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Thanks a lot for your feedback, Stat PhD Now Postdoc. Yes, I understand that my background in advanced math isn't sufficient, and certainly not as strong as a Masters student from ISI or a computer science student from IIT. I'll definitely apply for masters programs in statistics and build up my profile. I wasn't really aware that it is possible to get into a Stats PhD with good grades in advanced math and little to no research experience. Interacting with you has been of great help!!

Hi, Stat PhD Now Postdoc. Thanks a lot for your inputs. You were right about my engineering schools. My exposure to proof based mathematics took place in my first year Calculus course which covered some real analysis for Calculus - Sequences, Series, Convergence/Divergence, Taylor Series, Continuity, Reinmann Integrals, etc. Aside from that I had to study Real Analysis for a Microeconomics course which I took. While, I won't be able to enroll into an institution just to take a few math classes, in India we have a website called https://nptel.ac.in/ , which is a government run website that has recorded lectures of all sorts of courses from different IITs. I can enroll for one of these courses, complete the weekly assignments and take proctored exam to receive a grade/score. This seems to be the closest I can get to enrolling into courses and getting grades. Do you know if taking courses on edX or any other platform would hold any weight? Also what sort of courses would you suggest I should aim for? Should I go for advanced courses in Real Analysis and Linear Algebra, or should I explore complex analysis and functional analysis? As for my recommendations, I will get one recommendation from the professor user which I did my major project, one under whom I'm publishing a paper, and another from a prof under whom I've taken 3 courses and who knows me reasonably well. I was told that for PhD applications, getting a recommendation from a Prof under whom I've done only course work would hold little value, and so I wanted to do another project such that all 3 professors would be able to talk about the quality of the research work I did under them. Yes, it's also true that I'll be competing against Masters students from ISI, for a PhD position. Earlier I had planned to get an MS from ISI, or from an MS Stats Program in the US at Unis where funding for masters students isn't unusual, and then apply for a PhD afterwards. But, I figured that since I'm serious about research, I should put in more effort and see if I can get into a PhD program straight away. I also plan on applying to a few masters programs this December. UM is an amazing school and I would consider it as an absolute win if I'm able to get into a place like it for a PhD. Thanks a lot for your help again.

Hi guys, I'm from India and I'm currently working in credit risk analytics for a major US bank. I've done my undergrad in material science engineering from one of the top 2 engineering institutions in India. I have one research project in the field of cognitive science, which I'm currently writing up with my adviser from college and would soon send out to journals for publication. Assuming that I apply this December and I get into a program of my choice, I'll have a work experience of 2 years before I go for graduate studies. My undergrad GPA is 8.1 on a 10 point scale, the simple online conversions to a 4 point scale put me at 3.5/4, but I have a feeling that getting a WES evaluation would put me around 3.7, since the grades in my undergrad institution, tend to be deflated. In terms of my courses, I have completed all the minimum Math requirements for Stats programs while in college: Calculus, Linear Algebra, Differential Equations, but my grades weren't great in them since I did them all in my first year. Apart from these, I took 4-5 Stats courses in college and did well in all of them (A, A-). I love working with data and I want to move towards a research profile. I want to get into a PhD program in statistics.What are my chances of getting into a top 30 PhD program in the US and, more specifically, how realistic would be my chances in the following programs: Phd Statistics - Stanford, UC Berkeley, UCLA, Caltech, UChicago, CMU, UWashington, UMadisonData Science - NYU,UPennApart from these I'm also interested MIT, IDSS, PhD Social and Energy Systems What do you suggest I do over this year, along side my job, to work on my profile, before the 2020 December deadline? Should I focus on getting another publication, this time in the field of Econometrics (I have talked to one of my Professors in my previous institution, and it seems that I can work on a project with him.)? Or should I focus more on courses on Real Analysis, Advanced Linear Algebra, Probability to make up for my poor grades from my first year Math? I'm also planning to take the Math GRE Subject Test this year - what sort of a percentile here should be my minimum target in order to get into a top 20 PhD program? Thanks in advance for your help