not sure there's much I can do about it. I hope my calculus job and my other math grades somewhat make up for them. Will this hurt my chance a lot?
Minimal/Zero research is really alarming and I only know about this recently. I wasn't thinking about PhD when I switched over to Stats so I'm pretty unprepared. Any suggestions on quick improvements?
The constant switching of majors: I think this could hurt or help me depending on how well I explain things. I'm not sure how best to describe this situation except I didn't know what to do with my life. Please enlighten me on how best to make this not a liability in my application.
Thanks ahead for any advice/answers.