Graduate Mathematics

Graduate School
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<p>I don’t know anything about Dartmouth’s program, so I’ll have to leave that to someone else to answer.</p>

<p>As far as salaries and schedules of professors, there is a huge difference between community colleges and liberal arts colleges, and research universities. A community college is more like high school in that you’ll be teaching around 15 credits (4 - 5 classes) per semester, you’ll have some sort of committee duties, you’ll have office hours, and you’ll pretty much have the summer off. Salaries range widely based on location, but not necessarily based on cost of living. I’ve looked at jobs in the New York City and San Francisco areas (I’m a city boy), and the jobs in SF seem to start out at $50-75k based on education and experience, whereas there are jobs in NYC that have starting salaries that are as low as $35k or so. I find this odd but informative. If you teach in the Midwest or the South, you might be making even less.</p>

<p>Professors at research universities have much smaller teaching loads (generally 1 - 2 courses per semester, although occasionally 3) but have significant research responsibilities for which they have to sacrifice their summers. Their schedules are generally flexible in the summer and they can travel or whatnot, but they generally can’t completely unplug themselves from academia over the summer. Salaries here have an even bigger range depending on prestige and location of school. You can find examples of salaries by looking at job postings.</p>

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<p>emengee, I really appreciate all of the information you have been giving me. According to this source (I have no idea how credible it is) [Mathematics</a> Graduate Departments Ranking](<a href=“http://math.scu.edu/~eschaefe/grad.html]Mathematics”>http://math.scu.edu/~eschaefe/grad.html), brown was ranked 13th in graduate mathematics at this time. Maybe you could let us know about your undergraduate profile so we can begin to understand what sort of experience and credentials we would need to get into a program of that caliber.</p>

<p>To me its not really about the money so much, but I would like to have a salary that allows me to save/invest some money so I can begin to build some sort of nest egg (I come from a summer season tourist town, and a sort of long winded goal of mine is to be able to start a summer motel business on top of the work I am doing in academia, since my general understanding is that you will have a smaller if not nonexistant workload in the summer).</p>

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<p>Noone is a math professor to get rich, I think for most of them it is a calling. If you are at a University there will be enormous pressure on you to do research and publish if you want to get tenure. I think most of the University professors want to do a good job with the classes that they teach but their career rests on how much they publish. You will find many of them in their offices on weekends, in the evenings and during the summers working on their research.</p>

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<p>the question of pure math vs applied math has been nagging at me for the past several months now. I think at this point it’s impossible to say, as i don’t have any experience with the kind of pure math that is associated with the term.
As for the Putnam and USAMO, i know that it will require the dedication and focus of a buddhist monk to reach that level by the end of my sophomore year, but i am willing to make sacrifices, especially since i love doing math. Right now i’m combing through a few math books from AOPS, and my favorite area so far is number theory. Then, as a primitive guess as to what area i would be interested in, number theory hits the mark. </p>

<p>Grad school is definitely colored by the mathematical prestige that i see around it. Other than that i’m completely ignorant, so i may as well be applying to any university, since it’s all the same from my point of view. I definitely have some things to think about,
thanks for the answers.</p>

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<p>math47: Here’s a rundown of my stats from the time when I was applying to grad school. This is mostly directly from my Brown application It’s amazing I still have this information. Yay digital pack rats? Anyway, at the end I give a breakdown of why I think I probably got in:</p>

<p>Undergrad Information:</p>

<p>GPA was 3.89
Math GPA was 3.92</p>

<p>Math courses taken:</p>

<p>Course Name Type Grade<br>
Linear Algebra I G Spring Semester Senior Year
Topology II G Spring Semester Senior Year
Complex Variables I G In Progress
Differential Geometry I G In Progress
Topology I G In Progress
Differential Geometry UG A
Algebra II UG B+<br>
Algebra I UG A<br>
Advanced Calculus II UG A
Advanced Calculus I UG A
Putnam Workshop UG A
Functions of a Complex Variable UG A
Combinatorics UG A
Number Theory UG A
Ordinary Differential Equations HS/UG B
Linear Algebra HS/UG A
Calculus III HS/UG B</p>

<p>G = Graduate course, UG = Undergraduate, HS/UG = College course taken while in high school.</p>

