Fall 2020 Phd Statistics

[Raul966]

Hi am an international student and I will be finishing my MS by May 2020. I would like to apply for Phd Statistics programs for the fall 2020. I would like to focus my research into areas of quantitative finance and data science. I do not think my profile might be very strong, so I would like to be realistic about the schools I should apply. I would appreciate if you guys could share your opinion and recommend some schools.

International Student

Graduate School: Top 70 in the US

Major: Financial Engineering  GPA: 3.7

Undergraduate School: Unknown Public School in the US

Major: Finance  GPA: 3.4 (lazy)

GRE Score: 162Q, 152V

Courses: Intro to Stats and Prob , Calculus , Probability Theory , Applied Statistics , Data Science , Statistical Learning, Times Series, Machine Learning, Optimization and some other Quant Finance courses.

Programming: Python, R, SQL

Research experience: 1 semester helping with research in machine learning and another semester working on an Optimization project.

Thank you for your help guys!

Edited November 4, 2019 by Raul966

[Stat Assistant Professor]

Both your undergrad and grad GPAs seem to be a little bit on the lower end (graduate school grades tend to be inflated so a 3.7 is a little bit on the lower end for a grad GPA), and the fact that your undergrad is an unknown public school will be also be a ding against you. Second, you could also stand to improve your GRE Quantitative score at least a few point, so I would definitely recommend retaking it to improve your score at least a few points. Finally, you are an international student, so unfortunately, I am not sure how attainable it would be to get admitted to any of the programs ranked in the top 60 schools of the USWNR rankings.

But also, if you are interested in financial mathematics, I am not sure if you will find many statistics faculty who are specifically interested in this. I can only think of a few Statistics programs like UC Santa Barbara and Rice University that have faculty working on financial mathematics -- and unfortunately, I am not sure that your profile is competitive for these schools. Are you sure that a Statistics PhD program is the most appropriate choice for your interests? If you are insistent on getting a PhD in Stats, I would look at schools starting around the level of University of Missouri-Columbia and work your way down. There are some good schools in this tier that may have some strong faculty with interests that match yours.

Edited November 4, 2019 by Stat PhD Now Postdoc

[Raul966]

16 minutes ago, Stat PhD Now Postdoc said:

Both your undergrad and grad GPAs seem to be a little bit on the lower end (graduate school grades tend to be inflated so a 3.7 is a little bit on the lower end for a grad GPA), and the fact that your undergrad is an unknown public school will be also be a ding against you. Second, you could also stand to improve your GRE Quantitative score at least a few point, so I would definitely recommend retaking it to improve your score at least a few points. Finally, you are an international student, so unfortunately, I am not sure how attainable it would be to get admitted to any of the programs ranked in the top 60 schools of the USWNR rankings.

But also, if you are interested in financial mathematics, I am not sure if you will find many statistics faculty who are specifically interested in this. I can only think of a few Statistics programs like UC Santa Barbara and Rice University that have faculty working on financial mathematics -- and unfortunately, I am not sure that your profile is competitive for these schools. Are you sure that a Statistics PhD program is the most appropriate choice for your interests? If you are insistent on getting a PhD in Stats, I would look at schools starting around the level of University of Missouri-Columbia and work your way down. There are some good schools in this tier that may have some strong faculty with interests that match yours.

Thank you so much for your help. It seems right now I might be admitted to a top school. I cited the GRE I used to get to the MS(2 years ago), and I honestly feel a lot fresher right now with those type of problems so I might be able to improve it. Do you think that to do research in financial mathematics and data science I should maybe consider other type of programs? I was thinking maybe consider a PhD in Finance and focus my research to the quant finance field? I even thought about applying to Phd in Information Systems and focus my research in data science. Hopefully I can apply it to finance. I am saying that because I contacted a school about a program in Information Systems and they told me they have faculty members who do research about what i just mentioned. Do you think that might be a better idea and I might have a better chance to get into a better school based on my profile? Thanks again.

[Stat Assistant Professor]

1 hour ago, Raul966 said:

Thank you so much for your help. It seems right now I might be admitted to a top school. I cited the GRE I used to get to the MS(2 years ago), and I honestly feel a lot fresher right now with those type of problems so I might be able to improve it. Do you think that to do research in financial mathematics and data science I should maybe consider other type of programs? I was thinking maybe consider a PhD in Finance and focus my research to the quant finance field? I even thought about applying to Phd in Information Systems and focus my research in data science. Hopefully I can apply it to finance. I am saying that because I contacted a school about a program in Information Systems and they told me they have faculty members who do research about what i just mentioned. Do you think that might be a better idea and I might have a better chance to get into a better school based on my profile? Thanks again.

I am not extremely familiar with finance/financial engineering grad programs, so I would suggest you post your profile on the Finance and Financial Engineering subforum: https://forum.thegradcafe.com/forum/67-finance-and-financial-engineering/

Maybe someone there can give you better feedback on your chances and what you can do to improve your profile.