okmijn22

If I send my scores to my selected schools after the AWA has appeared, how long will it take for the schools to receive my score? More specifically, the deadline for a program that I am applying is December 1st. If I take the test on November 2nd, and I want to see my AWA score before I decide to send, will there be enough time?

Thanks again for the responses. @TakeruK Yes you are right, sorry I should have made it clear at the beginning that I just finished first year undergrad and in September I will be starting second year. The good thing about my university is that you can change your concentration any time in the sense that the degree matches the courses you take and not the other way around. There is a 'financial math' degree but there all the rigor of math is watered down and as Arcanen mentioned correctly. "In terms of previous coursework, having the fundamental skills in mathematics, modelling and programming (which, fortunately for me, is practically what electrical engineering is) is much more important than having previous finance knowledge (or even mathematical finance itself; experience in real analysis for example is more important than a course on pricing derivatives)." Regarding interest, I am pretty sure this is what I want to pursue in the future but I understand that interests could evolve over time so I am picking courses that are quite transferable. Another question I have is on the transcript, do the universities see what major/minor you have declared or only the courses that you have taken? @ Sigaba Thanks, I will keep this in mind. @ Arcanen I think you are enrolled in the programs that I want to go to so all the things that you have written I have all read before. But I think you misunderstood my posts. I have not taken or intend to take courses like finance as I understand they are not quite useful for this field. All the courses that I am taking are all quantitative courses. What I am saying is that I will taking courses like Time Series, Stochastic processes in 3rd year switching with abstract algebra and topology.

So right now I am Math/Stats/CS concentration and in graduate school I want to focus on financial math. Some subjects that I have to study for my math degree are third year courses like abstract algebra and topology. They are interesting in their own right but not very relevant in what I want to do in graduate school. So what I want to do in 2nd and 3rd is to take courses in Math/Stats/CS that will be relevant to what I will do in grad school (since that's what they admission commitee) sees anyways and then I will finish those other courses (by this time, probably passing is just enough?) in my forth year when the decision has already been made. In addition, in 2nd/3rd year I want to seek professors that are relevant to my field to do research as that will highlight my application. So in short, courses that are relevant to grad school take in 2nd, 3rd year, and then in forth year, finish the irrelevant courses that are necessary for my undergrad degree.

Thanks for the responses. Another question is that some schools look for the fact that you have taken some particular courses in considering to enroll you. So if you do not take them 2nd, 3rd, year will they see that you will take it forth year. In other words, is it better to have the most relevant courses in 2nd and 3rd year?

I know that 1st, 2nd, 3rd year grades are important for grad school but how important are 4th year grades since many of the programs begin applications in November of 4th year and when you send transcipts, not even the first semester grades are out yet. Do the universities eventually have access to these grades and if yes are they important? Also, does this equally apply for professional masters and research phds? Thanks.