M.S. in Statistics or Data Science

[lalolalo]

Hi, I'm an ivy grad who majored in Economics & Statistics, 3.7 cumulative GPA, 167 Quant/165 Verbal on GRE. I've been doing strategy for a big tech company the past 2 years and been functioning as the go-to analytics/data science person on the team. Now I want to make a full-on transition to data science (goal is to become a ds at a startup!) and am realizing that I need more training in math and statistics to thoroughly understand the stuff I'm doing.

Data Science Masters at Stanford, Harvard, and Columbia are my top choices. I'm also considering Statistics masters as well, since I want to hone in on the modeling/statistical part of data science. Although I have a ton of projects and experience at my current job & Kaggle applying machine learning/statistics, I don't have any research experience. I took 2-3 machine learning/data mining courses and 4-5 econometrics classes in college, and plan to get 2 rec letters from each field. I also did an online certificate program from MIT in Big Data.

Do you think I stand a chance for statistics masters or data science? Would also appreciate any and all tips on crafting out my SOP. I'm so much more used to writing professional resumes... Thank you!

[bayessays]

Great GPA and GRE score from an Ivy with professional experience at a big tech company makes you basically an ideal candidate for these programs. You should feel free to apply to any master's program in either discipline and you are very likely to be admitted to any of them.

[bayessays]

As for the statement of purpose, what you wrote here about your motivation is essentially what you'll need to write. Statement of purposes aren't a huge deal.

[lalolalo]

4 hours ago, bayessays said:

Great GPA and GRE score from an Ivy with professional experience at a big tech company makes you basically an ideal candidate for these programs. You should feel free to apply to any master's program in either discipline and you are very likely to be admitted to any of them.

Thank you! I'm more leaning towards Statistics, since I very much want to make Statistics my competitive edge/expertise, and was slightly worried that Stats programs would look for students who wish to pursue academic research upon graduation. 

I have a question regarding recommendation letters too - although I'd very much like to get one from work, there hasn't been one consistent manager who has overseen my work for the two main projects I worked on due to constant org change. In this case, do you think it would be helpful to get the 3rd rec from a linguistics professor? I also minored in Linguistics, along with Econ & Stats, as I also eventually want to learn NLP. Appreciate your response

[bayessays]

Yeah, I think that's fine for one letter - usually you want people who can evaluate your math ability so math/stat professors are best but one letter from a linguist or an economist is cool - especially for a master's. 

Most MS stats people will look for these types of jobs after graduation, so you'll be in good company.  I'd heavily lean towards the statistics degree myself because, as you said then you'll have very in depth knowledge in an area. I'd also recommend picking up SQL and python skills along the way.

[lalolalo]

Yep, I definitely intend to take as many software engineering/programming classes during my Masters and work towards making NLP my specialty. Thank you for your advice!