Fall 2025 Statistics PhD and MS Applicant Profile

[sballs9]

I am currently a Junior in my undergrad program and I am planning on applying to programs this coming Fall/Winter. I want to gauge how realistic my list of schools is. I think I have done a good job spreading it out but many will know better than I do.

Undergrad Institution: Solid Private School in the West

Major: Statistics

Minors: Computer Science and Math
GPA:  3.92
Type of Student: Domestic (White Male)
GRE General Test: Haven't taken it yet

Research Experience & Recommendation Letters:

- None yet, but I will be working under a statistics professor doing some machine learning research this spring/summer

- One from a statistics professor who I TA'd for and had their class

- One from my manager (Analytics Intern at Fortune 500 Company)

- One from the professor I will be doing research for 

Schools:

Statistics PhDs

Reach - Carnegie Mellon, UNC, Duke, Michigan, Washington, Johns Hopkins

On Par -  NC State, Texas A&M, UT Austin, Illinois, Virginia Tech, Virginia, George Washington, Boston

Safety - George Mason, UMBC

---

Other 

Reach - Carnegie Mellon (PhD Operations Research), Carnegie Mellon (MCDS), MIT (Master of Business Analytics)

On Par/Safety - Georgetown (MS Mathematics and Statistics), BYU (MS Statistics), Utah (MS Computing)

Research Interests:

- Machine Learning

- Data Mining

*I am curious and open to explore other topics as well

 

I would love feedback on my profile. Am I in the right range of schools I am applying to? If not, what are your recommendations? Are there any weak points in my profile that need to be addressed?

 

Thanks in advance for the help!

[bayessays]

Obviously I understand your desire for privacy, but can you explain a little more what a "solid" private school is - I'm guessing you don't go to Stanford/CalTech, but is your school on the level of USC or Pomona, or something like Gonzaga?

I think your reaches are pretty far reaches given that you don't have much research and (I'm assuming) don't go to an elite school.

From the limited details, I'd say:

Reaches -  NC State, Texas A&M, UT Austin,

Matches - Illinois, Virginia Tech, Virginia, George Washington, Boston, George Mason, UMBC

A lot probably depends on what type of school you go to and how substantial your research this summer is and the type of letter you can get from it.

I know you're a math major, but you didn't include a lot of details about your exact coursework.  If you took the minimum required math at a low-ranked school, that will be very different than someone who took a bunch of high-level or graduate-level classes at USC.

You may want to look at biostat programs too.

[Stat Assistant Professor]

I think bayessays is spot-on. But without further context about how 'elite' your undergrad institution is and what math classes you've taken, I would probably add Illinois to the "reach" list. UIUC has risen tremendously in the ranks in recent years (really strong faculty and excellent academic job placements -- their PhD graduates are getting TT jobs at Penn State, Purdue, Texas A&M, Florida State, etc.). They are quite selective now.

I will echo that research experience, e.g. REU and/or co-authorship on papers, is becoming much more common in statistics PhD applications. The department I work for is a mid-tier program, and we routinely admit students who are co-authors on papers (some submitted to very reputable outlets like Annals of Applied Statistics or Journal of Machine Learning Research). For PhD applications, we don't care that much about the reputation of the outlet, so it's okay if the research was published in an undergraduate mathematics research journal.  Prestige of the journal is not a strong consideration in admissions. But having some substantive research -- with the potential of getting published somewhere -- really does enhance an application, and in some cases, can make up for other deficiencies in the application (like a few B/B- grades). So you should make sure that the summer research is substantive in some way and at least have the potential to be turned into a paper. Your letter writer should make this clear.

As a final note, I might suggest that you not ask your internship manager to write you a letter of recommendation. For Statistics PhD applications, the best letters will convey: 1) the applicant's mathematical ability, and 2) potential to succeed as a PhD student (e.g. in research). I would suggest you get a Math professor to write you a letter who can point out your strong performance in math classes like real analysis. 

Edited February 25 by Stat Assistant Professor