AndrewC

I am interested in going to grad school for Statistics but I am concerned that I would not be accepted. I am interested in a Phd because I would ideally want to teach and do research, but my statistics experience is minimal so I think getting an MS first is a better option for me. I am wondering however if I could even get accepted to a MS Statistics program. Here is why. I graduated from a tier 2 state university in 2009 with a degree in Economics, minor in Finance, GPA of 3.64. Throughout college I was sure I wanted to go into the private sector in finance thus I didn’t take too many advanced statistics or math courses, focusing rather on accounting, finance, and economics courses. My final semester I took undergraduate econometrics and a intermediate statistics course both of which I excelled in both (A’s) and found them very interesting. Up until this point however I found most of my other coursework rather boring and thought that other than maybe an MBA I never wanted to return to school. Because of this I did not obtain any letters of recommendation nor did I complete any research. Since graduation 2.5 years ago I have worked in both supply chain roles and finance roles and been fairly miserable. I am working on taking advanced calc and linear algebra online to bring my math requirements up and I believe I can do well on my GRE. I can get LOR from bosses and maybe some from my old professors but my concern is that poor recommendations/non academic recommendations in addition to no research experience may make my admittance to a mid tier MS program (Ohio State) impossible. Should I be concerned? Any thoughts on what I should do. Also if I get into an MS Stat program, will I be able to gain the proper requirements to get into a Phd program?