<p>Hi there. I'm aiming to get into the top schools. I've read a LOT about this in older threads, such as mathboy98's, all of which have helped me immensely. I'm just wondering if I'm on the right track currently; this is my plan anyways, and it will likely change, but I suspect only minor things will.</p>
<p>Coursework: I will have about 16 grad courses done (I’m at Berkeley by the way) so I think my coursework will be very strong in my application. If you’re wondering, I will have finished all my requirements for graduating by the 2nd year with 4 grad courses on my belt; my 3rd and 4th years will be dedicated solely to grad courses (2-4 per semester) and research like a typical grad student. I’m just choosing to stay the extra 2 years because it’s free and I might as well improve my application. Since I’m a first-year, I have no clue what field of mathematics I’m interested in pursuing which means the specific grad courses will likely change.</p>
<p>Recommendations: I should be able to establish an outstanding relationship with at least one professor while doing research so my recommendations should be solid.
Papers:I might be able to publish a few papers at my REUs/during my 3rd and 4th years.
Competitions: I also am taking a Putnam-preparing class next year (2nd year) and have 3 years to take it so hopefully, I can get a solid score at least higher than the 20-30s range.
Job Experience: I will probably start looking for a job as a grader/TA/student instructor around my 3rd and 4th years. Although this is trivial and probably negligible, I’m also doing some paperwork in a job at Aerospace this summer.
Awards/Scholarships:I guess I should also start applying for awards/scholarships around my 2nd year. I have Regents and Leadership for Berkeley, but that’s about it.</p>
<p>Research: The only part of my application I’m worried about is the research component, which I’m not starting until after my 2nd year ends. I intend to do 2 REUs (the summer before my 3rd and 4th years) and do research during the school years of the 3rd and 4th with a professor. Is this a good enough time to do quality research or do strong applicants typically start even earlier, perhaps in their 2nd year?</p>
<p>Is there anything else I’m missing/need to improve or is this on the right track for a very solid application?</p>
<p>Yes, outstanding letters of recommendation from established faculty at Berkeley, combined with solid coursework and some undergraduate research results, will get you into any graduate program in the country. But you don’t have any of these yet.</p>
<p>If you want to read more about math graduate school, see if your library has a copy of A Mathematician’s Survival Guide.</p>
I’m aware that this is only a plan but I’m wondering if it is missing something that a strong application also generally has. There’s no point in following an imperfect plan for four years if it can be improved. I may or may not complete everything that my plan declares (although I’ve succeeded so far), but I’d like to be aware that the potential exists.</p>
<p>In other words, if I succeed in fulfilling every goal and I still don’t have a strong chance, then it would have rendered the plan completely useless to begin with.</p>
<p>edit:
I don’t think a decent Putnam score or multiple awards/scholarships will do much, but it can only help anyways.</p>
<p>I think you’re on the right track. 2 years of research experience will be plenty. Getting into grad school is still a crap shoot however. Some people that have done all the right things have gotten rejected, and others that are just mediocre have gotten in. That said, you are definitely on the right track. I am just hoping my track works out as well. Take care, work hard and good luck!</p>
<p>More important than how many graduate courses you take is what you understand well. Absolutely basic content you should know inside and out include Green’s theorem and the implicit function theorem of several variables. Yet, not a lot of upper level math students know these theorems well. And I suspect you won’t either if you try to burn yourself out with 16 graduate courses.</p>
<p>I agree with snoparabola. You want to get the undergraduate and first-year graduate curriculum down cold, and that will be a challenge if you overload on graduate courses. Nobody cares if you complete 10 or 16 graduate courses, but a shaky foundation will hold you back for a long time. (It will also show in your Math Subject GRE score.)</p>
<p>The single most important part of your application are your letters of recommendation. Letters are the reason that some (seemingly) weak applicants get into top programs, and conversely why otherwise strong applicants get rejected. Letters make or break an application. Unfortunately, letters are also the least predictable and the one item that you don’t have direct control over.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the advice, especially about the recs and research. I’d like to note that I’m really not overloading myself with grad courses. I just happen to have finished all other requirements earlier than normal and I’m only doing solely 3 grad courses per semester at the most (only 12 units per semester with a job which I think is bar minimum). 3 as far as I know is the average amount; it’s not as if I’m trying to punch out 4-6 every semester.</p>
<p>I don’t know. I think it depends on the area of math you’re interested in. Sure, knowing and understanding Green’s theorem and the implicit function theorem will help you if you’re interested in say manifolds or dynamical systems. However, I don’t think it will be of much help if you’re interested in say algebra or number theory.</p>
<p>I’m slightly confused, why would you want to take 16 graduate courses during your undergrad period in preparation for graduate school? I realize you are on a quarter system, but it seems 16 grad classes is almost halfway to your PhD (I’m not on quarters, so I could be off there).</p>
<p>Why not graduate early, apply to schools, and take the graduate course when they actually count for your Masters and PhD? (Unless you can obtain a Masters from Berkeley in conjunction with your Bachelors).</p>
