Fall 2019 Data Science Master Profile Evaluation from NZ :)

[Louise Yi]

Hi guys, I'm from New Zealand and worked for Deloitte Consulting since graduation for the previous 2 years.

 

Undergraduate Institution: University of Auckland (top 1 in NZ but around ~120 globally)

Majors: Statistics, Economics and Finance

Cumulative GPA: our GPA uses different scale I got 7.5 - 7 stands for A-; 8 for A and 9 for A+. I assumed  it was around 3.8?

Major GPA: 7.9

Student Type: Asian female

GRE General Test:  Quant:166, Verbal: 158, AW: 4.0 (will retake again next week as I dont think my GRE is higher enough to get me to top tier?)

Classes: 

   Statistics: Mathematical Statistics (A+), Statistical Modelling (A); Introduction to Statistical Inference  (A), Stochastic Prcess (B+), Data Analysis for Commerce (A-); Statistical Programming and Modelling using SAS (B+)

   Mathematics: Differential Equations (A-), Advancing Mathematics 2 (A-), General Mathematics 2 (A+)

 

Research Experience: Worked on a ICU discharge policy under information system departmenet - summer research scholarship,  no publication

 

Intern Experience:

1 - Group Strategy Analyst at a global dairy company doing market strategy, digital strategy etc project support

2- Consulting analyst at a leading consulting firm in market research doing market resarch projects

Work Experience:

Deloitte Consulting in Information & Data Analytics team for 2 years.

Project involved: data strategy, data platform, data visualisation and other strategy projects

Teaching Experience: 

Teaching assistant for stage 1 Statistics course

 

Letters of Recommendation: 4 options - havent decided yet! Help please

1: Director of analytics team - strong recommend (team lead)

2: Director of digital team - strong recommend (my coach)

3: Senior lecturer in Economic Department - strong recommend & close; did a few ecnometrics paper with him

4: Profession in Stats - globally well known statistician however not very close; got A+ from one of his class. might be just strong?

 

Schools planning to apply: Stanford (M.S.), Harvard (M.S.), MIT - business analytics (M.S.), Penn (M.S.), Columbia (M.S.), NorthWestern(M.S.), Duke (M.S.), CMU (M.S.), NYU (M.S.)

My Concern: work experience doesn't directly relate to data science & data analysis. more relate to data management, strategy (i.e. data migration, data quality, data visualisatoin, overall strategy type of projects)

 

Programming skill: R, SAS, SQL； self-learning Python at the moment

 

Question:

1: any safe schools for recommendations? looking for 1.5 / 2 years programme for data science as I want to build my programming skills & career progression to a data scientist in consulting firm

2: am I over applying to top tier schools? Stanford would be dream! But I think I reached the bar for Columbia / Duke / Upenn - not too sure though

3: help for LOR selection

 

Many thanks!! Appreciate your assitance in advance.

 

 

Edited October 26, 2018 by Louise Yi

[omicrontrabb]

You could consider NC State's MS in Analytics. You would almost certainly get in and a lot of their graduates work in consulting, with a median starting salary of about $100,000.

https://analytics.ncsu.edu/

You should be competitive for all the places you're applying for and I think you'll get into at least some of them.

[Louise Yi]

21 hours ago, omicrontrabb said:

You could consider NC State's MS in Analytics. You would almost certainly get in and a lot of their graduates work in consulting, with a median starting salary of about $100,000.

https://analytics.ncsu.edu/

You should be competitive for all the places you're applying for and I think you'll get into at least some of them.

thank you! Highly appreciated. The NC program is great however it's a 10 months degree. Will prefer a longer degree

[Louise Yi]

more feedbacks will be highly appreciated! still feeling nervous for not getting in any of the programs...

 

retook my GRE today, unfortunately, got exactly the same scores as last time gg

[omicrontrabb]

If you really want a two-year program, you could also consider a master's degree in statistics or applied statistics. You would definitely still be able to get data science jobs with that and there are more two-year options to consider.

[Louise Yi]

36 minutes ago, omicrontrabb said:

If you really want a two-year program, you could also consider a master's degree in statistics or applied statistics. You would definitely still be able to get data science jobs with that and there are more two-year options to consider.

Thank you! I've checked a few stats programs but most of them had less focus in computing / programming. Would like to have more involvement in machine learning & build my programming skills  That was my main purpose for studying.  Your application looks very strong! Good luck to your application too