George
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Posts posted by George
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I feel for you. I had 2/12 lost and that was bad enough for me. To answer your other question, GRE scores are sent electronically, even though ETS sends you a piece of paper in the mail. Now that you know that, you should be even more upset it costs $20 to send scores to one school.
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"One of her ex-stepmoms"! 0_o
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Yeah, a lot of times it has much more to do with whether a certain branch has historically been thought of as "applied" than whether the actual work in question has an application. I like algebraic geometry and topology, but I'm also interested in its applications to physics. That kind of stuff is classified as pure math at all the schools I'm applying to, regardless of whether it's being applied.
That's really cool. In another life, I would like to do mathematical physics. String theory, quantum field theory and general relativity are amazing feats of human intelligence.
Do you think it's possible for me to learn these things and do research in them in grad school if my training in physics is limited to 2 introductory level courses in college? They covered mechanics, electromagnetism, optics... you know, the basics. Did you double major in math and physics?
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I got a Nook for Christmas, which came with a free copy of Dracula. I've been thoroughly enjoying both the Nook and Dracula. =)
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I agree with Sanssouci. I asked several schools, and they will all accept this document when you find out that you've been accepted and exactly how much funding they have provided for you. It's quite natural to take your TA-ship and tuition waiver into account when you make your case for whether or not you can pay for grad school.
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You know about the admissions results page, right? You can do a search like math* or appl* math* and get all of those results, then put the resulting RSS feed (symbol from the address bar) into an RSS reader. That's what I've done.
Yes, but it's nice to associate a face with those results, even though it's just a pseudonym. We've all probably read a bunch of each other's posts, and we are emotionally attached at least to an extent. I'll post mine here as well. Hold your breath for another month Mathk1d! =)
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I feel your pain everyone, and I promise to never make fun of any major! I can't recreate the conversation like some others have, but I can convey in prose some of what has happened to me.
I once had this conversation with a few members of my family who were trying to convince me that mathematics is only useful up to and including basic arithmetic. The older generation honestly couldn't imagine what more there was to mathematics outside summing up the prices of your groceries, or subtracting what you're paying from the amount of money you have and other such life situations where math basically allows you to function. I could see where they're coming from. It would take me a week to explain to them what a function is, let alone calculus or (shudder) modern algebra, and the more I talk about these things, the more they'll think they're useless because they don't apply to their lives in any way.
One of the relatives was a bit more knowledgeable having studies engineering, and he was on my side for calculus, but he thought such things as topology and modern algebra are useless. He told me a story of a mathematician he knew in university who would regale him with stories about the topology of a Luffa. Of course my relative remembered a story where something as mundane as a sponge was involved - "why in the world would you analyze that!"
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I just dreamed that I had to retake the GRE, but I couldn't figure out if I have to retake the general test or the subject test or why I needed to do it in the first place. I was mortified by the possibility of sitting in a chair for 4 hours another time.
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My field is math. I definitely do not fit the ideas of one party or the other. I tend to be slightly conservative economically and am a fan of Ayn Rand's meritocracy even though I don't fully subscribe to her ideas about social interaction. In other areas I am very liberal: civil rights for anybody, severe penalties for trashing the environment, lots of spending toward public education.
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This might sound a bit morbid, but if somebody wrote in an SOP that they have a low GPA because of a chronic condition (not like they overcame cancer, but something that is persistent) would that have a negative impact on admissions? Wouldn't an adcomm be hesitant to admit somebody whose life is less than certain?
The adcomm who would do that must have a heart of ice.
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Here goes. I'm applying to math without having taken a couple of key courses: complex analysis and topology. Mediocre grades without much to offset that. AND I just found out that I sent 4 transcripts to the corresponding pure math departments instead of the applied ones I submitted apps to and one LoR is reported as missing in a fifth institution. All the deadlines are long since passed, and I found this out today, on a Saturday. With MLK day coming up I won't be able to do anything at all about the situation until Tuesday.
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It's too bad we're spread out across this enormous country. I love the idea too. Anyone in the DC area?
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My background is in applied mathematics, although my interests span pretty much everything I ever come across except probability and statistics. It's very unfortunate that the newest trend is for math programs to split into pure and applied tracks because I really wanted to get into grad school first and then find out which one I would like to pursue. The way it is, I was able to find at least a few schools where this schism hasn't occurred yet, and for the rest I grudgingly filled out the app for the applied track.
What bothers me is that I don't like the word "applied." If the application of my work happens to be in algebra or string theory, which I find hard to distinguish from algebra, then how in the world is it different from "pure" mathematics? A professor described the difference to me like so: "If you like proving theorems, do pure. If not, do applied." That makes sense to an extent, but it doesn't help me because I still like both. Sigh.
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Yikes! Thanks for the paranoia; guess I'll have nightmares tonight ;-).
Congratulations! I want to give you some peace of mind by telling you that I saw two people post acceptances to Stanford on the Grad Cafe Results page. One of them is probably you, but two flukes are unlikely. Don't worry!
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*spent*
Sigh. You would think as a professional writer I would proofread everything. This is what happens when I multitask.
Not to worry. We all make mistakes, but the quality of English on this forum is much higher than your average YouTube comment. =)
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Agreed--this book was a huge help.
My reason not to use any such literature was because I was afraid to be caught using a very transparent template full of bromides and no soul. Even if the book teaches you valuable lessons, I feel like if everyone were to take those lessons to heart, the book's advice will turn into bromides.
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I don't know that it did favorfire, but thanks for trying. I have actually calmed down a bit since I posted. This professor is in the humanities, so it might not apply to me. I actually distinctly remember speaking to at least a half dozen mathematicians and an economist who had no clue what they wanted to do in grad school but got in anyway. Ugh. This is the least fun game ever!
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I'm screwed! I definitely have very vague fit paragraphs but it's not because I didn't learn about the department. It's because I would love to do any number of things that faculty do. I would be happy with any one of them. I don't have as strong a plan for how grad school is going to go as some people seem to. What I do know is that I belong there, and that's because I like research itself, not so much any subfield. I love long hours, secluded life, books, difficult problems that may not have a solution. But it looks like none of that matters...
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I sincerely wish you really have no competition. =)
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This thread was originally started in April 2009. I doubt this person needs our advice anymore. =)
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I know it's early, but I'm literally sitting here, staring at my computer, waiting for something to happen. I decided it's better to just post something, and here it is.
Some of the schools I applied to had a deadline of Dec 1-8, so it has already been a month. And I have seen other people here on grad cafe in other disciplines getting letters when they had similar application deadlines. Perhaps math takes longer?
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Ooooohh, this sounds interesting!!!! I'm getting wind power and geography in racialized communities in the South?
That made me laugh so much!
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I will surely miss the fact that this is the only place on the Internet where you can talk to people in English rather than LOL-speak.
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Solving the daily New York Times crossword puzzle with a friend over Skype.
Anyone heard back from PhD programs?
in Mathematics and Statistics
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Congratulations!