What do you need to get into grad school?

Graduate School
1

I’m wondering what people need to achieve to get accepted into a decent math doctoral program… perhaps in the top 30 or 40. What GPA range, what sort of extracurriculars, what exams do I need to take,etc?

2

bump

3

You need to take the General GRE at least but possibly more depending on the application requirements of the individual universities. What does it take as far as GPA, the higher the better but a minimum of 3.0. The minimum won’t get you into a highly selective program though. You also need very strong letters of reference.

I would suggest that you start by looking at the schools you are interested in (find out from your faculty mentors whichones might be good for you) and go look at their application requirements.

4

@xraymancs How much research do they expect from undergraduate applicants? Also I know a lot of people skip a masters degree and go straight to a PhD. How hard is that?

5

A Masters is not required to get into a Ph.D. program in may fields. The amount of research experience needed can be summarized simply as the more the better. There are two reasons for this. The first is the experience itslef and possible publications. The second is that your research mentors will be ideally qualified to provide you with significant, personalized letter of reference.

6

I think in math going directly to a PhD program is pretty routine. You don’t need the MA first.

I think a good “rule of thumb” for research experience is at least 2 academic years plus one summer research internship. More is always better, and if you are already considering a math PhD there’s no harm in exploring and getting started now. There are lots of summer REUs in math, too.

7

I can’t tell you the minimal achievement to get into a PhD program. I can however tell you the stats of a student who was accepted to 5 top-10 schools last year:

  • BS with 3.8 GPA from a top-5 school, known for grade deflation.
  • GRE scores: 170V, 168Q, 5.5W.
  • 2 year research. One of the PIs is world-famous in the field.
  • Great LORs, one of them from the aforementioned PI.

Connections played a big part. For 2 of the 5 schools offering the acceptance, the potential PIs there were former advisees of the aforementioned PI. For another school, the PI is the aforementioned PI.