Clueless about Ph.D. - Do I have potential?

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Hi all! I'm applying to Ph.D. programs this cycle in OR / IE / OM / idek. I decided I wanted to get a Ph.D. about 3 months into my MS program and don't have friends/family who have gone through this process, so I'd really appreciate if anybody had any advice for me over the next 8 months to strengthen my apps!!

 

Undergrad: 

• Degree: BS in CS, Minor in Math from a non-target university
• GPA: 3.83/4.0 (only received one B in my major courses)

Masters:

• Degree: MS in CS (AI/ML Specialization)
• In my first semester, so no GPA yet
• I completed one semester of coursework in the business school (which is more highly regarded and I received a merit scholarship for this) doing a MS in Business Analytics before switching to the CS program for more rigor.

Type of Student: Domestic Female

GRE General Test:
Q: 167 (76%) | V: 154 (60%) | W: 4.0 (63%)

I will be retaking this and am confident I can get perfect quant score and increase verbal.
 

Programs Applying: PhD in IE/OR/Operations Management. Also considering computational social science.

 

Research Experience:

• Project on heuristic approach for scheduling anesthesiologists at a university hospital. Uses ML and heuristic approaches
  • Paper in progress - will be second author
  • Ongoing - moving into optimization work
• Will be starting my thesis next semester as well which I hope to turn into a paper
• Working on NLP project for my NLP course that extends my professor's current research. Hoping to turn this into a first author paper.

Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Received merit-based scholarship for BS and MS
Work Experience:

I have more work experience because I thought I wanted to go the industry route and had no idea about Ph.Ds

• Data Analyst Intern at large healthcare company
• Math Center Tutor at my undergraduate university (tutored calc, differential equations, and linear algebra)
• Product Analyst Contractor at a small events company
• Digital Product Management Intern for a smaller fast food company

 

Math/CS Grades:  

• Math Courses (undergrad):
  • Calculus 1/2/3/4:    A/A/B/A
  • Discrete Math:    A
  • Ordinary Differential Equations:    A
  • Linear Algebra:    A
  • Numerical Analysis:    A
  • Applied Statistical Methods:    A
• Relevant CS Courses (undergrad):
  • Theory of Computation:    A
  • Algorithm Analysis:    A
  • Artificial Intelligence:    A
  • Machine Learning:    A
• CS Courses (grad):     Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Reinforcement Learning, Natural Language Processing, Algorithm Engineering, Neural Networks, possibly could take an operations research course or real analysis as an extra course if it would help.

 

Any Miscellaneous Points that Might Help:    I volunteered at a hospital in the emergency department for 6 months and plan to do that again starting next month, which aligns with my research interests. 

Where I'm thinking of applying:    Chicago Booth OM,    Northwestern IEMS,    SMU OR,    UT Austin ORIE,    Cornell OR,   UMich OR,    Stanford MS&E,    UC Berkeley IEOR,    Purdue OR,   U Wisc Madison IE

I'm curious how competitive/selective Ph.D. programs in IEOR are... I truly don't know what the applicant pool looks like. From looking at current students on university websites, it appears primarily dominated by international students who went to prestigious undergraduate universities or Ivy Leagues domestically. I fear I don't stand a chance at one of the higher ranked programs (like Chicago, Northwestern, Berkley, Stanford).