Profile Evaluation - Stats/OR PHD

[Caladan]

Undergrad Institution:  One of top institutions in Turkey , (Top 200 in QS Engineering) 

Major:  Industrial Engineering 

GPA: 2.6. (Albeit undiagnosed, I had to go through a severe depression through my early undergrad years, while trying to cope with the fact that I had to commute 3.5-4 hours total everyday  in order to attend classes, at one point it was even below 1.00 )

Type of Student: Urban middle class Turkish male

GRE General Test:

Q: 170 

V: 155 (I'd like to hope that this won't be much of an issue since I'm not a native speaker, I had no time to study for it. )

W: 4.0

TOEFL: Haven't taken it yet, but i'm pretty confident that I can get above 110, I almost got 8.5 in IELTS last year.

Graduate institution: Same as undergrad

Major: Industrial Engineering

GPA: Haven't graduated yet, likely to be top of the class  and in somewhere between (3.85 - 3.95)

Research Experience:   In addition to my master's thesis, It's possible for me  to have submitted a journal paper and several(1-3) conference papers/proceedings  by the time I graduate, all of these are WIP at the moment.

Courses: The main reason for my abysmal GPA is the abysmal grades I got in manufacturing courses during my undergrad (The reason why Master's GPA won't be 4.00 is because of another compulsory manufacturing course) Still, keep in mind that in most of the courses I've taken, the grades are likely to have been deflated, (e.g. in Theory of Probability less than 5% gets top marks)

3 Calculus Courses, 1 Linear Algebra ( Average Grades, B-, B simply because i did not care )
Theory of Probability, Statistics, Quality Control, Stochastic Modelling and several other statistics courses (A+, A and a B+)

2 OR courses (Bad Grades. Again, because I did not care at that time)

Graduate:
Mathematical Analysis A+

Advanced Statistical Analysis A+

Decision Making under Uncertainty (PHD level course) A+
Linear Programming, Nonlinear Programming A+ A+
Time Series Econometrics A+ 
Panel Data Econometrics (Haven't taken it yet)
Applied Multivariate Stats (Haven't taken it yet, PHD level)

I'm also hoping to add a undergrad level Real Analysis course in my graduate transcript if the university bureaucracy wills it. 
 

Activities or jobs: I was in a well paying job after landing it thanks to a successful run in a nationwide competition, but I didn't like how my life was shaping to be.
So I decided to quit the job and resort to my unnurtured idea of academic pursuit (Heck, I believed that it was impossible with my undergrad GPA and I still doubt that it is possible). I have practically  become a Stats nerd, in recent summers  I would get a book in Stats and study it, hence I learned some Econometrics and Machine Learning in R, but I don't think it is of any tangible value to the admission officers.

Letters of Recommendation:  1 Stats 2 OR/Stats Professors who  trust me and know me well. All of them got their PHDs in US.

Programs applying:   Statistics Ph.D / OR Ph.D (I'd like to give precedence to Stats since I am warmer towards it but it might not be a strategical move because i don't think Theoretical Statistics is regarded as a close discipline to IE, on the other hand, OR is the core of IE. I believe I can conduct almost the same research in both fields.

My comments:  My profile is full of red flags, low undergrad GPA, extra year, gap years, aloof stance towards education almost my entire life...  But I have learnt so much from these experiences and I know what is it like to have no purpose and the value of my (somewhat) newfound purpose. Since I have so many downsides in my past, I feel like I would be overjustifying  if I were to touch all of them in a mere SOP. So I'm thinking of asking my professors mention them in their letters in my stead, however, I'm not sure if it would be ethical.

The reason why I came and wrote all of above is that I'm clueless as to which schools would accept me . I'm thinking of applying to anywhere in the 50-150 range, I'm looking for some advice for determining my targets realistically.  I'm thinking of applying anywhere English speaking plus maybe Netherlands, with US and Canada being priorities.

Thanks!