Need help for my PS in MA Statistics! TY!!

[346268575]

Can anyone do me a favor? Revise my PS. Please!!

 

A friend of mine once said to me “who does not have dreams does not have much.” Those words reminded me of my dream of being an owner of a consulting firm.

My dream began from father years ago. My father own a mechanical equipment company who has done business for almost his entire life. He is my idol. He taught me how to do business, how to run a company and how to be a good leader. Five years ago, I had witnessed the magic power of how financial knowledge helped my father’s company to grow fast and overcome the bottleneck period for development. As a result, finance gets my interest. At that time, I knew my aspiration is to own a reputable financial consulting firm in my home country of China, which will provide a wide range of financial services to companie. I hope I can assist mid-small sized companies like my father’s company to a healthy, sustainable development. Therefore, I chose to major in finance and accounting. During my undergraduate stuidies and internships, I found the importance of data analysis skills in financial area. For the purpose of strengthening my data analysis skills in finance, a deep understanding in statistcs is significant. Because statistics collect and analyze numberical evidence to support or refute hypotheses, I chose statistics to start my postundergraduate study.

The hidden trends and mutual relation can be found from statistics. I knew if I want ot dig deeper in finance, I should understand statistics. My interest area is probability, regression analysis and interpretation of financial data as well as stochastic process.

Although my undergraduate major was Finance and Accounting, they have a close relationship with statistics. I learned a lot of useful things related to statistics from these classes. The business statistics coureses had a focus on linear regression analysis, hypothesis-testing, model building, conditional probability and statistical process control methods. The professor taught how to use statistical programming language SAS. During one of the projects, “what goes around comes around,” we used classical path analysis to construct models to test direct and indirect effects of parents’ obeserved behabiors （X1）on parents’ perceptions of their children (Y3 & Y4) a decade later. I was responsible for merging the raw data sets from a long-term panel study, the Family Transition Porject , and cleaning up the merged database by averaging parents’ observed values in three years as (X1), targeted children (Y2) and parents (Y3 &Y4), which reduced correlations among variables due to a single reporter and retrospective reporting. It demonstrated that (Y2) mediates the relationship between (X1) and (Y3 or Y4) and supported the results of the previous research that relied solely on questionnaire data.

In addition, my business background gives me a different experience to gain qualifications with statistics. For instance, in my security analysis class, we made a comparison between three companies or one company in a different tiem, which is an application of time series data. Meanwhile, statistics can be applied into various industries.  Stock market is one of area to empoly large numbers of analysts for marketing trends, economic data, stock price data and etc.. With the experience in finance, I have a different view and understanding of statistics from others which will do me a favor in the postundergraduate study.

In order to have a better understanding in finance and enhance my knowledge, I had an internship every summer throughout my four year undergraduate studies. I interned at China Merchants Bank and was responsible for helping analyze potential clients’ financial statements to loan a potential client company money. In addition, I interned at the international business department in China Citic Bank. My daily duty was to examine letters of credit and determine whether a company is qualified for financial support by assessing its credit history and operational performance. I realized that statistic played an significant role to helpe me summarize and analysze data in these jobs. All my experience from internships helps me understand the importance of statistics.

Through my undergraduate study, now I have a research interest in regression analysis, financial statistics as well as stochastic process. Since technology plays a more important role on the statistics industry, it is useful for me to learn new programming languages. I hope that I can take part in some projects to practice my statistical skills. In the future, I plan to find a job in banks, consulting companies, or Insurance companies where I can make use of statistical skills. Also, if given a chance, I would like to do an actuary internship. I hope that I can use my statistical techniques to help people solve their problems.

Given my interest and background, I have prepared for a further learning about higher level of statistics. The Columbia Statistics Program attracts me for two reasons. First of all, the department of statistics is very strong and provides lots of resource for me to study statistics further. For example, the Statistical Computing Facility provides computing networking and information resource, which helps me learn statistical software better and know more about industry. Secondly, the geographic position is good. Columbia is in New York City where is the best place to get opportunities. I hope that Columbia University grant me an opportunity to study at your school. Then, I will use this knowledge to tackle real problems and pursue my dream.  

 

[pengjiahua]

Sounds too... formal, too official. Try to work on your lanaguage and choice of words.

[themmases]

I think you should have someone look this over for grammatical errors. There are several here, and they're not serious but there are definitely too many. I'd recommend having someone look it over now for the big stuff, and then one more time before you submit it-- minimum. Other people will catch things that you don't.

 

Hopefully someone in stats can chime in, but I'm not sure you need variable names in your statement. Other than that, I like your description of the class project you did and what part you were responsible for (so important!), but I think you need to make it clearer why you're telling this story. Do you want to use those specific methods again, or is this a particularly good demonstration of the skills you already have in statistics, or...? It's OK to be explicit about why you're about to share this anecdote. For example, a project in my SOP was introduced with "One of my earliest opportunities to help with study design was in a retrospective project whose principles I believe I could apply at [school]."

 

You have several sentences like this one:

Stock market is one of area to empoly large numbers of analysts for marketing trends, economic data, stock price data and etc.

That should be either cut or changed. Your readers are experts in statistics; they already know what the applications of the field are, so you shouldn't tell them. It's more effective to say that you're interested in these applications, or plan to use them in your career, or have experience using them, or whatever. Also, don't end lists vaguely with "etc.", list exactly and only the topics you're actually interested in.

 

You should spend much more time talking about your internships and research interests, even if if means you have to cut talking about your class projects. These are so important I'd even suggest you might want to talk about your realization "that statistic played an significant role to helpe me summarize and analysze data in these jobs." in your introduction. The story about your family background is so interesting, but your paragraph about your work experience connects much better to your stated career goals throughout your statement.

 

Finally, you should work in some interest in the school throughout your statement rather than just at the end. If there are specific research or work groups where you'd fit in well, internship programs you'd be qualified for (in fact, your interest in an actuary internship isn't that relevant to mention unless the school does offer that), or other shared facilities in addition to the Statistical Computing Facility, those would be good things to mention throughout the statement. For example, when you talk about your project on parent perceptions, you could mention whether that makes you interested in a research group's work that is similar or whether a resource at the school would help you do something similar, but better.

 

I hope this helps! You sound like you have a lot to offer a stats program, now you just need to showcase it.