Statistics PhD Profile Evaluation Fall 2025

[squid1231]

Undergrad Institution: Oxbridge Math Undergrad + Part III Cambridge Math + Master's in Top 15 US Stats
Major(s): Mathematics
GPA: Undergrad: (Low) First Class in Final Year (very high upper second in first year), Part III: Strong distinction (distinction = above first, equivalent would I guess be top half of people who get 4.0s), Master's: 4.0/4.0 (top grade in all courses)

Type of Student: International (Asian) Male
GRE: 162V 170Q 4.5AW

 

Research Experience:

• No publications, strong master's thesis focused on extending algorithm and proving statistical results
• Applied Statistical Project where I presented project at conference
• Working in industry with very well known Professor

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Some academic honors for exam results
Pertinent Activities or Jobs: Data Science internship & job, SWE internships

Letters of Recommendation: 

• Professor I'm working under and took course with, should be very strong hopefully
• Professor at US uni I took courses with and did project that led to conference presentation
• Academic Supervisor at Cambridge and did a small project under though more independent
• Cambridge Master's thesis advisor - told me letter would be brief, he did not closely supervise during master's though graded it quite highly compared to the cohort.

Unsure whether to use thesis advisor or my academic supervisor, thesis was more technical than work I did for my supervisor, but supervisor knows me a lot better and can talk about me more personally.

Courses: Very theoretical statistical courses at Cambridge, Linear algebra, analysis, More Applied ones in masters
Any Miscellaneous Points that Might Help: 

- Weakest area is lack of publications

- Also, other than the top letter of rec, the others might not be super outstanding (not bad necessarily but not to that level)

 

Programs Interest: Statistics, Applied Math (open to Financial Math/Operation Research but not sure if my profile is relevant)

Schools: 

Strong Reach: Stanford, UC Berkeley, Harvard

Reach: UChicago, CMU, Princeton (ORFE), MIT

Neutral: Columbia, Duke, UMich, Yale

Safeties: Rutgers, UPitt, GWU
 

No idea my chances in any of them or if I should revise selections.

[bayessays]

Obviously your profile is outstanding, and your list is full of reaches but they are reasonable to apply to.   Your Strong/Reach/Neutral categories are all basically the same level, and then there's a huge gap to your safeties (Pitt and GWU especially). Why not apply to a few more schools in the range of Texas/TAMU/PSU/Ohio State/Illinois?

[squid1231]

21 hours ago, bayessays said:

Obviously your profile is outstanding, and your list is full of reaches but they are reasonable to apply to.   Your Strong/Reach/Neutral categories are all basically the same level, and then there's a huge gap to your safeties (Pitt and GWU especially). Why not apply to a few more schools in the range of Texas/TAMU/PSU/Ohio State/Illinois?

That makes sense, and definitely makes sense for my applications to reflect a more even set of programs.

My main issue that I feel might hold me back is my lack of statistical research, the main things I have is:

1) A master's thesis, this was strong and required advanced statistical techniques to prove some lemmas (though will not materialise into a publication the extension of an algorithm and results that I proved wouldn't be significant in and of themselves)

2) A project I did in my M.S. course that led to a presentation in a couple conferences (neither of them super well-known, though sounds impressive)

3) My work in industry as a Data Scientist under the professor(very well known) I mentioned, I think he can vouch for my abilities, though naturally the research is more applied statistical research, i.e. applying methods to specific use cases than developing myself.

4) I did a literature review of sorts at Cambridge which led to a college prize there, though there was no new contributions as such, more just a nice overview of a particular field

Secondary question does 4) even count as research that I should include at all?

 

Given this, is it worth even applying to the top programs I listed or is my research background particularly weak (no real publications/dedicated summer research project, something which I deeply regret, I was busy doing SWE internships at the time with no research interest).

Looking at alumni, many of them had publications, and a much stronger research background than myself, and the people I personally know at these programs also had academic backgrounds a fair bit stronger than mine.

Edited November 24 by squid1231

[bevjer03]

Your profile is super impressive! While publications help, your strong academic record, GRE scores, and research experience (even if not published) make you a competitive candidate. I agree with adding a few mid-range schools like Texas or Illinois to balance the list. And for recommendations, go with someone who knows you well - it'll carry more weight than a generic letter. Good luck!

[squid1231]

On 11/24/2024 at 12:46 PM, bevjer03 said:

Your profile is super impressive! While publications help, your strong academic record, GRE scores, and research experience (even if not published) make you a competitive candidate. I agree with adding a few mid-range schools like Texas or Illinois to balance the list. And for recommendations, go with someone who knows you well - it'll carry more weight than a generic letter. Good luck!

Yes, thank you for this - I did end up going with the person who knew me longer and am happy with this decision.

Am also applying to some mid-range schools which I think makes sense, didn't realise how much of a gap there was between safeties and everything else.

[MidnightMoon]

Hi, I also have a similar profile to OP minus the US master's, and I was curious about a few things. 

 

To OP: With part iii at Cambridge and your background, you already seem strong for PhD options. Why'd you go for a US master's programme instead of a PhD? 

 

To others: I have two summer research projects in Probability and numerical analysis, no publications. It's hard to publish in a good math/stats journal!

 

How much do publications realistically help or matter for schools if top10-ish calibers? I've seen some people say it's absolutely required for serious scrutiny from the best programmes, and others say it's a bonus of some kind, not sure if it's more important than GRE, GPA, strong LoRs etc. I've also heard people are increasingly coming in with publications due to ease of publishing in related venues in ML conferences, so things are more competitive now than ever

 

The UK, even at top5 math schools, doesn't really have a strong push for research experiences and publications as US so I feel like we're at a systemic disadvantage if it's a key factor in the admissions criteria. I wonder if the adcoms take that kind of thing into account in good schools