Biostats more or Stats more? Target/Reach/safety?

[Phereya]

 Hello everyone,

I'm preparing to apply for the PhD 2025 cycle and I hope to get some advice on my profile and where I should apply. It is quite tricky to choose schools, as I might still need my family's support during my PhD, and they think that if it's not for a top program, there's no need to leave my home school. I need some advice so I won't end up with only my home school's offer.

Thanks!

Undergrad Institution: Top 10 QS school outside US
Major(s): Statistics & Mathematics, minor in Computer Science
GPA: 3.897/4.0 

Type of Student: International (Asian) Female
GRE: 164(V)+170(Q)+4(AW)

 

Research Experience:

• 6 months of reading group for some topic in harmonic analysis leading by a math professor at my school, give a talk at Graduate Analysis II.
• 7 months of research assistant for a ecology professor and 2nd author of a paper on process.
• 1 years of independent research with a statistics professor at my school, finish a "final year project" as a Junior. 
• 3 months full time and 5 months part time internship at a National institution of genome.
• Summer research until Christmas at HYPSM (ongoing)

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Dean's List*2, Top student of a CS class
Pertinent Activities or Jobs: Tutor for Probability as a Sophomore, later math grader and editing teaching materials with a professor for optimization at school

Letters of Recommendation: 

• Research Supervisor: Guided my research and FYP for a year; limited US connections.  
• Math Professor: Took analysis class and did harmonic analysis reading with him (for stats programs).
• Internship Supervisor: Positive recommendation; background in life sciences and Europe (for biostats programs).
• Summer Research Advisor: Hope to secure this recommendation.

Courses:  2 Calculus, 2 Linear Algebra, Analysis, Measure, 2 stochastic process, Numerical Analysis, Simulation, Statistical Learning, Time Series, Bayesian, Machine Learning, NLP
Any Miscellaneous Points that Might Help: I quitted top MD program (it is 4+4) from a QS50 school after I realized I want to do research on mathematics, but then I realized that I want to study statistics or biostatistics. 

 

Programs Interest: Statistics, Biostatistics (genomics, open to other fields)

Schools: 

stats: Stanford, UCB, H, UChi, CMU, Columbia, Duke, Umich, Upenn, UW, UNC, UWM

biostats: H, JHU, UW, UNC, Yale, Penn, Duke, Brown, Emory.

(Any reach? Any safety? Any literally impossible that I shouldn't waste my time at all?) 

 

As mentioned earlier, this list is a rough summary of high-ranking programs and well-known schools. And I only consider PhD programs. I have heard some rumors that biostats program prefer students with master degree, so should my focus on stats or biostats?

 

I hope to include more reach or safety schools and remove those that are definitely out of reach. I'd be really appreciate any program recommendation.

 

Hope y'all a great day!