Current medical student thinking about math grad school

Graduate School
1

<p>Hi guys, I've been having second thoughts about med school, and I've been thinking about going for a math PhD instead. I have a lot of questions, I'd appreciate any advice. Some background info:</p>

<p>-24 year old male, 1st year med student at fairly average US school, US citizen
-3.5 GPA overall, 3.6 math major GPA, my undergrad school was ranked in the 25-35 range
-I took two grad courses, Complex Var I/II (A, A-)
-my math transcript: A's and A-'s mostly, B+ in ODE (A in PDE), B- in Probability Theory, C+ in Number Theory
-C+ in a science class; humanities and science classes are a good mix of B's to A's
-biomedical research experience, about one year; no math research experience</p>

<p>I know med school -> math PhD is pretty unusual, how would schools look at this (and my age)? Will my medical school grades be important (grades are given as pass, high pass, and honors)? Is admission for me likely or even possible? I'm really not that ambitious, I'd probably be happy with admission + stipend at even a "mediocre" school.</p>

<p>At the moment I'm not sure what my research interests would be, but my favorite classes by far were complex variables and algebra. I also went through a differential geometry book for a couple of months and really liked that too. I have two months off at the end of the year to do research. How much research experience is typically needed to get admission? Am I correct in assuming that biomedical research and medical related EC's are pretty much irrelevant?</p>

<p>I ordered the Princeton Review GRE book, I'll take the practice exam and see how I do. From what I understand, the subject GRE is not nearly as important as recs and research experience. How important is the general GRE?</p>

<p>My biggest problem would probably be recommendations. I'm almost two years out of college, and I'm sure none of my professors remember me. Would one recommendation from a research mentor be enough? Should I maybe take a grad class over the summer?</p>

<p>Like I said, any advice is appreciated. I'm pretty clueless beyond what I've written in this post.</p>

<p>Couple of other questions
-In grad school do classes run year round or is there a break for summer (if not, what do students do over the summer)? Will the stipend last over the summer?
-Are stipends guaranteed assuming good academic standing? Are they enough to avoid taking out loans?
-How hard is math grad school?
-If my long term goal is to get a position at a university, is there anything else I should be thinking about?</p>

<p>Thanks a lot</p>

2

<p>The stipend is usually for 10 months and it depends on the program whether they offer you money for the summer often they do for a few summers. You should be able to get by with your scholarship without taking any loans (this is true for at least the top 20 programs). The way math grad school works is that you work like crazy during the semesters. The first year is usually really hard and I think it’s probably one of the toughest fields. During the first summer you usually spend time reviewing the material that you had during the year and prepare for orals. Often with a ton of homework, it’s hard to find time to actually read the books covered in class, so you might have skimmed over some of the proofs, so the summer is the perfect time to fix this. After the second year you pretty much spend the summer reading papers trying to figure out a good research topic.</p>

<p>Regarding the subject GRE it totally depends on which schools you apply to. Some schools only have some cutoff like less than 70% and you’re out while some schools place a lot of weight on it. It seems like the larger the incoming class, the more weight they put on the subject GRE. For Berkeley I’ve heard that the subject GRE is really important and if you get a high 90% you have a high chance of gaining admission. In the general GRE I think you only need a score good enough for the grad school, so that they will pass your application to the department. Everyone in my program had a 790 or 800 on the quant, so you probably shouldn’t bomb it…</p>

<p>I don’t know what you should aim for though. I’m in a top 20 program and I think most of my fellow students had a 3.9 in their major and most come from good schools (top 10 US universities and LACs, Tsinghua and Peking university, IITs etc).</p>

<p>This year was really tough regarding admissions. However, some schools had large incoming classes, because top 10 schools accepted fewer applicants, so schools in the 10-20 range had higher enrollment rates than usually. This means that some schools in the top 20 will take only a few students for the fall of 2010 and I don’t know whether or not the top 5 schools will increase their quota back to normal. It’s probably a good idea to ask departments whether they are going to take less students than normal.</p>

3

<p>Splanchnic, did you say that you were a first year medical student? Does that mean you have been in classes for a month and are having second thoughts about your career trajectory? I can offer my empathy, in the six weeks I have been at grad school I have serioiusly considered careers in infection control, public health and as a mechanic. Attrition rates in the first semester are low in grad schools and very low in medical schools. We aren’t feeling some unusual gut feeling that sets us apart from everyone around us. Have you talked to more senior medical students, instructors, grad students, other med students about their difficulties?</p>

<p>If you are still thinking about grad school after all that thought, my suggestion would be to consider something slightly more relevant to your background such as biostatistics or biophysics or chemistry. There certainly would be elements of pure mathematics but would retain the biological importance that drew you into a medical program. Also, in biomedical graduate programs, stipends are 25-33K per year (which is enough to live off of without taking out loans), tuition is free and health insurance is thrown in.</p>