Questions from prospective grad student

Colleges and Universities A-Z Tufts University
1

<p>Hi all. First some background: I'm currently a rising senior in neuroscience at MIT. I'm looking into applying to Tufts for a masters in math. Why? Well, there's a professor in the department (the head of the department, in fact) who is a mathematical neuroscientist, which is the sort of work I'd like to do down the line. Also, the fact that the math program will accept non-math majors and has mostly masters students is nice. I've been in contact by email with said professor and he actually told me that there's a plan to create a masters of science in applied math pretty soon (anyone know anything about that?), and that they're looking for people like me - people with some basic math background who weren't necessarily math majors and who want to apply math to some other field of science, engineering or industry.</p>

<p>I can be honest here...one of the reasons that I'm looking for a masters instead of just applying for a PhD in computational/mathematical neuroscience straight out is that my grades are bad. "Get a masters first" is common advice for prospective PhD students who don't have good grades. There aren't all that many masters programs in neuroscience (though I'm looking into a couple) so applied math with a thesis in mathematical neuroscience seems like a good idea (and gives me an employable degree if the PhD thing falls through).</p>

<p>I do have a lot of research experience. It's all in neuroscience but some of it is pretty mathy. My math background includes single & multivariable calc, differential equations, and linear algebra (and I'm planning to take probability theory and discrete applied math this fall).</p>

<p>My questions:</p>

<p>1) I haven't been able to find any info on the Tufts math department's selectivity and/or how many applicants it gets each year. The website is not helpful. Can anyone address this? Of course if there's a new applied math program that might be a different story all together...</p>

<p>2) In most cases I would assume that the answer to this question is no, but I could see Tufts being different because the school's culture seems so focused on service, politics & policy, international anything, etc. Do the non-polisci-type grad programs care about service or policy-related extracurriculars or having lived abroad?</p>

<p>3) I hate to ask this, especially coming from the MIT forum with its endless debates about affirmative action, but do the grad programs give any preference/special consideration to women in fields (such as math) where women are underrepresented? I am not advocating for or against any such thing, I just want to have as much info as possible about where I stand.</p>

<p>4) Got any other suggestions/advice? :)</p>

2

<p>i believe i know the professor you're talking about and i almost signed up for the class being offered this fall on mathematical neuroscience. the textbook is actually written by an MIT prof.
anyways, the grad department, esp physical sciences along with math, are reallly small. also, i have seen people come to tufts to use it as a sort of a launching pad to get into ph d programs.
i don't think you will be able to find much information as regards to the actual statistics because math is not a popular grad program hence such type of data assembly are considered a waste of time.
you're also right about tufts being very service and internation anything oriented. since you're going to apply to a grad program, i don't think it makes any difference to you at all.
also, tufts does engage in affirmative action however the magnitude is unknown, again because, there really isn't a well assembled data base for the math department made public.
you could try the department and see if they release anything over the phone.</p>

3

<p>Thank you for your reply. :) I found something called the Tufts Factbook that tells me that the acceptance rate for the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences was 47% last year, but (and based on your comment I bet this won't surprise you), it doesn't break it down by department. It would be nice to know if math is more or less selective than the overall GSAS, but I guess I can't have everything. At least I'm not a premed...the acceptance rate for the med school is 7%!</p>

<p>I worry a little about bothering the department much about things like selectivity because I'm afraid it makes me look like I'm grubbing to get in.</p>

<p>I found some documentation of Tufts' AA policies but it was about AA implementation with employees rather than students.</p>

4

<p>Somehow if you're from MIT, I think they'll be a little forgiving for your grades. I wouldn't worry too much about it :)</p>