mrb

I emailed people at a couple of the places I was rejected from. I never heard back.

Postbib Yeshuist, I somewhat agree with you in principle about the value of the GRE. The question is, though, to what extent do admissions committees agree with you? Unfortunately, I think some of them place quite a bit of weight on GRE scores. I've even heard of a Physics department that puts a high emphasis on verbal GRE scores, because "students have to know how to communicate, not just solve problems." Well, sure, but of course if they actually looked at the test, they would realize that it doesn't measure how well you can communicate, it measures how many vocabulary words you memorized. Same thing with the Subject GRE: it's a tangible number and some people are going to assume it is accurately measuring what they want.

As someone who has applied to grad schools for the fall, data like what meathead has provided concerns me. I have pretty broad interests, but there are things I really have no desire to work in (like applied stuff, for instance). I didn't apply to UCI, but if I had, I would probably be figuring that I could potentially work with someone in algebra, number theory, or differential geometry. And then I would arrive and apparently discover that none of the faculty in those areas were taking students.

I have a (math) professor who says and I've read an article (for math students) that also says that it's perfectly fine to start a PhD program and then transfer to another. In fact, the prof says it's fine to start a PhD program when you intend to transfer in a year or 2, or even to start a PhD program when you plan on leaving with just a Masters (which you would do because the school funds PhD students but not Masters students). On the other hand, I've read several old threads on the GradCafe forums which suggest all this is extremely bad form, and that while it is reasonable to transfer in some cases, starting a program you don't plan to finish is really bad. But, all those threads are from people in other disciplines. Maybe in mathematics the culture is different? So I'm wondering, is this kosher for mathematics graduate programs?

So why do the CS major if what you want is a PhD in math? The CS major may look OK to some grad schools (or maybe it will just look like you weren't focused), but getting a bunch of advanced math classes on your transcript is crucial. Grad school admissions are brutal lately, and you will be competing against applicants who have tons of upper level math including multiple graduate classes. In particular I would echo the above poster who said to take topology. Some schools seem to consider 2 semesters algebra, 2 analysis, and 1 topology as the minimum core classes anyone must have. I was going to do a CS minor at one point, but dropped it when I realized the CS courses were just a distraction. I don't feel like it has hurt me in the slightest.

Grad students are proverbially poor. I don't think there's any way around this unless you are independently wealthy. Yes, this will require some lifestyle changes. But thousands of people do just fine on grad student stipends every year.

Sure, yeah, but obviously most of the people who take the test (in fact, about 90% of them) are not going to get into the 90th percentile. Personally, I did extremely well in my undergrad program and studied a decent bit for the test, but got a decidedly mediocre score that isn't doing anything to help me on applications. The test is just so different from anything I care about or am good at. The math subject test is mainly about doing fairly trivial problems very quickly. I do not and never will work quickly, even on simple problems, so there's simply no way to showcase my strengths through this test. I'm sure plenty of other people feel the same way.

Not that I am an expert on admissions or anything, but I think people are maybe being a little too harsh here. I think your coursework is fine. Now your subject GRE may be a problem, but who knows, some schools seem to care very little about it. I sympathize with you about not knowing what level to shoot for. My professors were really impressed with me and told me I should apply to Harvard and Princeton... However, just a little bit of research made it very clear to me that I had no chance whatsoever of getting in to those schools. So I mostly aimed somewhat lower than that. In retrospect I kind of wish I had aimed lower still, because I'm not at all sure I'll get in anywhere I applied at. I still don't know what my profs were thinking with Harvard and Princeton.

That's cool. I think a year's worth of advanced/grad classes might do a lot to strengthen your application. Schools would probably be more inclined to ignore your earlier non-stellar performance if they saw you were indeed capable of getting As in real graduate classes. (In fact, really, I don't think your background completely prevents you from going to really good schools... if you were to have these grad classes, really great letters, a good subject GRE... how much is it really going to matter that your early college experience didn't go well?) BTW, my situation is similar. I'm 29; at 18 I quit college basically as soon as I started. Fortunately it was before I received any grades, so I have "Ws" (for withdrawn) on my transcript, but no real grades to lower my GPA.

At the risk of being dismissive of others' contributions, I do wonder how much people in non-math programs can offer valid advice in this situation (and I really am not trying to be offensive here; I'm sure their input is appreciated, but I think you must also look at the specifics of your discipline). For instance, your general GRE score is probably irrelevant (it's expected as a matter of course that your quantitative score will be perfect or nearly so, and who would ever care about verbal?). So, yes, you are probably right that you can't get into top programs. Still, it might be worth your time to apply to apply to more highly ranked schools than #60, except that I guess it's now too late to take the Math Subject GRE, so that might restrict where you can apply. You haven't listed what classes you have taken; assuming you have covered your bases like a couple courses each in analysis and algebra along with some other upper division classes, I think you should be fine at the range you are applying to. Of course if you've already taken some grad classes, that would be very nice. (Please note though that all this is just based on my opinions & experience applying to graduate schools (in math) this semester, talking to my professors, talking to a grad student at Harvard, and talking to the chair of the department at Duke.)

The above post is certainly correct in that you will need a lot of additional preparation before you are ready for graduate study. Moreover, I would say that you will need a lot of additional preparation before you even know if you actually enjoy mathematics. At my school, there is a phenomenon that I have seen happen to several people. A young person who didn't major in math decides he wants to get a masters in math, often in order to teach at a community college. My school is not prestigious and getting admitted to the masters program is not difficult. Depending on the student's background, he may need to take a few semesters of undergraduate math before actually being admitted into the masters program. So the student goes through the undergraduate classes and/or the masters program, and gradually realizes that mathematics is not at all what he thought it was, that it's a heck of a lot harder than he thought it was, and that he doesn't enjoy it at all. And then he quits. Similar things happen even within the undergrad program. Unfortunately, lower division math classes don't give much of an idea of what math is all about. So some students major in math, and then hit a wall in about their junior year when they get into the real classes and discover that they don't enjoy and are not good at math, and were completely under the wrong impression about what they were in for. You say, "I love working with numbers. So I decided to look into masters programs for math." I don't care much about working with numbers, but I love math. Don't be too discouraged by what I've said above, though. If you think you might like math, then work through some books and/or take some classes. You might get hooked. The only problem with taking classes, though, is that, again, it would probably be at least a year into the process before you would get to anything real. Unfortunately I'm not sure I know any book options that would be appropriate for you. Spivak's Calculus is very good, but also very difficult, and it might be discouraging. If you can work through it and take it seriously while at the same time not getting frustrated when there are problems you can't solve, it might be a good option. You do need to already know how to write a proof, though. Greenberg's Euclidean and non-Euclidean Geometries might be good for you. It assumes you are pretty familiar with compass and straightedge geometry. It does contain a brief discussion about logic which might help you in writing proofs.