frankdux

if you receive a rejection by telephone, usually the person making the call is a big fat poo-poo head.

for sociology? i dont know about that. for literature it would be a strike, but even for that, i don't think its a "death sentence." imagine yourself on one of these committees. would you be that much of a conceited prick to toss away someone's entire application because of a single uncapitalized word or a misplaced apostrophe? if someone had clear troubles with english grammar and submitted an SOP with a whole slew of mistakes, then yes i can understand.

i'm sorry, but i don't really have much information for you. does your country have any sort of funding programs for students wishing to travel abroad for school? the next best thing to do would be to directly contact graduate programs you are interested in and ask about funding for international students.

that's an excellent point. however there are plenty of stories, even right here on these boards, of people getting accepted by one of their reach schools and being rejected by their safeties. the correlation that may exist is probably somewhere in the middle.

oh, if only that were so! then you could apply to 10 schools and guarantee yourself a spot somewhere! Probability of getting accepted to at least one = 1 MINUS (prob of NO acceptances) if all of the events have equal probability then we can say: Probability of getting accepted to at least one = 1 MINUS (probability of NOT getting accepted on one attempt)^(# of attempts). ex: probability of getting at least one Heads on 2 coin tosses = 1 - (0.5)^2 = 3/4 does it work? what are our possible outcomes: [H,H], [H,T], [T,H], [T,T]. and yes, 3 out of 4 of these have at least one H. so in your case, lets say you are applying to 5 schools, each with a 10% likelihood of accepting you. therefore, prob of getting accepted to at least one school = 1 - (0.90)^5 = 1 - .59049 = .40951. so basically you have about a 41% chance of getting accepted to at least 1 school.

i think ANY school in america would be impressed by such a courseload of math. seriously, you'll have MUCH more math ability after your second year then i did after 4 years at an american university as a math major. i suppose the only drawback to your system is that you don't have a very well rounded education. i honestly don't know how that might negatively affect your application. but if your goal is to be a researcher and a professor, then i think you are better off than most american PhD applicants. (except you'd still have to worry about funding. many schools don't have adequate funding for foreign students.)

i have no idea how you can take that many classes. how in the hell are you taking that many math classes? do you take other classes on other subjects besides math? seriously, i was a math major in america and i took a total of about 13 one-semester math classes. masters degrees and PhDs are a little bit different in america vs. europe. in america, TYPICALLY when you apply for a PhD you are NOT expected to have a masters yet. you earn your masters along the way towards your PhD. the masters is included in the program. in other words, apply for a PhD in america after your bachelors. a masters isn't necessary, and it could just be redundant. however, if you were offered a fully funded masters in your home country, it certainly wouldn't hurt to just do it anyways, then dive right in to a phd program in america that you might be able to finish a year or two early.

in the words of Ogar: NERDS!!!

interesting. i'm not anxious at all, and i have no idea why. i want to go back to school more than anything, but i'm completely calm about the whole thing.

when did i ever assume you didn't "examine the schools for fit"? i simply said it was idiotic to only apply to 2 schools period. just because you fit doesn't imply you will automatically be accepted, which is why applying to 2 schools is ridiculously risky and should not be given as advice to others simply based on statistics alone.

except that the fewer the schools, the less likely you'll be accepted to any. in fact i've never heard anyone in academia recommending applying to anything less than 6 schools. (typically 2 reaches, 2 middle schools, 2 safeties. or sometimes 3 reach schools, and 3 middle schools, or any similar combination) simply saying: "I applied to two schools, was accepted to both" does NOTHING to offer assurance to anyone except YOU! everybody has different stats, different goals, and will present different applications. and dont forget how tight the economy is as well. i'd guess many schools will have a few cutbacks here and there in terms of funding. applying to just TWO schools is idiotic. i'd recommend applying to as many schools as is financialy feasible for you, but i'd recommend probably cutting yourself off at 12.

einstein was a pantheist. he used the word "god" often as a synonym for nature as do many other physicists including stephen hawking. for further proof: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein#Religious_views in particular, einstein is quoted saying, " I do not believe in a personal god and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it." also from the article: In a letter to Eric Gutkind in 1954 Einstein said: "The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish."[65] In the same letter, Einstein rejected the idea that the Jews are God's chosen people: "For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything 'chosen' about them."

i applied to 10. i'd hope to get accepted to at least 3. the key word, "hope". basically about 4 reach schools, 6 reasonable schools.

the GRE general test: i'd study for a few weeks over your winter break and then take the damn thing. apply to some schools and see what happens. worst case, you do bad on the GRE and you dont get in anywhere. then just take it over again after you've had more time to prep and then take it again and apply to schools for the following year. and the quantitative portion of the general test doesn't even go up to calculus. its mostly algebra and geometry, but with some tricky problems thrown in that require some good mathematical logic. the GRE subject test: apply to programs that don't require the GRE subject test this year. if you don't get in, study over the summer and take the GRE next fall. then apply to more schools including those that do require the GRE subject test.

that's not necessarily true. if we are all applying to different programs and/or different schools so that we are not in direct competition with each other, then its a positive effect.

they recommend 3 years of work experience and you fall far short of that. many applicants will have 4.0s to boot, and you dont have that either. also, you have a documented weakness in math. to top it off, you don't have any true 'stand-out' qualities to make up for any of these things. (a great gre score and an internship's worth of experience might be just enough to get your app glanced at.) honestly, don't bother applying.

4 out of my 10 schools require the subject test. but thats because they have large math departments encompassing applied math, instead of a separate applied math department. typically, separate applied math departments don't require it.

no offense, but you seem to be aiming quite high with your choices given your 3.3 gpa.

thats a lot of schools. but if you honestly decided to spend the money on applying to all of them, look at it this way: lets say you had a 5% chance at getting in to any one of those programs individually (5% chance at getting in to school 1, 5% chance at getting in to school 2, etc), then the chance at getting rejected by every single one of them would be about 42%. lets be more optimistic and say you had a 10% chance at getting in to any one of those programs individually, then the chance at getting rejected by every single one of them would be about 17%. lets be even more optimistic and say you had a 20% chance at getting in to any one of those programs individually, then the chance at getting rejected by every single one of them would be only about 3%! now obviously, different schools would have different likelihoods of accepting you, but this is just an exercise in averages lets say at 6 schools you have a 5% chance, 6 give you a 10% chance, and 5 give you a 20% chance. then the likelihood of being rejected by all 17 would be about 13% what does all of this mean? i'm a nerd.

...because i'm applying to two of them. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28319486/

you need to be a bit more specific here with your grades, LORs, and extracurricular activities. and i also wouldn't recommend only applying to 6 of the top 10 or top 15 schools with the attitude: "with my stats i'm bound to get into at least ONE of those!" you need a few lesser, but still good schools thrown in there. how about Northwestern?

you could probably get into 1 or 2 of those. but i'd recommend throwing in a few lower schools as well. (i have fairly solid stats everywhere except my subject gre. i think i completely bombed that. i'm sure its common for applicants at non-top 10 schools to not have stellar EVERYTHING.)

just curious, if you get an offer with funding, how much money do you plan on saving up/setting aside for initial start-up costs and everything? (the money you plan on using before you start getting your actual funding money and get yourself on that whole grad-student budget) i'm aiming for $2,500-3,000.

i wouldn't sweat over it. unless you're an english major, or you're applying to nothing but ivy league schools.

i've never read that anywhere.