svent

Yeah. Some schools want universities to send it to, not even specific addresses, which is a pain. Can you upload an unofficial transcript?

Doesn't sound that late to me. Deadlines typically range from 12/1-2/1. Mostly around 12/15-1/15. Take the GRE, it's not that big a deal, work on your essays, get your LORs in order, and figure out where you want to go and who you want to work with. The rest is pretty easy.

If s/he scores lower, it's a waste of time and/or money. Depends how rich the OP is in time and money. I don't think 156V is bad for science. I don't think it's worth it.

1. Make a fake email. 2. Give them a call. 3. Use your real email and if they're going to blacklist you, save the application fee instead of getting rejected.

I'm not sure what I was hoping to accomplish with this topic. I should just email individual schools and see if I can get some info on their process, then decide which risks to take on "late" applications.

Not necessarily scrap, you should still apply to a few, you never know if you'll get in if you don't try. But take it from me, I applied to Math Ph.D. programs several years ago. 7 schools in top 30 (mostly top 20, but only 1 top 10), and a couple safeties ranked around 50-60. Got rejected by my safeties, and only got into one school (off the waitlist, after 4/15). And that was a while ago, things only get more competitive each and every year. Unfortunately, there's no longer a CS subject test to weed out some of the weaker applicants. At least in Math, we have that to differentiate ourselves. But the general GRE doesn't measure a whole heck of a lot. Unless of course you actually have a Math background and want to study CS theory, then you can ace the subject test and stand out.

Doesn't matter. Everything is extremely competitive. You're aiming way too high. You have a solid GPA, but not from a powerhouse school, lousy GRE Q score, decent recs, and probably pretty good research. The people applying to the top 20 schools will be superstars. Maybe you get in to one of them, but you need some safer options.

I don't see how GT, UCSD, and UVA can be safeties.

For example, Florida has a 5/31 deadline, Northwestern 5/1, and UIC 5/15. Some other reasonably high ranking schools have late deadlines for MS, too. UIC does mention apply by mid-Feb for a shot at TAships, but the others don't say this as far as I can tell. Are you putting yourself at a real disadvantage by applying late, essentially as a safety school if you don't get in elsewhere? Or do schools like this do Ph.D. stuff up until April, and not even look at MS until after that? It would obviously be easier to apply to, say, 8 schools and another 4 if you don't get in anywhere by early April, say, than 12 schools right off the bat.

I'm sort of in a similar position as you, except I'm switching fields, spent 2 years in grad school instead of just 1 semester, my grades weren't quite as bad as yours, I'm not applying to the same school, and I've taken non-degree classes for my new field at a few other schools since then. So I do have some options, but my best 1 or 2 LORs will probably still come from undergrad. Not sure what you want people to say. Ask your LOR writers for another LOR and briefly explain what happened however you want to word it. Either they'll say yes or no. If yes, it's all good. In fact, they probably have the old letter on their computer somewhere, so it won't even be that hard for them. If no, say you understand and move on to asking someone else.

I've never used it. I always assumed it was something easy and high-level, sort of like Mathematica. C is a pretty low-level language. Based on this page http://www.stat.ufl.edu/~aa/cda/Sas_web.pdf it doesn't seem like you'd be doing anything low-level like manipulating pointers or embedding Assembly code. But I could be wrong. (The code looks nothing like C.)

Um, I doubt it. The people I knew in grad school who did biostats probably didn't know anything about Java or C or even Python. They knew some R or SAS or whatever things stats people use. I seriously doubt any of them would have known anything about, say, depth-first search.

I'd think you'd approach a professor about an independent study, not the department. Anyway, if you take a master's level real analysis course after enrollment, it'll be pretty much the same thing as an undergrad class, maybe a little tougher or more rigorous. Of course you have to get in somewhere first. There will be somewhere in the US where you could take it the summer before enrollment if you have the money and ability to move wherever for the summer.

Can you take real analysis at a nearby school at a different time? Or in the spring/summer?

Same as 3x3, it's done recursively. It'll take some time, unless it's upper triangular or something like that.

You'll need to apply to Ph.D. or to applied programs for Master's. Take the Math GRE. Or apply to CS.

"I am interested in preparing for the Putnam Competition as it has many interesting problems on algebra and number theory (topics of my interest) and I have been preparing vigorously with the problem-solving-strategy books as I never participated in any mathematical competition before." No offense, but this sounds pretty silly. Putnam problems are by and large toy problems. Now I do recall one problem that was related to Hensel's lemma, but if you want to study number theory, study number theory. The Putnam can still be a rewarding process, and if you do well, you can put it on your CV, but don't expect it to make much of a difference or to contribute to your study of number theory. I would recommend you think about applying to CS programs, even if you start out with a Master's. There's much more crypto work in CS than in math. Of course you'd need to take some classes like OS, Computer Systems, discrete math, automata theory, algorithms, data structures, etc.

There are a few postbac CS programs out there, but they're expensive, and not sure how good the schools are that offer them. Your best bet is to go to your local school, get in-state tuition, and start taking classes as a non-degree student. Programming, data structures, algorithms, automata theory, computer organization, operating systems at least. Maybe some others like networks, programming languages, compilers, etc. The problem is CS has gotten so impacted lately it will be hard to get in to classes if you're not a degree student. You'll also need discrete math (I assume you took calculus as a bio major) and possibly linear algebra and/or probability and/or stats. But these classes will likely interfere with your work schedule. I think Harvard Extension will let you take all of most of these classes online but it'll probably take a couple years. Summer classes can be your friend (easier to get into), but be aware that some of the upper level ones will be very hard in a short time frame. I wouldn't recommend taking computer organization, operating systems, programming languages, or compilers in the summer.

Not sure if econ would really care. If you're doing math, and you get As in algebra, real analysis, etc., you should be fine.

I understand that. People use this term all the time (regarding Master's). In reality, grad programs require you to have a Bachelor's in general. That doesn't mean you can't apply if you have a Master's. Now if you do have a Master's, you may be held to a higher standard as far as research goes, which is the genesis of my comment about thesis vs. non-thesis.

Is "terminal" even a real term? You'd just need some research experience coming from a Master's, so do a thesis. That said, Math Master's programs seem to be pretty rare compared to other disciplines. I've never heard of any outside of applied areas.

http://www.physicsgre.com/

Do what you can. Showing specific interests is important, but know that ignoring pre-requisites for admission is risky. There are other fish in the sea.

No offense, but if you just went through this thing last year with the Master's stuff, shouldn't you have some idea?

CS departments want to see you've taken Theory of Computation, OS, Architecture, and most likely Programming Languages. You should take these courses. This would be like applying to a Math Ph.D. program after taking algebra, algebraic topology, algebraic geometry, p-adic analysis, and representation theory, but never taking a real analysis course.