cyberwulf

In biostatistics, I'd say that 75% or more of new hires at top 20 places have a postdoc under their belt. But it's certainly possible to get hired straight out of a PhD.

It doesn't hurt to reach out and let them know you remain very interested. If it comes down to the end and they're filling the last couple of spots, a student who expressed strong interest and seems highly motivated to come is more likely to get the offer than someone they haven't heard from since they applied.

I wouldn't bother. Admissions committee members aren't going to read your paper, so the difference between something that's in-progress and something that's submitted/on arXiv is pretty minimal.

I'd be very surprised if any program uses an application system that has year-to-year "memory" the way you describe. At most, some application reviewers might vaguely remember your name from last year.

That's a very good publication record for a Masters student, but publications aren't the only metric used for PhD admissions. You'll need to provide more information to get a decent read on your chances.

Undoubtedly.

One bad grade isn't going to sink you, but it's a little unfortunate that your outlier is one of the small number of proof-based math courses that undergrads take. If you have good grades in classes at a similar level of rigor (e.g., real analysis), then that will help a lot.

For better or worse, sports statistics isn't widely recognized as a "serious" research sub-discipline. The faculty at highly-ranked places who work on it mostly have it as a side interest rather than a primary focus. While this perception is slowly changing, it creates challenges for folks like you who are interested in pursuing serious statistical work on the topic. I guess my advice to you would be to try to get into the best Ph.D. program you can that has at least one person who appears to have an active interest in sports analytics. So, if everything aligns, you have an opportunity to work in this area, but if your interests broaden or shift (which is common), then you're still at a good place.

I don't think your GRE score does much to change your profile. Also, there's no harm in mentioning COVID as a mitigating factor in your Masters performance as part of your SOP.

I would add more schools in the 5-15 range (NC State? Carnegie Mellon? Michigan?) as I suspect that is about the range where you will be competitive. With your profile, I don't think it would be a waste of time applying to a top 3 program.

Your math background and grades are well short of what is needed for admission to any well-regarded stats PhD program (e.g., US News Top 50). If you can afford it, your best chance to improve your standing is to get into a decent Masters program and rock it there with great grades and meaningful research experience.

Your profile is pretty unusual, as it's uncommon to see someone who graduated from a solid undergrad with a near-perfect GPA proceed to get mediocre grades in a relatively unknown Masters program. Those B's in math stat (and to a lesser extent the B+ in Real Analysis) is going to raise some serious concerns about your ability to "hack the math" at many of the higher-end places you're applying to. You might be able to overcome these concerns with really strong letters or if there is some compelling explanation for your lower grades in more challenging math courses. Given all this, I think your list is reasonable; places like Texas, Minnesota, UCLA, Emory, and Wisconsin are probably reaches but the other programs on your list are more achievable.

90 hours? I'm not sure I believe that for one week, let alone a whole summer. In fields like stats and biostats, where virtually all of your work time involves intense thinking or doing (unlike lab-oriented fields where a decent chunk of "work" time is waiting for experiments to finish), it's just not possible for most humans to put in more than 50 or so productive hours per week. In grad school (at a top program), I was probably putting in about 40 hours/week spread across 7 days; some weeks less, others a bit more but rarely more than 50 and certainly never exceeding 60. I don't think I was way outside the norm. If you have to put in anything near 90 hours per week on a regular basis to be successful in a program, then I would argue that you're in the wrong program (or, at the very least, should be looking for a different advisor).

There will be a lot international applicants with a profile similar to yours, i.e., solid grades at a respected school and a little bit of research experience. You may be at a slight disadvantage compared to applicants who came to the US for their Masters degree. A lot will depend on where you studied; for example, if you went to one of the SKY universities (Seoul, Korea, Yonsei) then your chances will be better than if, say, you went to Zhejiang, where there is more grade inflation and a 3.7 is somewhat less impressive. I would say that the places you mentioned as main targets (UConn, Pitt, Penn State, OSU, etc.) are reasonable, and if you apply to several you should feel pretty confident about getting an admissions offer. I would suggest supplementing your list with some more "reach" schools (Wisconsin, UNC, Michigan, etc.) which may not even be reaches depending on the details of your academic profile.

You may not have specific research interests yet, which is fine. I would recommend focusing on what drew you to biostatistics and what types of problems you might be interested in working on. As I've posted before, the SOP just isn't that important unless your profile is way outside the norm (and yours isn't).