Undergraduate Institution: Top 10 UK university, top 3 department
Major: 4 year BSc integrated Masters programme in Statistics
GPA: Overall 66%, 4th year 69%
GRE: Verbal 164, Quant 169, AW 4.5
Citizenship: Non-American international student
Graduate Institution: N/A
Important Classes: Measure Theory, Probability Theory, Stochastic Processes, Biostatistics and Medical Statistics modules
Research Experience: Summer attachment in my undergraduate institution, summer attachment at a research institute in my home country, Fourth year dissertation on multiple testing, currently doing a 6 month attachment in machine learning at the same research institute in my home country
Publications: First author publication in peer-reviewed undergraduate research journal (from summer attachment in my UG school), second author in conference paper (from second summer attachment)
Grants: None
Teaching experience: None
LORs: 1 from my personal tutor (well-known professor) who pretty much knew what I was doing both in and out of the classroom in those 4 years. 1 from my dissertation supervisor/first summer attachment supervisor (relatively young American PI) who liked the work I did under him. 1 from my current supervisor who was my co-author on the conference paper.
Applied: Boston (Biostatistics), Berkeley (Statistics), Carnegie Mellon (Statistics), Duke (Statistics), Minnesota(Statistics), Michigan (Biostatistics), Stanford (Statistics), UBC (Statistics), UCLA (Biostatistics), UW (Statistics and Biostatistics), Warwick (Statistics).
Accepted: None
Waitlisted: Michigan (have been told they are full already though)
Rejected: The rest
Attending: None, obviously!
Comments: I was pretty upset after being told by Michigan that they are full, as I was told previously that I was high up on the waitlist.
I'm not sure which part of my application I should focus on improving. My first 2 LORs should be pretty good, as they both have experience of writing LORs and know me well. My third letter writer is pretty junior, and isn't familiar with the US system at all, but knows me well enough as well. I'm also unsure what to do with the extra year now - current supervisor suggests that I should try for an RA position in one of my target schools, but I'm pessimistic wrt visa issues etc. Another friend working in the local health ministry has suggested the possibility of a statistician type position, and would be happy to help me to secure one.
And obviously, relook at my choice of schools to apply to for next year.