Research/Work Experience in Applied Math/Stat Applications

[dasgut]

There's a very good chance that I'll be changing jobs to a very prominent defense think tank. My position would be research associate and I would primarily be doing modeling regarding military topics. All of my supervisors will have PhD's in areas ranging from mathematics and physics to economics and political science. Would this type of experience enhance or harm one's application for a PhD in statistics or applied mathematics?

[ktel]

I would say enhance. You could get some excellent LoRs from your supervisors, and the fact that they hold PhD's makes them look even better. In addition to that, the experience itself would look good. I find it strange you would even question whether it would help or harm....

[dasgut]

I'm worried that being out in the non-academic world will harm my application and if the fact that my new position would be as a research associate will mitigate that harm. I'm also a completely neurotic applicant!