<p>My advisor gave me a list of like 30 schools and after looking at them I've narrowed it down to about 8 that I want to apply to. I'm not sure if I picked a good enough spread. My gpa is a 3.42. I kinda messed up my freshmen year and got Cs in calc, chem, and physics, because I tried to take all of them at once. Without my calc i and ii grades, my in major gpa is a 3.7. I did two independent studies (one in differential topology and one in differential geometry) with a professor and am doing an reu this summer (in heegaard floer homology). I haven't taken any grad courses, because my school didn't have any. I think I should be able to get one solid letter from the professor I did the independent studies with, and two more decent letters. I've been studying for the subject gre and plan on taking it in oct. </p>
<p>The schools on my list are Stanford, Columbia, Cornell, UT-Austin, Penn, UIUC, SUNY Stony Brook, and Penn State. </p>
<p>I am primarily interested in algebraic topology and differential geometry. Based on faculty interests, I think my dream school is Penn. I feel like there are a few a gaps in my undergraduate education and that the structure of the program at Penn would help me fill those gaps. For example, I've taken an algebra course, but we never learned about groups, we mostly focused on rings and fields. All the group theory I've learned has been through algebraic topology. </p>
<p>Anyway, I think I am aiming mostly for schools in the 10 to 20 range in terms of ranking. Is this realistic or should I add a few more lower ranked schools?</p>
<p>I think my chances at Columbia are better than Stanford and Cornell, because I’ve been working with two professors there, and should be able to get a good lor from one of them and depending on how the rest of the summer turns out, a good one from the other. I’m should be taking a grad course in differential geometry at Columbia next year too.</p>
<p>My grades in all my upper level math courses have mostly been As and two B+s. Its my freshmen year that is bringing me down, but every semester after was 3.6+. </p>
<p>My advisor said I should apply to a few top schools, but maybe I should consider getting rid of Stanford or Cornell from the list.</p>
<p>3.42 isn’t terribly low. Honestly, I’d give myself one or two top schools (of course after considering fit and all that mumbo jumbo). You really never know what’s going to happen considering grad admissions is one of the big mysteries of the world. Who knows? This time next year, you may come back with your admission to Stanford.</p>
<p>If you are set on going to grad school, I’d add a few more less selective choices. If you’d rather get a job than go to a low-ranked grad program, your current list is fine.</p>
<p>The grad school application process seems to be rather unpredictable from the perspective of the applicant. I have a friend who graduated from Penn with a near-perfect GPA, took almost a dozen graduate classes and had two publications. The most selective graduate program that accepted him was the University of Georgia. Retrospectively, that was probably due to lowish math subject GRE scores and letters of recommendations saying, “He’s strong, but not as strong as some of our other graduate school applicants.” Your letters from Columbia carry that same risk. </p>
<p>I don’t mean to be discouraging. I could also tell you stories about applicants who did unexpectedly well, but the “proceed with caution” examples seemed more relevant to your question.</p>
<p>Do you mean to say that professors writing letters for me might compare me to other students in a letter for me? I mean, I’ve never read a recommendation letter before and I guess anything is fair game, since I know it is entirely possible to get a bad letter. </p>
<p>I think one my letters will be pretty solid, because I’ve known one professor for 3 years now and have taken a bunch of classes with him as well as did those independent studies where I worked with him one-on-one for two semesters. The other two I’m not so sure about yet.</p>
Yes. In fact, letters with explicit comparisons are the most useful for admission folks. (Even when your references might try to avoid explicit comparisons in their letter, some graduate programs will ask them to complete a short questionnaire online before they can submit their letter. The two most frequently asked questions are, “In what capacity do you know the applicant?” and “How does the applicant compare to other students you have taught? Please check one: …”)</p>
<p>One precarious situation for professors is when they have two students, one of whom is clearly stronger than the other, applying to some of the same programs. Compare them and you are hurting the weaker student. Don’t compare them and you are hurting the stronger one.</p>
<p>Another idea I had recently is a phd in cs. I’ve been looking into graphics and I also saw a few professors doing research in computational topology. Would doing math research help with getting into grad school for cs?</p>
<p>To get into a CS PhD (or even MS) program without an undergrad degree in CS you’ll need to take the CS subject GRE, which isn’t easy. Furthermore, you might still be expected to take several intro level CS courses at the start of the program (algorithms/data structures, operating systems, architecture, programming languages). If you haven’t taken any CS courses or done some serious programming before, I would avoid this route.</p>
<p>i forgot to mention i am a computer engineering and math double major. i’ve taken data structures, intro java, c, an architecture course, a scientific computing course, automata, and will be taking parallel programming, graphics, os, and programming languages, as well as a numerical algorithms course. i’ve also taken a bunch of ee courses, the whole circuit analysis sequence (3 courses) and a signal processing course.</p>
