Bren_dan234

Hello Everyone! As the title suggests, I am here asking for help and advice on my journey to pursue a masters (prefer Statistics over DS). Of course, I am open to other technical programs too! My goal to become a data scientist/ML Engineer. I am in very early stages of my pursuit but would like to start a soon as possible. My goal is to apply to programs (hopefully top 20) in approximately 2-2.5 years. I recently graduated with a bachelor’s in computer science (Statistics Minor) from a regional ranked state school. I transferred from a private school after my freshman year. My cumulative GPA is 3.82. Currently, I will be working at Deloitte as an Analyst doing analytics. My school’s CS program is very CS heavy and does not require many math courses, therefore, the only math classes I took (outside of my stat minor) are calc 1 and discrete Mathematics. I did, however, take an AI class that covered probability/ML. I was accepted into University of Pennsylvania as a non-degree student to fulfill the prerequisites for statistics masters. I plan on taking the following courses: Cal 1,2,3, Linear Algebra, and complex/real analysis. For the sake of simplicity, tuition and location are irrelevant. With that being said, I come on here to ask for advice for my general course of action to become a competitive applicant: Will I need to take anymore Math courses to be as competitive as possible. I read on here that a real analysis course will be beneficial to my application. And will the Upenn name carry any weight since I am only taking classes and not getting a degree? Is research experience important in a master’s application (I have none). If so, what are some ways I can gain research experience while working full time? How valuable is volunteer experience? Will my work experience in consulting benefit to my application after ~2 years of working? I can most likely target a GRE score of around 320 (165Q 155V). But of course, I have a lot of time to study. One the major struggles so far is finding appropriate target schools to apply to. I do not want to sell myself short, but certainly do not want to apply to programs I don’t have a shot at getting into. So, with my profile, what are some schools that I may be able to get into? Assuming I fulfill the prerequisites.