Profile Evaluation, Stat Ph.D. Plz help!

[Laoceberg]

Hello, I really need some advice on school selection. Please give me some advice. Greatly appreciate!

Undergrad Institution: Large public school. Ranking #50-60

Major: Mathematics with actuarial science emphasis. 

Minor : Statistics and Econ.

GPA: 3.05. (was a history major with very low gpa. switch to math and 3.5 junior and senior year gpa.

Type of Student: Resident / Asian.

GRE General Test:

Q: 170 

V: 155 (English is not my first language)

W: 4.0

 

Graduate institution: Private school ranking 90-100.

Major: Applied Mathematics and statistics.

GPA: 3.95

Research Experience:   One year TA in undergraduate school. One year RA in graduate school. Several in school research projects with No publication.

Courses: Taking about 30 comphensive Math&Stat courses through undergraduate and graduate. 90% are A.

Activities or jobs:  Worked as an actuarial analyst, strongly stat related. Did a couple of statistics/Data science internships in undergraduate & graduate. Passed three actuarial exams and strong SAS, R, SQL, VBA, JAVA...etc.

Letters of Recommendation:  Very strong two letters from two professors(director level)  I have worked with. One from a statistics assistant professor knows me well.

Programs applying:   Statistics Ph.D

Applied schools:

U NC

UIUC

The university of Iowa 

NC state

U MN 

Northwestern 

Rice  

University of Florida 

U Conn

Michigan State

University of Georgia 

George Washington University

 

Can anyone give me some suggestion? what is my chance about getting into these schools? In addition, one of my professor I worked with was graduated from one of the school I applied, will it give me a better chance?

 

Thank you so much!

Edited September 21, 2017 by Laoceberg

[statfan]

While your gpa is not stellar, you have exellent grades in math/stat courses and substansive math background, which is admission committee care much more than your overall gpa. Your strong letters and related research experience also make you a competitive candidate. I suggest you applying to more higher ranked programs and I think you have a good shot to get into a few. 

[Laoceberg]

7 hours ago, statfan said:

While your gpa is not stellar, you have exellent grades in math/stat courses and substansive math background, which is admission committee care much more than your overall gpa. Your strong letters and related research experience also make you a competitive candidate. I suggest you applying to more higher ranked programs and I think you have a good shot to get into a few. 

Thank you so much for your advice! I was thinking applying some top schools. However, my weakness are: No significant paper, being an resident/Asian ( given the fact that a large amount of stat phd candidates are asian), both of my undergraduate & graduate are not top school ( I am a UMN applied math master student), low gre verbal score and no gre sub. So then I decide to apply more realistic schools.

[statfan]

Those can be more than offset by your math background and letters.Aside from a handful of top schools which require math gre, you should be fine. I'd say gre verbal is one of the less important factors and you did reasonably well as an international student so don't worry too much.