SPIWizard

I'm taking the path as suggested by cyberwulf, and now doing a masters in Canada at one of the top 4. My two cents on why below, you may find it helpful:
I also had a single NSERC RA, and similar grades from a decent but not top 4 in Canada. I got into all of the Masters programs you listed early in the admissions cycle, and was competitive for the CGS scholarship at each so I think you will be fine getting into those. I didn't send any applications to PhD's since I thought even if I had a chance, I could only increase that chance by doing the Master's first. I don't see the two years as wasted, it gives me more of an idea of the graduate research experience in math/stats (I was a late bloomer, first research right before 4th year), and also a way out to industry if I'm not interested, since most statistician jobs require a Masters here in Canada.

I just wanted to say that ARWU is an explicit formula based on publications (although 'top' journals are determined by survey) so I think Waterloo's size plays a factor there. Slightly biased because I just picked UBC over McGill and Waterloo for a masters, but I vote UBC for reasons already mentioned here unless you have a particular advisor in mind at McGill.

Probably hard to say in general. A lot of these rankings seem to be pretty heuristic.  US news just seems to capture it better than most in America but we don't have anything like that in Canada.  In my opinion, based on general reputation and faculty strength etc, I would probably list the top stats programs in Canada as: 
1. U of T
2. UBC 
3. McGill
4. Waterloo 
Personally I think UBC is an excellent choice and very strong overall. However particularly in causal inference, I think that McGill is probably the strongest in Canada, but that's one sub-field. If you decide in your PhD that you would rather work on something like spatial stats or ML, then I think you would have a more options at UBC than McGill
 

Personally, if you are dead set on Causal Inference I think McGill would be the best fit. Otherwise I think UBC has plenty of research areas to pick from and I think that would also be an excellent choice

Hi,
I did the same and reached out to the awards office at the Faculty of Graduate studies at the U of A. Also, their letter to me had my rank on it. 
As an update, I received notification that I had moved from alternate status to 'offer' status a couple of hours ago. So I'd say be hopeful as the list is moving along! 

For those on the alternate list, my friend was an alternate at McMaster yesterday and today received an updated offer status. So it's definitely possible to hear back any time! Best of luck to everyone

Got NSERC from Carleton and Ryerson! I'm going to Ryerson, so I've released my Carleton offer. 
Just to be a total sap for a second, three years ago I applied to a different masters program at three different schools and was rejected at all of them. After working towards my second degree in a field I finally feel passionate about, I was over the moon to receive grad school offers this time around. Getting NSERC has made me feel all kinds of things.

Minnesota should be very strong in high dimensional stats. Prof. Hui Zou goes without saying but I have also seen plenty of influential papers by Prof. Y. Yang from the same department. I think it's also the highest ranked of the US universities there on USNews.

I'd say Minnesota and Toronto are probably pretty similarly strong, and overall probably stronger than the other two.  If you're looking specifically at mathematical finance, Toronto is a bit niche that they have it as an option.  But just overall in terms of high-dimensional statistics/ ML they're both very good options. 
Additional factors may depend on where you want to end up living for 5 years or if you in fact did want to defer a year. 

Minnesota should be very strong in high dimensional stats. Prof. Hui Zou goes without saying but I have also seen plenty of influential papers by Prof. Y. Yang from the same department. I think it's also the highest ranked of the US universities there on USNews.

Oh! I see, that makes sense. I'm going to check the result on the midnight of apr. 14  

I decided against doing this today, since I couldn't convince myself that there was a reason beyond emotional labour and sheer boredom that I really needed to know by April 1st. That being said I still might do it sometime between now and the 15th.

