Operations Management PhD profile evaluation

[OM PHD 2020]

Hello all,

 

Thanks for reading this one. I have been lurking here for a while and finally decided to make my post, requesting some evaluations. I am a Chinese student attending an Canadian university, and I am currently in my fourth-year of undergrad. I intend to apply to 15 programs, 11 PhD and 4 Master programs, all in Operations Management (PhD)/Operations research (Master).

 

Basic info

University: one of U15 in Canada

Degrees: Bachelor in Management with Minor in Math (cumulative gpa 4.04/4.30, Math 4.30/4.30)

Working experience: Registered tutor at a program of my university. Grader for one year, and Research Assistant.

Research experience: Co-authored 1 business case, Ivey Publishing; co-authored 1 paper with a professor and a PHD, submitted to European Journal of Operational Research ; 1 paper in progress with a professor

Teaching Experience: Tutored 13 students, on a one-on-one basis, in Calculus I, II, Linear Algebra I, Operations Management, Financial Management, and Principles of Micro/Macro Economics

Usual requirements

TOEFL: waived

GMAT: Quant 50, Verbal 34, AW 5

Letters of Recommendation: 1 from Operations Management chair professor, 1 from ECON, 1 from a post-doc at MATH; all three should be strong.

Research Interests: OM/Marketing interface, revenue management, customer returns

 

Courses

Since my background is in business school, I possess those common b-school courses and therefore do not repeat them here. I also have 5 courses in ECON. I list the quantitative courses I have taken which are quite relevant to my future study (all of them are A+):

Machine Learning (grad level), Optimization, Applied Graph Theory, Regression Analysis, Intro Computer Programming (Python), Calculus I, II, III, Linear Algebra I, II, Discrete Structures I, Methods for ODE, Statistics I, Intro Probability & Statistics, Statistical Inference, Operations Management, Financial Management, Principles of Micro/Macro Economics

 

School list:

OM PhD:

dream: umd, indiana university, university of washington at seattle, ohio state university, tamu

reach: hkust, university of florida, university of wisconsin at madison, western university - ivey business school

target: sinapore university of management, bu, university of rochester, university of pittsburgh

 

Operations Research Master (all research-based):

ubc msc in transportation and logistics (in business school), u of toronto masc in industrial engineering (operations research stream), msc in analytics (one year only) at queens university, waterloo masc in applied operations research.

 

My concerns:

1. GMAT score is rather weak than competitive comparing to applicants at the schools on my list.

2. The third referee does not hold a tenure-tracked position, he is a post-doc from MATH department and taught me in Discrete structure which is heavily proof-based in my case. And we interacted enough to a extent that I think he is well-positioned to assess my math skills.

 

If you don't mind, can you please share some ideas on my school list? It's a preliminary list and I am flexible to incorporate your suggestions in it. Other comments are of course welcome and thanks in advance for your help! If I didn't reveal enough information for you to make an judgement, please let me know and I will provide it upon request.