<p>^ I’m on a semester system. It’s not that I want to take 16 grad courses. I qualify for graduation sophomore year, and so I’m spending the last two years researching and taking grad courses. There’s no reason to graduate early when the tuition is free and I’m sure the grad courses will give me credit to not have to repeat the material.</p>
<p>Here’s a suggestion: apply to your top choice programs in your third year. If you get in, great! If not, you have another year to strengthen your application and reapply to a wider range of schools. A friend of mine did that and headed to MIT after his third year.</p>
<p>Another very popular option among the top math students is to get a Certificate of Advanced Study from Cambridge before heading to graduate school. It’s prestigious and probably more fun than another year at your undergraduate institution. </p>
<p>A third year at Berkeley can definitely strengthen your graduate application, but I too am a bit skeptical about two extra years. The second year in graduate school is usually the year when graduate students stop focusing on coursework and get started on a long-term research project. It doesn’t make sense to do that as an undergraduate because you will have to shift your research focus once you get to graduate school and start working with a new adviser, before you’ve really had a chance to make any substantial progress on something. Undergraduate research tends to be short and self-contained (REU-style), very much unlike graduate research where you might spend a year learning background material before you even understand the statement of the open problems in the area. Undergraduate research results prove to graduate schools that your brain works, but that’s it. </p>
<p>In my opinion it would make sense to start your actual graduate work earlier because it means that you can get started on a real project sooner. Graduate programs also pay better than undergraduate programs. (Not only would you not be paying tuition, but you’d also get $30,000 to live on.)</p>
<p>FYI, few if any graduate programs accept transfer credits from other programs. The top programs are pretty flexible in terms of course requirements though. Most math graduate programs have a set first-year curriculum that all students are expected to take, but the top programs usually only set a credit requirement and leave it up to the students to pick their own classes. (You might be in for another four semesters’ worth of classes though.)</p>
<p>All that I am saying is if you can graduate in 2 years, do it. Then apply to grad schools and get a Masters/PhD. Hopefully you will find a program where you are fully funded (so you don’t have to worry about tuition, etc).</p>
<p>That way you will have a 2 year jump on getting a PhD, and your 16 grad classes you would have spent during undergrad (running the risk of not counting for a grad program) would count for your graduate degree.</p>
<p>Also, you will realize Time is a valuable resource as you get older. No sense “wasting” two more years of undergrad if you are not working on a specific degree. Does your current school offer a Masters program in Math? Perhaps you can graduate with a BS/MS if you choose to stay at your current school. There are many schools that do a BS/MS hybrid, depending on the program.</p>
<p>Don’t make the mistake of assuming that graduate courses taken as an undergraduate will transfer to a PhD program and therefore cut the amount of time you spend in the classroom. Most PhD programs have a credit minimum which you must meet before you can become a PhD candidate. Some even have a core curriculum which all students must follow regardless of previous course work. </p>
<p>While I think two years in undergraduate may be too short to acquire the necessary research/experience/maturity, three years might be best for someone in your position.</p>
<p>I disagree with the advice given to graduate early. Learning math is MUCH MUCH harder in grad school when you feel like you are on the clock and anything unrelated to your specific project is a waste of time–my biggest regret is not learning more as an undergrad (and I took ~25 graduate courses…) and almost every other grad student I know feels the same way.<br>
The goal isn’t to get a Ph.D as quickly as possible, its to get as much done BY THE TIME you get a Ph.D and go on the market- and you would be shortchanging yourself by cutting into that time by decreasing the time you spend as an undergrad.</p>
<p>You have the rest of your life to do research: as an undergrad, especially at a place like Berkeley, it’s best to take the opportunity to learn as much math as possible. It may not be that important for getting into grad school but it will definitely make you happier and more productive once you ARE in grad school.</p>
<p>The best bet would be once you figure out what area you want to get into, spend the remainder of your undergraduate years learning everything researchers in that area commonly find useful (by taking graduate courses, or reading courses, or just reading books). For example, if you want to go into differential geometry, read about structure theory for Lie groups, symplectic/contact geometry, complex algebraic geometry, Hodge theory, elliptic PDE’s, ergodic theory…
That way when you find out you need to use something you won’t find yourself scrambling to half-assedly learn the rudiments of the theory as quickly as possible like most researchers have to do at least sometimes in their lives.</p>
<p>Another thing to keep in mind: what you get from graduate courses is what you’ll put into them. I took ~25 graduate courses in college, got A’s in almost all of them, but in many of them did not understand, or even make an attempt to understand most of the material presented, basically treating them as seminar talks that I was attending just to casually hear something cool. In retrospect, taking that time to sit down, read a math book, and learning the details of [almost any subject] would have been much more useful (it would also have been more useful than spending that time working on toy undergraduate research problems…)–remember <em>after</em> you get in grad school, what you know is infinitely more important than what classes you took.</p>