PhD Statistics Profile Eval - Unusual background

[ecomath]

Hi everyone,

I'm making the transition from economics to statistics. My main problem is that I don't know many statisticians, so I have almost no clue how competitive my profile is. I would be eternally grateful if you would take a look at let me know whether my list of schools is too ambitious, too safe or just right. Thanks in advance!

Undergrad Institution: Top 3 Canadian
Major: Mathematics and Economics
GPA: 3.7 (top 5 - 10%)

Masters Institution: Top 3 Canadian (same as above)
Major: Economics
GPA: In progress

Honor & Awards: Dean's List each year. I've also won a few miscellaneous awards for grades in mathematics and economics coursework, and two undergraduate research awards.

Type of student: British citizen, Canadian permanent resident
GRE: Q 165 V 161 AW 5.0

Courses: 
Undergraduate: Calculus I (A), Calculus II (A), Linear Algebra I (A), Linear Algebra II (B-), ODEs (A), Graph Theory and Combinatorics (A+), Real Analysis at Baby Rudin level (A+), Dynamical Systems (A+), Nonlinear Optimisation (B+), Linear Optimisation (A+), Econometrics I (A), Econometrics II (A)
Graduate (all ongoing): Mathematical Statistics I, Mathematical Statistics II, PhD Econometrics I, PhD Econometrics II

(Research) Experience:

• In my third year I did full-time summer research and part-time research during the school year. The research was in the economics department and related to game theory.
• In my fourth year I started doing part-time research with a group of economics professors. This led to full-time summer research, and has now turned into a co-authorship for a paper which has been invited to a top economics journal (this is very uncommon in economics, if that matters). The research is on labour market dynamics and is heavily econometrics-oriented.
• I also wrote my university's equivalent of an undergraduate thesis, and did very well on it. It was an empirical paper; nothing too fancy methods-wise, though.

Letters of recommendation: 

• The professor I did game theory research with in my third year. This should be somewhere between very strong and incredibly strong.
• One of the professors I'm doing research with for the co-authorship (since I've worked more closely with him on the estimation side of the paper). This should be incredibly strong.
• I'm getting a joint letter from the other two professors I'm co-authoring with. This should also be incredibly strong.

Worries:

I don't have a strong background in statistics. I made the decision to switch to statistics very recently, and before then I had been preparing to go to graduate school in economics. None of my letter-writers are statisticians. Although I know that I love research and I find statistics absolutely fascinating, I don't have a strong grasp on what research in statistics looks like, so my statement of purpose will probably be very vague.

Tentatively, I think I would like to move over into something related to biology. The stuff going on in statistical genetics or brain imaging (from what little I know of it) sounds incredibly cool.

List of schools:

University of Oxford

University of Toronto

University of McGill

University of British Columbia

University of California, Berkeley

Carnegie Mellon University

Duke University

Imperial College London

Boston University

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

University of Washington

 

Edited October 21, 2016 by ecomath

[Residuals]

You have more than the expected courses in math. Your econometric courses are really statistics courses. Most stats departments don't expect much UG stats, math is their main concern. You have a pretty competitive profile. UG in economics is not uncommon for statistics departments. I wouldn't worry about knowing the research direction you wish to go. It is potential the departments are looking for. Brown? Is that the biostats program? 

Edited October 21, 2016 by arima

[ecomath]

39 minutes ago, arima said:

You have more than the expected courses in math. Your econometric courses are really statistics courses. Most stats departments don't expect much UG stats, math is their main concern. You have a pretty competitive profile. UG in economics is not uncommon for statistics departments. I wouldn't worry about knowing the research direction you wish to go. It is potential the departments are looking for. Brown? Is that the biostats program? 

Thanks for the feedback! I really appreciate it. No, Brown shouldn't be on there. That's a holdover from when I was planning to apply for Economics PhDs. I'll edit it out.

If I can ask one more question, what sort of things will admissions committees be looking for in letters of recommendation? One of my letter writers has intimated that they're not sure what to emphasise in a letter to a Statistics department. 

[Residuals]

Quantitative research potential is the key emphasis. If you are able to game theory research, then you clearly have the potential to do research in an area like statistics.

[ecomath]

7 minutes ago, arima said:

Quantitative research potential is the key emphasis. If you are able to game theory research, then you clearly have the potential to do research in an area like statistics.

Great, I'll pass that along. Thanks again!

[GoPackGo89]

I attended a brief talk by a professor at Penn with brain imaging for multiple sclerosis patients. Professor Shinohara. Check out his work / Penns biostat department

[ecomath]

8 minutes ago, statbiostat2017 said:

I attended a brief talk by a professor at Penn with brain imaging for multiple sclerosis patients. Professor Shinohara. Check out his work / Penns biostat department

Thanks for the recommendation. I'll definitely take a look at that. 

[cyberwulf]

If you're interested in biological applications, why aren't you applying to some biostat departments? Given your list, Berkeley, UW, and Michigan biostat seem like obvious additions.

[uttersimpleton]

Correct me if I am wrong, but I am not sure you can go straight PhD in the UK, unless you want to do iPhD? Or is it just my uni?

[ecomath]

46 minutes ago, cyberwulf said:

If you're interested in biological applications, why aren't you applying to some biostat departments? Given your list, Berkeley, UW, and Michigan biostat seem like obvious additions.

Thanks for the input! I'm tentatively interested in biological applications (mostly from a "wow that seems both cool and useful" point of view), but I'm not sure whether it's a good idea to pigeonhole myself by starting a Biostatistics PhD on that basis. Is it considerably harder to get into biological applications if you're in a pure Statistics PhD? Apologies if my ignorance is showing here.

24 minutes ago, uttersimpleton said:

Correct me if I am wrong, but I am not sure you can go straight PhD in the UK, unless you want to do iPhD? Or is it just my uni?

I'm not sure. Oxford allows direct entry from undergrad, and Imperial wants an MA in a subject related to Statistics (I figure Economics is probably close enough, given the courses I'm taking).

Edited October 25, 2016 by ecomath

[ecomath]

As a quick update, I got an A+ in my graduate Mathematical Statistics I course and an A in my PhD Econometrics I course. Do you think it's worth it to try and send an updated transcript to the places I applied? And does this change my chances in any significant way?