Advice for Masters Statistics applicant

[hmsn24]

I am a somewhat non-traditional student. I work part-time and stay home with my two young children. I graduated in 2009 with a Bachelor's in Mathematics. Then I went to grad school for secondary education and taught math/AP Stats/Calc full time for two years. I want a career change and would really like to be a statistician. I am taking the GRE in December and plan to apply in state to the local university, but also to some online programs. I am planning to apply to Colorado State, Penn State, Texas A&M, and Cali State Fullerton. I have taken R through Coursera and my part time work exposes me to SAS and SPSS. My undergrad gpa was 3.4 which entailed the typical 3 course sequence in Calculus, Linear Algebra, Diff Eq, Mathematical Modeling, Statistics, Probability, and C programming. I am afraid that since it has been some time since I have been in school my academic LOR might be too old. That is, asking my professors from 5 years ago to write a letter seems off. I have a principal, and a supervisor. Also, I am taking Advanced Calculus in spring, but I am applying for fall 2015 so the applications are due prior to it being appropriate to asking this professor for a letter. 

 

Would it be better to apply for a Statistics Grad Certificate and then later apply for the Master's at one of these schools so that I can get current LOR of those professors?

 

Any and all advice welcome. Thanks!

[peachypie]

I would apply this year, you can always apply for a certificate or obtain one if the graduate applications do not lead to success.  I'd use the most appropriate LORs I could and then go from there. 

[crlee]

I would apply this year too. If things do not go well, you'll have most things ready by next cycle.