Student beginning to consider grad school for stats

[cw188]

Hi, I am a currently a junior at a top 3 public university studying math/econ and statistics. I have recently begun to consider grad school particularly masters' programs for statistics for my professional interests (as I have very limited interest in research). I currently have a 3.56 GPA and will be entering my 2nd summer internship working with data warehousing, however I have no research experience and don't really have any close professors I could ask LoR's from at the moment. I would like to apply to west coast programs such as Stanford, UCLA, Cal and UW, however, I have no idea how I stand compared to usual applicants and if I am under qualified as I realize these programs are quite sought after. 

I am wondering if anyone could shed some light on the general competitiveness of my profile, and what the next steps I should take if I am serious about grad school for statistics. 

[SublimePZ]

I would say the next step to complete your portfolio, as it were, is to take the GRE and get LoRs. If possible, try and get research that you can continue either over the summer during your internship or into your senior year.

 

Since you say you don't have any close professors to write you letters, try becoming close to 1 or 2 starting this semester/quarter. Were you close to your supervisor in your first internship? If so, ask them to write you a letter (if applicable). From the schools that I applied to (different discipline, so YMMV), almost all said that a letter from one internship supervisor was acceptable. I also got a letter from a professor whose class was not related at all to my intended field, but they were able to comment very strongly about my work ethic and other motivational/general capabilities.

[StatsG0d]

All of those programs are pretty competitive. I was waitlisted to UCLA, despite being accepted (with fellowship offers) to more prestigious programs. I was even rejected from UCSB, which was kind of a joke (granted, my application was not complete until the day of the deadline. I guess what I'm saying is try not to let regional preferences dictate where you apply. It is very important to diversify. Also, your GPA is on the low end, so I hope that your math GPA is at least a 3.7 and preferably a 3.8, particularly for these schools. Otherwise, I think it will be quite tough.

 

Having said that, math majors always look good to statistics adcoms. However, I think people tend to underestimate the importance of LORs. I went to a relatively unknown school, and I truly believe that my LORs made all the difference. Try to get involved in some econometric work with your econ profs or some statistical work with your statistics profs (I imagine the latter is harder). Go to office hours and talk to your professors about your decision to go to graduate school and ask about their research interests. Showing interest is obviously a first step to getting a good LOR.

[wine in coffee cups]

Admissions for the those master's programs are all very selective:

• Stanford's MS program has an 11% acceptance rate and average incoming undergrad GPA of 3.9 (source).
• Berkeley's professional MA program reports application numbers implying an acceptance range of 13-28% (source).
• UW's professional MS program had a 21% acceptance rate for domestic applicants and 15% for international applicants in 2014 (source).
• UCLA doesn't break out admissions for its PhD and MS programs separately, but the overall acceptance rate for the past few years is 16% (source). For context, that's just a bit higher than UW's combined acceptance rate (about 13%). I'd ballpark MS acceptance rates at UCLA at 20-25%.

With the scary figures out of the way, go ahead and apply to some of these schools, but consider other master's programs in the UC and Cal State system. There is no or extremely limited funding for master's students at all four programs you named, which is another reason to broaden your scope.
 
Doing directed reading with a professor, working on an honor's thesis next fall under someone's supervision, or taking a small upper-level special topics course could help a faculty recommendation from someone who knows you well. Also: don't flub the GRE general when you take it. A low score on the quantitative can get you filtered out.

[Stat Assistant Professor]

Since your application is for Masters programs and you attend a fairly prestigious university, I think you should have no problem being admitted to some Statistics MS program (though a few MS programs can be quite competitive, e.g. Duke, Yale, Stanford have Masters programs are actually competitive). The overall GPA is kind of low but not unacceptably terrible, and if your GPA in your last two years and your GPA in your mathematics courses are solid and you can get good letters of recommendation, then those can mitigate the overall GPA. However, you should definitely apply to more schools than just the big-name ones you listed. Those might be reaches.

[StatsG0d]

Apologies: I did not see this was for masters programs. I agree that you should be competitive at pretty much all of those above schools.

[cw188]

I see! I definitely understand these schools are all still reaches even if I had a 3.9 haha. Thanks for all the helpful feedback, it is much appreciated.