Profile Evaluation | PhD Statistics (Do I have a shot?)

[Hedy]

I am a graduate student in my second year and would like to apply for PhD programs in Statistics. I am uncertain about how successful my applications will be as I don't have a Stats background, but a couple of professors at my grad school told me I should give it a shot.

Undergrad Institution: International private institution
Undergraduate Major: Electronics and Communication Engineering
Undergraduate GPA: 3.57

 

Graduate Institution: Private school in Southern California

Graduate GPA: 3.85

Graduate Major: Business Analytics

 

Type of Student: International Female

 

Work Experience: 3 years as a Business Analyst

GRE General Test: 
Q:168 
V: 170
W: 4.0

 

GRE Mathematics: Not taken

 

Applying to: Statistics PhD

 

Research Experience: doing quantitative research with a professor in the Marketing department. It is application oriented and will involve time series analysis to solve a use case

Letters of Recommendation: No one well-known, but can get 3 decent ones from school (one with the Professor I am doing research for) and corporate

Math/Other Relevant Grades: Undergrad (International)- Engineering Mathematics I (A), Engineering Mathematics II (A), Engineering Mathematics III (B), Engineering Mathematics IV (C)

Statistics/Other Relevant Grades: Grad (USA)- Statistical Computing and Data Visualization (A-), Marketing Analytics (A), Data Driven Decision Making (A), Business Analytics (A-), Fraud Analytics (A), Text Analytics and NLP (A), Applied Modern Statistical Learning Methods (A)  

Planning on Applying to:

Dream schools: UC-Berkely, UCLA, University of Washington, CMU, UPenn, Cornell, Duke

What would be some good safety schools?

 

Is it worth applying to a PhD program in Statistics with my profile? Which schools can I target?

Thank you for your help.

 

Edited June 13, 2020 by Hedy
Made a mistake with grades in one subject

[Casorati]

Your mathematics and statistics background is lacking and I am guessing your undergrad institution is not super famous. With that said, I don't think  you have a shot at the schools you listed. If I were you, I would first do a master's in statistics and take real analysis and mathematical statistics. If you do well in your master's, you probably have a shot at schools at the level of UGA/Michigan State.

[Hedy]

5 hours ago, Casorati said:

Your mathematics and statistics background is lacking and I am guessing your undergrad institution is not super famous. With that said, I don't think  you have a shot at the schools you listed. If I were you, I would first do a master's in statistics and take real analysis and mathematical statistics. If you do well in your master's, you probably have a shot at schools at the level of UGA/Michigan State.

Thank you for the assessment.

[Signature Omelette]

Hi Hedy,

I have to agree with Casorati in that it would be much better if you had already taken real analysis (or at least some other heavily proof-oriented course). I am assuming that the courses on mathematics engineering you took are mostly based on Calculus, differential equations, complex analysis, am I right? I believe a course in Mathematical Statistics or theoretical probability would be a big plus too.

One option is spending more time on your current program and take more pure math courses. Another is looking for programs in between business and statistics, since you have done a lot of coursework in there (and probably have recommendation letters from people there). I am talking about Operations Research, Decision Sciences, or some more quantitative programs of Business/Marketing and such. You might end up doing a lot of statistical research in a Marketing dept, for instance, although you will be in a very different environment.

There's probably some programs in statistics that won't require from you a very strong background in math, but I don't know much about them. Also, maybe your recommendation letters will be able to convince the admissions that you are able to grasp math without problem, although it might be hard for the admissions to believe that you know what deep math  if you haven't been exposed to it via coursework or research.

Sometimes people don't understand when I talk about deeper math and think it is just undergrad math (Calculus and so on). To make sure what I mean by it, just take the book of real analysis by Rudin and read the first and second chapters. If you don't know the stuff in it, it's ok. But if it scares you, then it is a sign that you need to learn it.

I don't want you to loose hope on your application. Reality depends a lot on small details that I and grad Cafe might not address properly. So I recommend you to talk to as many people as you can (students and profs in STAT depts you would like to go to), preferably people that know you.

[StatsG0d]

I'll echo the others and say you don't have a realistic chance of getting into any of those schools. I don't see calculus, linear algebra, nor real analysis on your profile. Even if you've covered calculus / linear algebra in your engineering mathematics classes, I think it would be difficult to convince adcoms you know these topics well enough (especially linear algebra).

If you really want to have a good shot at those dream schools, I would argue a master's in pure math would be the way to go. A master's in statistics would help, but a master's in math would show adcoms that you definitely can do theoretical math research.

Based on your background, are you sure that you would enjoy theoretical research in statistics? I would think you would be a good candidate for more applied programs. As an alternative to the schools you listed, you could consider biostatistics programs outside of UW, UNC, Harvard, and Hopkins (the more theoretical ones). You might still have a shot at UNC, which has faculty working in both theory and applications.

[Hedy]

3 hours ago, Signature Omelette said:

Hi Hedy,

I have to agree with Casorati in that it would be much better if you had already taken real analysis (or at least some other heavily proof-oriented course). I am assuming that the courses on mathematics engineering you took are mostly based on Calculus, differential equations, complex analysis, am I right? I believe a course in Mathematical Statistics or theoretical probability would be a big plus too.

