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hartshorneBoy

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Everything posted by hartshorneBoy

  1. One thing I figured out about grad courses in math grad schools is that the level of work expected for a B or an A at different schools are COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. At my first uni where I got my MA, it was just about putting the work into the course and you'd get an A or A-. In my current program, work makes you get a B and stellar work gets you an A (there are many, many cases of students getting their first C's ever in their first year). Needless to say, my GPA is .4 lower now that I'm in my new graduate program, but hey, as previously stated 1. Grades don't matter. But more importantly: 1a. What really matters is what your advisor thinks of you. And I guarantee the chances of him/her looking at your transcript and saying "oh, he got a B in that class, he/she must suck as a human-being/researcher (since in grad school that's really the same thing)" are slim. He/she'll see your talents when you talk to him/her. That's what matters. Even for a Masters, if you're applying to a PhD, what will matter is what your letters say about you, not what your transcript states. And plus, the math PhD admissions is so math subject GRE-centric, you just need to focus on that anyways.
  2. They didn't start announcing in March last year. First round decisions were April 11th. That was the first (and probably only) year they will ever send it in waves, since that was the year of the stimulus and part of the budget being approved that took forever were the GRFP fellowships. Expect it more closely to late March, as that's fairly standard. Last year was weird. As great as your work is (I myself love HfH), NSF will typically not care about your non-scientific outreach or work. The Broader Impacts are for the broader impacts to the scientific community, not the community at-large. I limited my outreach to just my work at one high school and outreaching a bit of research, bridging disciplines and wanting to be a queer role model for mathematicians and this got me an E and 2 VG's for Broader Impacts.
  3. Does anyone know how much of an external fellowship like NSF will be used on taxes? I'm trying to figure out what kind of apartments will be in the realm of possibilities and I need to know how much taxes I'll pay on the fellowship... Thanks!
  4. By the way, if anyone is wondering about the proportionality, the first wave had 22 mathematicians, and now there are 63. Definitely not proportional. Also, G/E, E/VG, E/VG in math got me a fellowship. (I was first wave too)
  5. This was just sent out over the National Scholarship listserv: Good luck waiting, guys!
  6. I'd imagine that although they are saying that, they will put you on the "top" of the waiting list if you get one, i.e. magically accept you because "someone" has declined their offer. I say this since I've heard of people not even applying to schools, getting an NSF, calling the department they did not apply to, and getting an acceptance the next day.
  7. Dude! Go to Penn! That's where I'm probably going. Or tell them to give me your Calabi if you have it. At any rate, if you do Gates, you probably would have a better shot at MIT, but at any rate if you go to either school you'll get a job and depending on your focus a Penn, a possible NSF postdoc. In your shoes, I'd hope to get an NSF (I assume you applied), then call MIT and say you have your own funding and go.
  8. Personally, I really like Kai Behrend and Jim Bryan's work, and since I'm a lowly undergrad and have already been exposed to their work, I feel that that is a good sign. EDIT: I just got in for PhD! YAY!!!!
  9. Amusingly, yes. I did match up. I also met him on Monday. We talked about liaison surfaces.
  10. That isn't the poll I would have. I'm going with "which school will I be happiest at and which will let me continue to be happy professionally later." That being said, money does play a role in me wanting to subsist comfortably, but so does workload that the schools give me. It looks like the most workloads besides course/research work is about 10 hours so far, so I'm happy!
  11. UGA is a great school, esp. for AG and NT (such great faculty!! Izadi, Alexeev, Gibney, Krashen, Lorenzini, Lyall, Clark, Rumely, etc. etc.). They even had a recent graduate win a Sloan fellowship this year. The rankings are untrusting for A/NT/AG because they group all three together and algebra is very different from the other two (although you have Nakano, Boe and Chastkofsky, all of them are great). I definitely encourage applying to UGA!!
  12. If you don't read them, you have one less thing to worry about possibly hurting your chances. I'd only do it after application season is over and by then it really doesn't matter, right? You might as well just throw them out. If you get in, you know they said nice things about you. One of my letter writers jokes that he'll be the reason I get in or don't (he has said no to writing letters before). Of course, the vast majority of people would not write letters unless they think you are worthy of one, so it's nice. chill.