<p>It’s already been mentioned, but Stanford and Cornell aren’t really realistic. You’re competing against people who were FLAWLESS in their academic records. If you know people at Columbia, and they have come out and said “Apply here. . .” then you should. However, I would speak to them to make sure they are willing to go to bat for you, before throwing down that 100 application fee.</p>
<p>I would spread things out a bit. I have no idea why people are so obsessed with applying to top 10 schools; the top 30 (hell top 50) are still good schools; they simply lack the prestige of the Super Schools.</p>
<p>I think I finished my list: Columbia, Cornell, UT Austin, Northwestern, UIUC, Stony Brook, Penn State, CUNY, UC Davis, UCSB. </p>
<p>Columbia is up in the air. Northwestern has no differential geometers which I suppose is a tradeoff. But, other than that I think my list is pretty good now. 10 schools is the absolute max I want to apply to and would like to narrow it down to 8 if possible. Maybe by the time I apply I’ll get rid of Columbia and Northwestern.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t scratch all of the top 10 programs off your list unless you actually don’t want to go there or cannot afford the application fee. Yes it’s a gamble, but it’s a gamble that might pay off! :)</p>
<p>A few thoughts about specific programs:</p>
<p>I really liked the social atmosphere at Columbia when I visited. However, I heard through the grapevines that their low-dimensional topology group is slowly dispersing (Peter Oshvath has already moved on, and I heard that Robert Lipschitz and Dylan Thurston are moving elsewhere next year too.) The other thing that struck me as weird is that very few professors are actually advising students, mostly the junior faculty. (Don’t expect to work with Richard Hamilton, for example.)</p>
<p>CUNY and UCSB are both struggling to fund their graduate students. I heard that the typical stipend for a graduate student at CUNY is $17K/calendar year, which is not enough to live on in NYC. To compensate, many graduate students opt to teach courses as adjuncts, which has a detrimental effect on their doctoral work (only 30% finish their PhD in 6 years, for example). I was recently talking to a student of Dennis Sullivan who said that he had not stayed at CUNY if his advisor hadn’t funded him from his own research grants. </p>
<p>UCSB does not guarantee funding beyond the first year, and according to someone who got his degree there, some students do actually end up without funding.</p>
<p>I really appreciate the help. These are the types of things I would have no idea about. I’m definitely gonna cross CUNY off my list and think about UCSB some more. I have to say, that between UC Davis and UCSB I am much more impressed with UC Davis anyway.</p>
<p>I’ve heard those rumors about Lip*<strong><em>z, but didn’t know about Thurston. I know Lip</em></strong>*z was traveling a lot last semester, but he seems to be around this summer. I just haven’t had a chance to talk to him yet. I also know Thurston was gone last year, but I don’t know if he is coming back next year or not. It seems a lot of professors in the math department aren’t going to be around next year. Thats part of the reason why Columbia is up in the air. </p>
<p>I do think its a good idea to apply to one top 10 school, and Columbia is that top 10 school. I guess I could add another, this thread just kinda scared me into thinking that I’m not gonna get in anywhere, which is why I added more lower ranked schools. Its difficult finding the right schools to apply to.</p>
<p>Did you consider applying to Berkeley or Duke? </p>
<p>Berkeley accepts the most diverse group of students out of all the top-ranked programs, probably because it’s much larger. I know several students who got into Berkeley but not any of the other top programs (including several students from liberal arts colleges with no graduate-level coursework). Berkeley puts a lot of weight on the Math Subject GRE - if you score above the 80th percentile, it might be worth applying there. Berkeley’s topology group has shrunk a bit in recent years, but there are still enough people there who would make good advisors in my opinion. You could also collaborate with people at Stanford :)</p>
<p>My low-dimensional topology professors suggested that I apply to Duke because they thought very highly of Lenny Ng as a potential adviser. Duke also has people in applied and algebraic topology. (I’m not sure if they have differential geometers. That wasn’t something I considered when I was applying to grad school.)</p>
<p>I hope I am not over-involved or intrusive. I just get super excited when I get a chance to be helpful… </p>
<p>Not that I am very experienced assembling a list of schools to apply to. I cleverly outsourced that task to my professors. I asked my 3 references for recommendations on graduate programs which had good advisers in their own specialty (different flavors of geometry and topology). Rather coincidentally the intersection of their recommendations had a good spread of reach and safety programs, and that’s precisely the list of programs I applied to.</p>
<p>Not at all! I appreciate your help very much. </p>
<p>All the professors I have talked to so far are a bit older and I think they are out of touch with how competitive things are today. Also, only one professor gave me a list of schools, all the other ones just gave me general advice.</p>
I asked my 3 references for recommendations on graduate programs which had good advisers in their own specialty (different flavors of geometry and topology). Rather coincidentally the intersection of their recommendations had a good spread of reach and safety programs, and that’s precisely the list of programs I applied to.</p>