Long-time lurker here. Don't usually have much to add to the discussion about PhD programs, I am applying only to Canadian masters programs.    Undergrad Institution: Regionally prominent Canadian school (not Toronto, UBC, McGill or Waterloo)
Major(s): Statistics
GPA: 3.97 converted Type of Student: Domestic (Canadian)

GRE General Test: Did not take
  Programs Applying: Masters in Statistics   Research Experience: One USRA (aka. Canadian REU) working on computational statistics at home institution. One 2nd author paper in one of the big ML conferences.  
Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Dean's list, some GPA-based scholarships.
Pertinent Activities or Jobs: High school math tutor, worked as an financial analyst intern almost every summer (excel stuff).    Letters of Recommendation: Strong letter from assistant prof who was my advisor (I was able to see this letter), two good letters from senior profs, well respected in Canada.   (Relevant) Math/Statistics Grades:  Calc I-III, two terms of linear algebra (applied topics, but proof based), two terms of non measure probability, two terms of real analysis, intro to math stats, experimental design, time series, linear models, a few statistics grad courses: stochastic analysis, bayesian stats, GLMs, high dim. statistics. 
Any Miscellaneous Points that Might Help: Nearly 10 courses in Economics, which mostly served to convince me that I was not into Econ.  
Applying to Where: 
University of British Columbia - Accepted  McGill University - Accepted  University of Waterloo - Accepted  Simon Fraser University - Rejected    Notes: I hope this will help people who were in my position back in October. There are limited resources out there for domestic applicants in Canada, which makes sense given that even my own departments grad students are >50% international.  The offers are all funded, with funding a little lower than average PhD stipends.  I did not think my math background was sufficient to apply directly to PhD programs in the States, and hence did not take the GRE.  Looking forward, or perhaps dreading, to be back for the PhD cycle soon... 

Hi all, I just posted this in the results thread. I'm pursuing a masters to strengthen my eventual PhD application, but I've always been curious where I could have ended up if I applied straight to US PhD's this cycle. Assuming a decent GRE score, what range do you all think I would've had a chance at? I suppose I would be considered international if applying to the US? 
 

I think you have a chance of some top 10 programs in the States (i.e. Stanford, UCB, Harvard, Chicago, UW, UM, Columbia, Duke, UPenn, CMU),  though this depends a bit on your GRE score.  But seeing as you already have your name on an ML publication and a very high GPA I think you could have probably gotten into one this year.  I also think that after doing a Masters in Stats your chances will be even possibly better so you may have even more options within that tier. 

Firstly yes I believe they are taking international applicants now. I think they always took international applicants, but because the program used to be funded, there was likely a very limited number of international enrollments. 
I don't think it is a good program for your purposes. It offers no research opportunities, aside from a small project. Almost every masters programs in Canada give the option of doing a thesis over 2 years. If you choose to come to Canada, you will find that these 2 year programs can be very rewarding, and often your tuition will be covered. Canadian programs should recognize the ISI reputation, this will be an advantage for you. Of schools offering 2-year thesis masters, UBC has seen applicant numbers rise recently and hence acceptance rates are dipping close to 6-7% (https://www.grad.ubc.ca/prospective-students/graduate-degree-programs/master-of-science-statistics) including domestic, so it will be highly competitive to get into. Waterloo's dept. is bigger and I would put it at the high end of schools you should apply to in Canada. 

Firstly yes I believe they are taking international applicants now. I think they always took international applicants, but because the program used to be funded, there was likely a very limited number of international enrollments. 
I don't think it is a good program for your purposes. It offers no research opportunities, aside from a small project. Almost every masters programs in Canada give the option of doing a thesis over 2 years. If you choose to come to Canada, you will find that these 2 year programs can be very rewarding, and often your tuition will be covered. Canadian programs should recognize the ISI reputation, this will be an advantage for you. Of schools offering 2-year thesis masters, UBC has seen applicant numbers rise recently and hence acceptance rates are dipping close to 6-7% (https://www.grad.ubc.ca/prospective-students/graduate-degree-programs/master-of-science-statistics) including domestic, so it will be highly competitive to get into. Waterloo's dept. is bigger and I would put it at the high end of schools you should apply to in Canada.