[Seeking advice to improve my profile]

I'm about to start my junior year and would like to gain some insight into how I can be a more competitive applicant for statistics and biostatistics PhD programs during my final two years of college. I plan on applying for Fall 2022 but am considering taking a gap year to gain more research experience.

 

My profile:

Undergrad: Top 150 large state school

Major: Mathematics

GPA: 3.96

GRE: aiming for 167 for quant and 162 for verbal

Type of Student: Domestic Asian Female (US)

 

Math Classes: Calc I (A+), Calc II (A), Calc III (A), Linear Algebra (A), Differential Equations (A), Intro to Proofs (A), Intro to Statistical Computing (A+)

Research: 1 year of experience in a biochemistry lab, no publications. Currently cold-emailing professors doing statistics research and hoping to start sometime this upcoming semester. I also plan on applying to stat/biostat REUs for summer 2021.

Activities/Jobs: TA for multivariable calculus. Looking for fall and spring internships in data analysis/data science.

 

Tentative Schools

• UC Berkeley - Stat PhD
• UCLA - Stat PhD
• Columbia - Stat PhD
• Carnegie Mellon - Stat PhD
• UPenn - Stat PhD
• Texas A&M - Stat PhD
• UT Austin - Stat PhD
• Rice - Stat PhD
• UCSB - Stat PhD
• UCI - Stat PhD
• University of Washington - Biostat PhD
• Emory - Biostat PhD
• Harvard - Biostat PhD
• JHU - Biostat PhD

Most of these schools are reaches and very competitive, but these are a general idea of where I'd like to attend.

 

Questions

1. I've switched majors a few times and recently decided on going to grad school, which is part of the reason why I don't have any relevant research experience. Will this hold me back significantly?
2. Would it be better to take a gap year (doing research or working in industry) or apply for masters programs to strengthen my PhD application?
3. I come from an unknown undergrad. How will this affect my chances for a top 20 program? What can I do to strengthen my application?
4. How important is undergraduate publishing for PhD applications?

 

Thank you for reading through! Any advice would be appreciated!