<p>GRE Scores:</p>

<p>Verbal: 570
Quantitative: 800
Analytical: 5.0
Subject: 370</p>

<p>Honors, prizes, or scholarships:</p>

<p>NYU Honors Junior in Mathematics award for excellence in mathematics
NSF VIGRE Research Fellowship (basically a nice way of saying a summer research grant)</p>

<p>Published articles, books, research completed or in progress:</p>

<p>NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates at Lafayette College</p>

<p>Jobs:</p>

<p>8 months of tutoring experience listed </p>

<p>Statement of Purpose:</p>

<p>I’m not going to list the whole thing here, but I’ll give you the paragraph I wrote about why Brown was a good fit for me:</p>

<p>“Of all the programs I am considering, the Department of Mathematics at Brown
University is one of my top choices. I immensely enjoyed the research I did in
differential geometry, but I would like to explore other areas of geometry and topology
before I choose a specialization. Brown’s department is a great fit for me because it
includes numerous geometers and topologists working in a variety of subfields, and it is
home to seminars in my areas of interest. Moreover, it is a particularly strong department
that challenges its students to reach their full potential. I look forward to facing these
challenges knowing that I will have the resources I need to refine my mathematical
interests and achieve my goals.”</p>

<p>Note that Brown is a fantastic school with a great math department, but this whole “I would like to explore other areas…” probably wouldn’t fly at Harvard or UC Berkeley, for instance. That’s a big difference between the tip top schools and the rest, from my understanding.</p>

<hr>

<p>Although I didn’t have a significant amount of research experience (one REU from which our paper hadn’t been published yet, and a laughable summer research experience that you’ll notice I didn’t actually mention in detail), the REU went pretty well and I have a feeling that my mentor wrote me a very nice letter of recommendation. He did his post-doc at Brown, and so he probably knew some people on the committee (and a letter from someone you know is often trusted more than a letter from someone you don’t).</p>

<p>Additionally, I did well in quite a wide range of math courses, including undergraduate and graduate courses. Whereas my REU mentor could write about my research potential from the summer experience, I my other two letter writers had had me as a student for at least a couple of different semesters each and could talk about my mathematical growth and how well I did in undergraduate and graduate courses.</p>

<p>Looking back, I had fairly good stats and probably had a fantastic shot at most of the good departments that weren’t tip top. That said, I didn’t have enough focused research experience to really stand out for a top ten school. That’s where something like that becomes even more important. I was rejected by Harvard, MIT and Columbia. I was also accepted to SUNY Stony Brook, Rutgers, and UCLA.</p>

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<p>3.92 major GPA, very solid GRE, and yet rejected by Harvard and MIT? Wow they are indeed tough, they probably need publications</p>

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<p>Mr.Zoo, you call a 370 GRE subject test very solid?</p>

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<p>Emengee: Your stats are fantastic, I only had the opportunity to take through Calculus I in highschool (It was a small school with limited advanced placement classes), but I am impressed that you made it through Calc I-III, diff equs and linear algebra in that time.</p>

<p>Will I be at a large disadvantage if I don’t take many graduate courses prior to applying to graduate programs?</p>

<p>Since I would be changing my major I may not have enough time to get that many in (like I said I have around 16 classes worth of time left, and I’ve only taken Calc I-III, diff equ and linear algebra, prob and stats)</p>

<p>I am collaberating with my differential equations professor who recieved his phd from dartmouth, which could prove very useful because from what I’m noticing letters of recommendation are an extremely large part of graduate admissions for math (it is my understanding that undergraduate research for mathematics is quite difficult to perform, so schools rely on your professors recommending your potential for future research).</p>

<p>Hopefully I can keep my grades atleast as good as they are, and see as much success as you did emengee.</p>

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<p>Sorry to double post but for some reason I couldn’t find the edit button</p>

<p>As an undergraduate my first year of school was rocky, I initially went to Clarkson University in Potsdam, NY for one semester, then transferred to a hometown community college for one semester, and I have spent the last year and a half at Northeastern University (where I am sure I will complete my degree)</p>

<p>When applying to programs do I need to include transcripts from my previous schools (I didn’t take any important classes, just basic calc/freshman writing and stuff), or is the Northeastern transcript sufficient?</p>

