Statistics MS Profile Evaluation (Deeply Appreciate any advice!!!)

[lynntoujours]

Hello,

I am a senior in college and intend to apply to MS programs in Statistics. Currently I have no interests in pursuing research&academia. Want to learn more about stats, data science and machine learning and find a good job after graduation.

Undergrad Institution: Liberal Arts College (top 20)
Major: Double in Economics and Politics, Minor in Math
GPA: 3.94 overall, 4.0 in Economics and 3.9+ in Politics. 4.0 in Math.

Honor: Economic Summer Research Fellowship; one Economic award; one Scholar award for best first-year students

Type of student: Asian female
GRE: Q: 168-95%, V: 164-94%, W: 4.5-82%

Courses: 
Undergrad: Mathematical Probability (A), Calculus 2 (A), Linear Algebra (A+), Multivariable Calculus (A), Geometry (A), Economic Statistics (A), Econometrics (A), Time Series Econometrics (A), Economics of Big Data (We learned machine learning methods) (A) 
Programming: Proficiency in Python, R and Stata
On-Going & Next Semester: Econ Senior Thesis, Intro to Algorithm, Differential Equation

(Research) Experience: 

-Summer research assistant for my Economics Professor. Helped him clean and organize data in Stata, map the data in R. Panel data, FE Regressions. Also, helped him to construct another dataset by searching information online with teammates. 

-Summer Internship at a fin-tech firm as Predictive Analytics Intern. We applied machine learning methods to our prediction model to predict default rate. Tested almost all applicable methods and finally came up with the optimal one. Used Python and R. 

Letters of recommendation: 
All are my economic professors. 

- My summer research supervisor, also my supervisor at the fin-tech firm (his summer job), took two courses with him, as well as senior thesis.

- Took 3 courses with him, including Time Series Econometrics

- Took Econometrics with him. He has published some influential papers. 

Concerns: 

My college doesn't have a Stats department, so technically I don't have any stats courses. Also, compared to other candidates, my mathematical background is pretty light (no Mathematical Statistics, no higher-level proof courses, not enough math courses?). I can only hope that my grades can show that I have the ability to learn those higher-level materials. Also, my GRE Quant score is not super competitive. 

School List:

• Harvard
• Stanford
• UC Berkeley
• Northwestern Analytics Program
• UChicago
• Duke
• University of Washington
• Carnegie Mellon
• Columbia
• Yale

I feel like these programs are all kind of risky for me. But currently I don't have a clear idea of what levels of schools are 'safe' for me. Any suggestions, please?

Thank you so much!! I deeply appreciate for all your help!!!

[Robbentheking]

I'm just an applicant as well, but my impression from reading through these forums is that for someone applying to masters programs, your profile is quite competitive. I guess having Real Analysis on your transcript, or any sort of proof based math, would be ideal, but your more interested in applied statistics anyway. My impression is that 168Q is more than sufficient for master programs. I wouldn't worry about that.

Obviously you've basically picked all the best programs here, but I'd like to think you'll find success somewhere on the list. I think I read somewhere that Columbia's MS really isn't hard to get into.

As always, it would be cool if one of the people that actually knows what they're talking about would pipe up. I think in general there are a lot more profile evlauations for PhD on here, making it a bit harder for MS applicants to get a handle on where they stand.

[lynntoujours]

On 11/22/2016 at 3:32 AM, Robbentheking said:

I'm just an applicant as well, but my impression from reading through these forums is that for someone applying to masters programs, your profile is quite competitive. I guess having Real Analysis on your transcript, or any sort of proof based math, would be ideal, but your more interested in applied statistics anyway. My impression is that 168Q is more than sufficient for master programs. I wouldn't worry about that.

Obviously you've basically picked all the best programs here, but I'd like to think you'll find success somewhere on the list. I think I read somewhere that Columbia's MS really isn't hard to get into.

As always, it would be cool if one of the people that actually knows what they're talking about would pipe up. I think in general there are a lot more profile evlauations for PhD on here, making it a bit harder for MS applicants to get a handle on where they stand.

Thank you for your advice! I just heard from Yale today. Hopefully I can hear from more programs as we are approaching March. Good luck to your application!