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Thanks for the response! @bayessays

Hi! I'm a domestic applicant, and I've been out of college for a while (5+ years). I have a good GPA from one of top 20 stats/math departments. Regarding the letters, I was going to ask my advisor from work (who knows me well) and two college professors (one from math, another from stats) who knew me well but whom I haven't talked to in a while. Assuming that the letters from my professors are strong, would the adcoms be okay with the fact that I haven't worked with them and that they don't know about my recent work? Do you think I should try to replace one or both of the professors with someone from work? Thanks in advance!

Sorry, I have one more! In general, how much do the school admissions care about GRE verbal? Does earning the 90th percentile (which is roughly in the low 160s) make you any more competitive than say, the 70th or 80th? Do the top universities care more?

Thanks so much for the insight. I'll definitely consider applying to Biostats as well! So I looked back at the classes I took more in depth because it's been a while, and it looks like the 'Intro to Analysis' course I referred to earlier was closer to advanced calculus (I called it Intro to Real Analysis because I remembered it as a prep course, but it's a misnomer). It did cover how to do proofs and all the topics you mentioned (sequences and series, continuity and convergence of functions, Riemann integral), but I think it was less rigorous than what you would typically see in Analysis. Assuming the worst and that this isn't counted as Analysis, do I still have a good shot at getting into top 15-30 and even a remote shot at top 15 (for Stats)? Many places do say that students who are mathematically less prepared will have an option to take Analysis in their first year, but I was wondering if it's extremely rare that they would admit someone who has never taken it. I did take a number of other proof-based math and stats courses, but Real Analysis seems like a crucial requirement. In addition to the list above, I was thinking about places like UW and Chicago as my reach schools but not sure how realistic this is.

Hi! I understand that the "Top 15" and "15-30" are just rough guidelines, but are you referring to the USN Statistics rankings including the Biostats programs?

@Stat Assistant Professor Thank you, this is so helpful! One thing I should have been clearer in my course list is that "Intro to Real Analysis" was a prep course to Real Analysis. It was essentially a proof-based calculus course. I took it expecting to take Real Analysis in the following semester but ended up not due to schedule conflict, which didn't seem like a big deal at that time. Do you think this would be a deal breaker, and would it drastically change the list of reach/target schools I should go for? I'm thinking of asking my math professor to mention this briefly in the recommendation letter...

Thank you for the response, @Stat Assistant Professor! If I were to go for the PhD route instead, do you think I would still have a good chance at getting into those schools, given that I don't have much academic research experience?

Hi Everyone. After graduating from college, I went straight to working as an actuary for 5 years. I'm trying to come back into academia to teach, so I'll be pursuing a Masters degree. I do not plan on pursuing a PhD at this time. I did well in college, but I'm concerned that it's been too long since I've been in school and that my grades wouldn't weigh as much as they normally would. I'm not sure what else I could offer besides good grades and hopefully good GRE scores. Because of this, I don't have a good sense of which schools I should target, but I would like to shoot for the best I can. Since I plan to teach, I think it would be better if the program isn't too heavily focused on application. I'm also hoping for some funding, although I know it's a crapshoot for masters... Undergrad Institution: large public university (USN Top 20 statistics program) Major(s): Statistics and Mathematics GPA: 4.0 Type of Student: Asian domestic male GRE General Test: will be taking soon Applying to: Master's in Statistics Research Experience: Nothing substantial in academia, but my work required me to research and self-teach programming and insurance/statistical knowledge Letters of Recommendation: Stats professor, supervisor from work, Math professor; I expect the first two recommendation letters to be strong but my math professor doesn't know me very well. Math/Statistics Grades (these were all undergrad level courses): Calc I/II (A's through AP courses), Multivariate Calculus (A), Differential Equations proof-based (A), Linear Algebra proof-based (A), Abstract Algebra (A), Intro to Real Analysis (A), Stochastic Processes (A), Regression Analysis (A), Theory of Probability (A), Financial Statistics (A), Non-Parametric Statistics (A), Statistical Experimental Design (A), Intro to Programming - Java (A) Planning on Applying to: NC State, UW, UM-Ann Arbor, Texas A&M, UW-Madison, UGA If you have any advice especially in regards to the schools, I would really appreciate it. Thanks!