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<p>For grad school…I believe you will need to send all transcripts.</p>

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<p>Ahh, a typo. That was a 770 subject test score. That changes things ;-)</p>

<p>As far as not getting into Harvard, MIT and Columbia: I think my rejections were less the lack of publications and more that I hadn’t really focused on one particular area of research. Math research opportunities are available in abundance; however, few people get into a focused enough research program early enough in undergrad to actually have a publication by the time they apply for grad school. Also, my subject test score could have been higher. I think I was in the 77th percentile, and top schools can be more selective if they want to be. I know Columbia seemed to dislike anything below 90th percentile, but they’re not a very warm and welcoming department from the vibes I got when I visited.</p>

<p>For grad school, you will need to send transcripts from all universities attended.</p>

<p>As far as taking graduate courses as an undergrad, the top schools will want to see that you have done that (assuming you go to a school with a graduate program; if not, don’t worry about it). Specifically, I was told at the admitted students day at SUNY Stony Brook that they generally only admit students who have taken at least one graduate course as an undergrad. I suppose they can be that selective.</p>

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<p>Okay well I think with my current schedule I should still be able to fit in some graduate classes towards the end so thats good.</p>

<p>About the transcripts, do you think it will hurt my chances since I bounced around first year? On top of that, will it hurt that I am changing my major from engineering? I don’t know if admissions take that sort of thing into account (thinking I’m indecisive or something).</p>

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<p>The admissions committees will care much more about more recent stuff than less recent stuff, and they’ll care much more about math stuff than non-math stuff. So if you can do very well in your math classes and decently in your junior and senior non-math classes, you’ll be fine.</p>

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<p>Okay sounds like I should be fine, could you give me some ideas of things I should possibly get involved with to better my chances? For example this putnam thing I keep hearing about, I don’t know much about it but should I be doing something about that?</p>

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<p>Just start by taking some upper-division math courses and see what you like. That’s probably the most important thing for you to focus on right now.</p>

<p>Info on the Putnam exam can be found at [William</a> Lowell Putnam Competition](<a href=“http://math.scu.edu/putnam/]William”>http://math.scu.edu/putnam/) Note that the median score is generally a 1 or a 2 out of 120. It’s not easy.</p>

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<p>Thats alright, I’m just trying to line up as many steps as I can before I actually have to start putting things into motion. I’m meeting with a professor next week to see how it would work out schedule-wise. As you can probably tell I am very anxious/excited to see what I’ll be able do here (I have been obsessively monitoring this thread and scouring graduate math programs for the past week).</p>

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<p>I just wanted to add a couple of things.</p>

<p>One of my fellow classmates from undergraduate school went to MIT as a graduate student. We were at a small LAC so there were no graduate courses for him to take, so I suspect his acceptance was based on glowing recommendations from his professors. He was amazing, a math prodigy, although I never would have known that if someone else hadn’t told me, he was the nicest guy and very modest.</p>

<p>math47, don’t just think about getting the schools to like you, find out if this is what you really want. Immerse yourself in your math courses and see if after a year of being saturated with math you still like it. Also, don’t discount schools that aren’t the top schools, the graduate math programs at many state universities are top notch.</p>

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<p>Pea: Thanks for your input, yeah my goal right now is to just get into the classes but im the type of person who likes to just have a plan set up assuming I do enjoy the immersion in the subject</p>

<p>Also yeah I’m not going to disregard any schools based on ranking, I know dartmouth (like 48th or something) is a big name but its actually not ranked very high, I like the program mostly due to the location of the school. (Once I know more about what research I want to do if it gets to that point, I assume this will factor in to what programs interest me as well)</p>

<p>I’m looking into a lot of other programs as well just to have a sort of list together</p>

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<p>Also looking back at your profile emengee, you did an REU at Lafayette college, I was looking at all the REU’s today and plan on applying to that one as well (I have a list of like 7-8 that I’m going to apply to this summer, so I can try to find out if I like mathematics research before I make any major commitment).</p>

<p>Was it a useful/enjoyable experience, and would you say it offered good insight as to what its like to be a graduate math student?</p>

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<p>Definitely. It was a great experience. I’d totally recommend it!</p>