Statistics PhD Profile Evaluation for Fall 2023

[conflitz]

Undergrad Institutions: Large state school (top 30 for math) and community college
Majors: Math and computer science (double major)
GPA:  4.0 from my university, and >3.95 from my CC

Type of Student: Domestic Hispanic male, first generation college student
GRE General Test: 169 Q / 167 V / 5.0 W

GRE Subject Test: Just took it, so unknown. Planning to retake in October.
TOEFL Score: N/A
Grad Institution: None
 

Programs Applying:

Primarily statistics and operations research PhDs. Some applied math programs as well. I'm hoping to get into a program like the ones at Stanford, UC Berkeley, Princeton, UPenn, etc., if possible.

 

Research Experience:

Did statistical machine learning research with a professor at my school for a year. Hasn't led to a publication yet, but the results are pretty interesting.

Awards/Honors/Recognitions:

Three named scholarships, dean's list every semester of college, and graduated summa cum laude.

Pertinent Activities or Jobs:

Tutored math, statistics, and physics for a little over two years. I also took a self-directed reading course (not for credit) in quantum computation and presented on quantum teleportation.

 

Letters of Recommendation:

I expect to have at least two great letters, one from my research mentor and another from my analysis professor. The third letter will most likely be from my probability theory professor, and I did extremely well in his class (got perfect scores on every exam).

 

Relevant Classes (all A's):

Math: AP Calculus BC, AP Statistics, Calculus III, Differential Equations, Linear Algebra, Discrete Mathematics, Honors Intro to Proofs, Probability Theory, Honors Linear Algebra (Theory), Honors Mathematical Analysis I (had to self-study the regular analysis class to get permission to take it), Honors Abstract Algebra I, Topology I, Mathematical Statistics, Stochastic Processes.

Computer Science: Intro to Programming, Data Structures & Algorithms, Computer Architecture, Graduate Artificial Intelligence, Analysis of Algorithms, Programming Languages, Databases, Software Engineering, and Deep Learning. (note: I also took graduate machine learning last year, but I withdrew so I have a W for that. whomp whomp)

I also have a lot of coursework in physics, chemistry (up to organic II), and biology, but probably not very relevant as I'm looking mostly at mathematical statistics programs.

Edited September 26, 2022 by conflitz
Added first gen info

[dirichletprior]

Congrats on all of your accomplishments! Your math background looks solid and your GPA/test scores are impeccable. 

[conflitz]

On 9/26/2022 at 8:50 AM, dirichletprior said:

Congrats on all of your accomplishments! Your math background looks solid and your GPA/test scores are impeccable. 

Thank you so much! Do you think my application would be competitive for top programs?

[dirichletprior]

I do not see why not! But I am also not too knowledgeable about PhD admissions.

[cyberwulf]

On 9/28/2022 at 1:29 PM, conflitz said:

Thank you so much! Do you think my application would be competitive for top programs?

Undoubtedly.

[conflitz]

On 9/30/2022 at 12:21 AM, cyberwulf said:

Undoubtedly.

Excellent, thank you!

I just got my GRE math subject test score, which was 820 (79th percentile). Would it be to my advantage to submit this score? Some of my schools say they “highly recommend” taking the test whereas others just say that it’s optional.