<p>Hey all, i m thinking of applying to a grad school for math progam. I have a question. in most of the undergraduate colleges, the number of courses required is not that many for a math major--at least in my college its just 12-13, though i will have around 14(not including cal1 and calc 2) by the time i graduate. how important is it to have a lot of courses on the transcrip. by 'a lot of courses' i mean not counting the 100 level non-major courses. or just having a major with the courses required to be eligible to apply to the particular school is enough?
thanks .</p>
<p>I'm sure it's more than enough.</p>
<p>Math grad schools like to see you take some grad level courses as an undergrad, if you go to a school where they're available. So, it's not just number of courses, but what courses they are.</p>
<p>The number of required courses may be small but this is usually so as to offer a lot of possibilities for higher level courses, depending in what area of math you want to focus (pure, applied, actuarial, stats...). As sac suggested, it's a good thing to have grad level courses in there.</p>
<p>My school does not offer any grad levl math courses. so how useful is it to have a lot of higher level undergrad courses offered here? or just the required number of courses or slightly more should work well?</p>
<p>If no grad courses are offered at your school, consider finding a way to learn some grad-level material --- for instance, self-studying something like Folland's "Real Analysis" or Lang's "Algebra". There are also some good programs that offer grad-level courses --- consider Princeton's summer program in analysis and geometry (<a href="http://www.princeton.edu/pr/dept/math/07/)%5B/url%5D">http://www.princeton.edu/pr/dept/math/07/)</a>, the Math in Moscow program at the Independent University of Moscow (<a href="http://www.mccme.ru/mathinmoscow/;%5B/url%5D">http://www.mccme.ru/mathinmoscow/;</a> I'm doing it this fall), and the Budapest Semesters in Mathematics (<a href="http://www.stolaf.edu/depts/math/budapest/)%5B/url%5D">http://www.stolaf.edu/depts/math/budapest/)</a>.</p>
<p>If you are asking these sort of very general questions, you need to talk to your professors. Plenty of people who graduate from colleges without graduate programs enter graduate school, so graduate courses are not a requirement. Your professors will know the experiences of students from your college in earlier years who applied to grad school, their records and recommendations, where they got in, how they did...</p>