One option is spending more time on your current program and take more pure math courses. Another is looking for programs in between business and statistics, since you have done a lot of coursework in there (and probably have recommendation letters from people there). I am talking about Operations Research, Decision Sciences, or some more quantitative programs of Business/Marketing and such. You might end up doing a lot of statistical research in a Marketing dept, for instance, although you will be in a very different environment.

There's probably some programs in statistics that won't require from you a very strong background in math, but I don't know much about them. Also, maybe your recommendation letters will be able to convince the admissions that you are able to grasp math without problem, although it might be hard for the admissions to believe that you know what deep math  if you haven't been exposed to it via coursework or research.

Sometimes people don't understand when I talk about deeper math and think it is just undergrad math (Calculus and so on). To make sure what I mean by it, just take the book of real analysis by Rudin and read the first and second chapters. If you don't know the stuff in it, it's ok. But if it scares you, then it is a sign that you need to learn it.

I don't want you to loose hope on your application. Reality depends a lot on small details that I and grad Cafe might not address properly. So I recommend you to talk to as many people as you can (students and profs in STAT depts you would like to go to), preferably people that know you.

Hello, and thank you for the detailed feedback. I agree with everything you say here. You're also right about the Mathematics courses I took- there was very little pure Statistics and they covered the topics you mention. 
After seeing the assessment here and some other profiles on this forum, I realize that Statistics might be an unrealistic field for me. Also, as I was looking at research papers by faculty members in these schools, I realized the ones that really pique my interest are those that pick up a specific application rather than the the technique itself. So like you recommended, I am checking out PhD programs in Business (I am inclined towards a specialization in Marketing) to see if I can find something that is a suitable blend of business and Stats.
Would you know if I can get a profile evaluation for the Business courses somewhere?
I do appreciate your candor and your time for providing the alternative courses of action- thank you so much!

[Hedy]

2 hours ago, StatsG0d said:

I'll echo the others and say you don't have a realistic chance of getting into any of those schools. I don't see calculus, linear algebra, nor real analysis on your profile. Even if you've covered calculus / linear algebra in your engineering mathematics classes, I think it would be difficult to convince adcoms you know these topics well enough (especially linear algebra).

If you really want to have a good shot at those dream schools, I would argue a master's in pure math would be the way to go. A master's in statistics would help, but a master's in math would show adcoms that you definitely can do theoretical math research.

Based on your background, are you sure that you would enjoy theoretical research in statistics? I would think you would be a good candidate for more applied programs. As an alternative to the schools you listed, you could consider biostatistics programs outside of UW, UNC, Harvard, and Hopkins (the more theoretical ones). You might still have a shot at UNC, which has faculty working in both theory and applications.

Hi, thanks so much for your response. Yes, I agree and have been rethinking my choice of field. I realize that I like the idea applied programs in Business schools better, so I am probably going to focus on those instead. Would you know of any forums where I can get my profile evaluated for the Business school PhD programs? It would help to know where I stand for those too. Again, I really appreciate the feedback!

[bayessays]

http://www.urch.com/forums/phd-business/

[Hedy]

9 hours ago, bayessays said:

http://www.urch.com/forums/phd-business/

Thanks very much!

[Signature Omelette]

On 6/13/2020 at 2:55 PM, Hedy said:

Hello, and thank you for the detailed feedback. I agree with everything you say here. You're also right about the Mathematics courses I took- there was very little pure Statistics and they covered the topics you mention. 
After seeing the assessment here and some other profiles on this forum, I realize that Statistics might be an unrealistic field for me. Also, as I was looking at research papers by faculty members in these schools, I realized the ones that really pique my interest are those that pick up a specific application rather than the the technique itself. So like you recommended, I am checking out PhD programs in Business (I am inclined towards a specialization in Marketing) to see if I can find something that is a suitable blend of business and Stats.
Would you know if I can get a profile evaluation for the Business courses somewhere?
I do appreciate your candor and your time for providing the alternative courses of action- thank you so much!

I am glad I could help! I am new here at Grad Cafe, so I don't know if there is profile evaluation for business here. Also, I don't know much about Business PhDs. I think I can't help any further, but I wish you the best of luck on your search! Maybe, one last thing I would like to say that I recommend you looking for programs all over the spectrum connecting business to stat/math. Sometimes they go by different names. For example, there's one in Princeton called Operations Research and Financial Engineering. This one is heavily quantitative/mathematical, but it is more applied than a program in Statistics ( I believe).

[Hedy]

7 hours ago, Signature Omelette said:

I am glad I could help! I am new here at Grad Cafe, so I don't know if there is profile evaluation for business here. Also, I don't know much about Business PhDs. I think I can't help any further, but I wish you the best of luck on your search! Maybe, one last thing I would like to say that I recommend you looking for programs all over the spectrum connecting business to stat/math. Sometimes they go by different names. For example, there's one in Princeton called Operations Research and Financial Engineering. This one is heavily quantitative/mathematical, but it is more applied than a program in Statistics ( I believe).

That's great advice, thanks so much again.