  13. SMALL is extraordinarily competitive. At any rate, Sofia is well-known here. Being a fourth-year student here at a public university in the US, I have heard great things of Sofia, so I do not think it will be much of a difference applying from Utrecht. People that come from ENS, Sofia, Utrecht, Cambridge, Roma III, Pisa, Milano, Nice, etc. I don't think have hard times getting good placements in american universities, but they may not be exactly the place you want to go. The first step is realizing that getting into a top 5 school is also luck-based and has to do with your recommenders' connections to said schools. That's honesty. Push comes the shove, people know what Sofia is and all you can do is apply =). But you will be at a disadvantage when it comes to funding. With care, hartshorneBoy PS I haven't computed something that wasn't a theoretical computation for a non-teaching role in three years, and I am an American student.
  14. This is fairly typical, I thought. I mean, are you not publishing something that your PI basically did not have any influence over? If you're so bent up about it, you should have a conversation with him/her in order to talk over journal selection, and also to express concern of why he/she does not want to be on the article's header. [Needless to say the PI should be in an acknowledgements footnote of some kind.] I do know one of my PI's has suggested that he would not publish in some journals, so that could be the reason. Just have a conversation and stop fretting.
  15. I'd look at the University of Georgia (UGA) and University of Southern California (USC) as well. UGA has Matic, Kazez, Cantarella, etc. that are all great low-dimensional topologists, and UGA is really well funded right now (also, each of these profs are well-respected and ought to place you well), since they have VIGRE right now. USC has Honda which has had some very successful students, at least one of who is graduating this semester, so Honda might looking for someone to take her spot. You will probably get in to one of your schools, but look at these two too, esp. UGA.
  16. I would say that you have a good shot. From what I can tell, your GRE subject score is exactly where it should be. From my friends that have gotten into top tier schools, their GRE scores are like that, and no one really looks at the difference of an 80% to a 95% besides people like Penn where they say their average GRE Subject test score. This is anecdotal evidence so I can't really confirm this, but it's what I hear. Your GPA is good, and your research is good. Your age won't really matter since you're not Noam Elkies :wink: . Seriously though, the thing that will matter is how strong the letters are if you ask me, and how strong your SoP is. You're a very strong candidate, and I'm sad that I have to apply against you for 7 of the 9 applications [geez we overlap. lol]. Personally, I'm more a fan of the REU outside of your department, even though I see what May is talking about, but you can find better opportunities than "combinatorics of X." (I'm also speaking after my experience with summer research, and coming from a VIGRE school that incorporates research into education, so I have 3 full years of research exp.) Good luck, and maybe meet you some time down the road!! Best, Fellow AGer to another. PS AND LUCK! Luck will be a deciding factor on your application, since you're at the point of top tier applicants, haha.
  17. Nah. I mean, it really has just been revised over and over whenever I get a chance to read it or can get someone else to read it. I mean, each draft after 6 has been maybe rewriting one or two sentences so I can add a specific detail here, and then rereading it all through for cohesion. At draft 14 or 15 they got split into word levels. My statement's fine now, so each revision now is after a fit statement is added. The overall time I have spent on my statement has been I guess 30 hours based on fit statements, peer review, faculty review, and revisions. That's not too bad when it's spread across 4 months. Also, you find nitpicky commas and such when you reread it so many times. I still find things that are mistakes. This way I can say to myself if there is a mistake in the final, then it wasn't anything that could have changed that. I willingly admit that I'm an extreme case that has been excited to apply to grad school for three years now, and have wanted to write textbooks since I was 15.
  18. He's exactly right. My opinion for non-rolling is that you should have your SoP done by early Oct and revise and revise and revise. I'm toeing deadlines right now, but I've had a personal statement that has gone through up to 25 revision rounds now for the 1000 words level 22 for the two page limit and 17 for the 500 word/1page limit. But that's because I rework it for about 30 minutes right before going to bed every other night, and because I feel like I want to close any gap possible, and show that I'm better than my 580V.
  19. This is how I felt about my Verbal (580) but I didn't want to chance my Quant (800). My advice? Don't retake it and spend time on a good experience to write about in your PS.
  20. Call the graduate school. That's the safest move.
  21. Way to go! I guess that means they'll be sending them via mail soon...
  22. I think the adcom will want to see why you're 45% better than the rest of the applicant pool if you have 45% more words. Just one viewpoint. Trim it! I know you can do it!
  23. I agree with rising_star, hence why safety was in quotes. What I meant is that I feel like I have a good chance at being at the top of the pool there, and my recommenders are very very close to the faculty at the schools, and I am a great fit there, while they are not top top top tier, and my school has a very good history of students placing there as undergrads. When I say 3 safeties, I feel certain I will get into one of the three safeties, just from my handwavy probabilistic modelling.
  24. The first place that comes to mind is NYU. I would look at their profs, look at their research papers, and then diversify your choices by looking at who they cite.
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