2019 Statistics Masters Applicant Profile Evaluation (Trash GPA included!)

[CityofAngels]

Undergrad institution: Top 5 US
Majors: Engineering, Physics
GPA: Probably ~2.7/4.0? I haven't checked since sophomore year of college.
Programs Interested In: MS in Statistics/Data Science/Operations Research

GRE: 339/340, haven't gotten writing back yet

Recommendations: 2 stellar, need to figure out who's doing the 3rd

Professional Experience: Data Scientist at well known tech company

Publications/work in the field: 2 internal white papers (new method of optimizing multi-armed bandits for rewards that undergo changes with punctuated equilibrium, modeling customer lifetime value when purchasing spend isn't based off of Fader's gamma-gamma model) These probably fall more under the field of operations research/data science than pure stat but whatever. 

Current list - Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Penn, MIT, Berkeley, Stanford, Cornell, Chicago, Duke, NYU, UCLA, Georgia Tech, Brown, CMU. I've got some legacy at two of them and attended a third, if that matters at all for grad school. 

Basically, my GPA is horrendous because I was majoring in two things I really didn't care about and I was/am a dumb kid, but I think the work I've done in the field since has been pretty damn good. I'm wondering if the GPA is a hard disqualification and what I can do about it at this point besides try and push out more formalized papers based on the stuff I've been doing at work. I'm also curious if anyone has opinions on the competitiveness of Data Science programs. I know they tend to have pretty low acceptance rates, but it seems plausible that's just because it's an overly hyped field that people are trying to get into. 

Much thanks in advance. If I'm about to waste a couple grand, let me know now lol

[bayessays]

Some schools have hard cutoffs that you'll have an issue getting around? Is your GPA on an upward trend or pretty consistent?

I wouldn't put too much weight into average GPAs as programs - it's a lot of selection bias - how many people are there at top 5 schools who didn't take classes seriously but are clearly intelligent, have interned at top tech companies and have research experience? It's hard to really find comparisons for people like that.  I has a lower than average GPA and had good success in applications. I think your biggest issue is going to be getting people to even look at your application with that GPA, so apply to schools without cutoffs. Maybe even try to use your connections/profs to vouge for you. They're master's programs, so they're not really taking funding risk with you so I imagine you'll be able to get in somewhere. 

[CityofAngels]

Started high, dropped heavily, picked back up. 

I'll see if I know anyone who knows anyone in academia. Do you have any opinions on how many rec letters can be from people who have worked with me in industry? I think I'd honestly struggle to find a professor who remembers me whereas there's no shortage of people who have worked with me and loved me.