<p>I wouldn’t make a career decision based on the ability to get in the best grad school.</p>
<p>If you are smart enough to “control” your Putnam score, my guess is that you will be able to win a fellowship to help defray or completely cover the cost of a masters. Ask around for inside and outside fellowships. I don’t know your record, but I would be very surprised if msg555 wouldn’t be able to win a fellowship covering everything.</p>
<p>I’m not sure if it was mentioned b/f (i don’t feel like reading 7 pages of a forum), but programming is not the same as computer science. Comp Sci is so much more than just straight up programming. At MIT, you take 2 or 3 classes that really focus on programming, and the other classes focus on computer science, such as designing systems, theoretical CS, artificial intelligence, etc. </p>
<p>Also, programming competitions do not reflect computer science capabilities. Same w/ pretty much any competition like that. They have very set parameters which you can train for, but real-world science (as a career/professional) is so much more than that. This is probably why despite the fact that many foreign countries (such as China) dominate high school and even undergrad international competitions, after that, they tend to fall behind. You look at the top conferences in comp sci and you see 90% of the publishers are from US institutions. US institutions train for that, not for becoming really good at a programming competition…</p>
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<p>Yeah, I’m going to chime in and agree if you can control your Putnam score, then you must be a prodigy or something. It seems like in most other cases, someone who really preps well for it can reap some benefit, but far from control. As for subject tests, it tends to be almost without question that the foreigners outperform - perhaps they have more required mathematical breadth. Where you ended up for school and what your program was like greatly influences how prepared you are for that. Not to mention the skills tested aren’t really representative of what you need as a mathematician.</p>
<p>Yes, you can I think reasonably say you ‘control’ your GPA, since when you go to a school, you can start from the ground up, and it isn’t standard for a huge pool - since you can customize your classes to an extent, this is fairer use of terminology. </p>
<p>But frankly, a good GPA combined with other favorable factors is what gets you in. And those other factors seem to be significantly less in your control. </p>
<p>For instance, someone who did research with a famous professor (and is impressive independently) is almost always going to win over the person without that famous professor’s support. Even your classes and weight carry tons more weight coming from a strong school. </p>
<p>Basically, unless you think to get into ANY fairly good CS grad program, you need to come from a big name school with ultra famous faculty, I don’t think things are much better on the math front. Getting into top schools almost always involves fuzzy factors in either field, things that are hugely dependent on your circumstances.</p>
<p>What you are talking about almost sounds like a caste system:where you landed is where you must stay,irrespective of your intelligence.</p>
<p>Who is this “you” ?</p>
<p>What I spoke of myself isn’t a caste system at all. Someone who is brilliant will get recognized if making the effort.</p>
<p>If you’re NOT a genius, however, you need to ride on the shoulders of giants. If you’re not at a top school for your field, you need to find a way to show your potential. By the way, people get admitted to math grad school from non-top math programs all the time. It’s just a lot harder to get into top math programs from non-terrific ones. Which makes sense, because your classes, professors writing recommendations, etc - everything that you’re going through in the 4 years - are a lot less reputed.</p>
<p>I would like you to put yourself in my shoes.I am an international student.English is my FOURTH language,and the first time i heard of the SAT is after high school.99.9% of my community do not know what that word(SAT) means.All the same,i manage to take the test by travelling to my country’s capital city.I perform decently enough to earn a full ride to an american state school that does not have any kind of research in my field and which does not want to write me the kind of recommendations that will get me a good summer research internship at a better school.At these point,i am a double major in Math and CS with a 3.9/4.0 GPA.What would you do to stand out and get into a top graduate school?</p>
<p>If your school is that unaccommodating, you may need to get a master’s degree at somewhere more conducive to graduate education. </p>
<p>It’s not a caste system so much as a horrible rush for the few spots that exist - every last bit of advantage you can give yourself helps. And like any race, the farther you fall behind, the harder it is to catch up later on. </p>
<p>Some people knew that going on to a math PhD is what they want to do coming into undergrad. Obviously, they did some homework and positioned themselves well for that.</p>
<p>There is certainly a lot more than intelligence that goes into getting a PhD in a given field. There is something called direction - that is what gets you places, and a PhD is supposed to be a long term investment, so they’ll be looking for that mainly. Show evidence that you’re very talented at what you do and are making promising progress towards asking interesting questions in mathematics and trying to answer them, get someone to write a credible reference. Even if you are still just toying around (research in math isn’t even much of a requirement to get into grad school).</p>
<p>People do all sorts of things to accomplish the latter - it isn’t unheard of to transfer to a school that better meets your needs. It is not unheard of to pursue a master’s degree.</p>
<p>If you like, try Cambridge Part III, the 1 year master’s program in the UK, which is very prestigious and not incredibly hard to get in, although certainly an achievement to actually go through. I think students from lesser known schools might benefit a lot from showing they can survive that (not to mention, you get exposure to advanced mathematics at a very serious pace). There are opportunities for significant financial aid for it, although I suspect you’ll have to look into this more carefully, given your home undergrad school doesn’t seem to be friendly in the first place to your needs, and seems unlikely to seek out opportunities to give you scholarships.</p>
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<p>If you are really hot stuff, you don’t need to get into a top graduate school to survive a mathematics career. You need to go to a strong one in your field, and then perform well once there. Going to an elite high school helps you get a head start when gunning for top undergrad schools, and similarly with undergrad to grad. But a lot of what you do in grad school will be what helps determine the beginnings of your career. There are a LOT of grad programs out there with quite strong programs. I feel sure that if you try some of the things that have been suggested to you and do well at the math classes you take and show keen interest, you’ll eventually get there if it’s meant to happen at all. </p>
<p>Sorry this is all so far off the topic of the thread at this point.</p>