santana

It is sort of weird when people cannot get into a decent math program and claim they love math. How so? If you really love math then it should have been long time you have been doing it and if so then you should have learned enough to compete with talented Asian or Eastern European applicants and to get into a good school. If not then you do not really know much and your "love" is a misnomer, there is something else. Repeat, low ranked program in math will not get you a job in a research institution. It will get you into a small college where primary business is service of printing diplomas for mediocre students. You will work service job like any other service job is. Teaching 24 or more credits and pursuing academic political agendas - that will leave no time for any serious research. Of course, finishing a low ranked program won't prepare you for a serious reserach anyway. You could wind up doing the so called "undergraduate research" which is a BS (and I don't mean degree) oxymoron name for tutoring mediocre math. The word "research" is abundantly used in US undergraduate context where there is none going on. There is only 150-200 math research programs in the US and only the best and brightest get jobs there, upper third or a quarter of new PhDs. The rest are lost sheep, defeated, small town mathematicians. I've seen it and it is a terrible waste of talent since nearly every mathematician is of IQ 130 or higher. With that brain power you can do something better than small college math.

Love for subject needs no PhD. You can study it without PhD. Like Ramanjuan did. People study for status, for money, for respect ... and whatever else turns them on. That is why you need degree not because you have "love."

Engguy knows little about math jobs. You need to inform yourself. Trust me, to have a degree from top 20-30 schools will only help you to get a job in a mid-range to smaller university. To work in MIT you need to have a lot more than a degree. :-) More than 50% of faculty in the US are on non-tenure-track positions and without tenure. This has to be eye opener. And the situation is getting worse. Math will likely sentence you for academic job (roughly ~80% non-stats mathematicians end up in academia, only statisticians have better options) and these jobs are pitiful by the most part - low salaries, political environment, overall misery. You will work in service business not science. Only in a research university you can expect notable research and that is like ~150 schools. WIth LSU degree you will unlikely get a job in a research university and unlikely be ready for any research (LSU is not much in math). If a job of $50K where you have to fight for tenure excites you then go ahead. Every year there is 5% more PhDs in this country meaning the competition will only get worse. Math used to be rather stagnant in terms of new PhDs but the problem is there is more and more people from Asia which are better prepared (in mathematics) than Americans and will work for lower wages. I think in terms of science math is definitely the worst profession and the poorest career choice unless you are a genius. Are you? Of course humanities are even worse but people in math have talent (IQ) that is sorely wasted.

Your profession is much easier and probably more interesting than math, I am sure. The kick is that most small universities and colleges in the US are full of people like that, working for peanut salaries, doing no notable research of any kind. In math these people were crushed and are in service of printing diplomas for undergraduates - that is what most of 2,500+ 4-year institutions in the US are doing - printing diplomas. It is particularly hard to see that in science. In math you need to have an IQ of 140-150+ to hope for a research job and it is a waste of talent. Corporate accountant starting salaries are better than most full professors will ever earn. And there you probably need an IQ of 115-120. It is appalling but it is nevertheless the reality. There is no easy answer why is that but these guys better be aware of that. I'd say if you cannot get into top 20-30 schools in math (Purdue is just on the edge) then it is not worth at all. After all if you are in love with the science, you do not really need a graduate degree since math needs no labs, one can work like Ramanujan.

You both read my post and check the facts, stats are readily available.

I suggest you read some of the surveys on ams.org web site. In mid-nineties there was 10-15% unemployment of new PhDs in math. Currently it is 4% but that does not include part-time jobs and adjunct faculty. If you have quantitative skills it is much easier to get into math program than into CS program for example. In fact much easier, particularly into mid-range programs like Colorado (NRC ranking 61 out of 135). Of course it is tough to get into MIT or Berkeley which are in top 10. Median salary for Assistant Professor in Math in bachelor-only institutions is roughly ~50K. That is majority of math jobs available. In fact in many places in the US (South for example) it is more like $40-45K. Check American Association of College Professors. With tier-2 program like Colorado it is hard to get into anything better. Salaries over $100K are only in top research universities and you need to be full professor to get that. To get there you will need to work real hard, picture room without windows because math isn't about travel. And that would be less than what accountant in a a mid-range company earns. In fact school teachers earn about as much as college math professors. Good luck.

Perhaps it is a wake up call. Math is the worst of sciences to look for a career choice. Majority of math folks end up in education in bachelor-only granting institutions and salaries there are comparable to truck drivers wages or worse. Plus they have periods of horrible unemployment in mathematics on PhD level like in 70-ies and mid-90ies. Physics folks have 10-20K better starting salaries because they can often get jobs outside academia. Institutions above bachelor-only are loaded with politics and "publish or perish" type of situation - good luck. That is why it is so easy to get into math graduate program in most places - there is no career afterwards so the competition for midrange programs is weak. It is also easy to get assistantship, they always need cheap instructors of entry level courses. I am not sure whether applied math is any better, it could be though the stats are not exactly encouraging. I always suggest people with quantitative talent to avoid mathematics as a career choice unless they can get into Berkeley, Stanford, MIT etc. Try biochemistry or computer science and see how much more competetive that admission is. Or even Statistics (my own field), roughly 2+ times more applicants than for math in almost any school that has both, in particular BioStats. There is only one abundant career choice for mathematicians - high school. But there no graduate degree is needed and it seems everybody is running away from it so there must be something very unattractive.

Sounds like a "code" for waitlist, what else. It does not make any sense to "be slow," keep in mind that the final exam period is coming and all of these people are busy as hell. I don't think anybody is examining anything, they are simply waiting for the deadline for acceptance. And they will wait for few more days after April 15. Then they will return to the waiting lists if they need to. "Under examination" is a guise for waiting list. Decisions are made fast most of the time, they are made by few people or even only one person and there is little "research" associated with that.

That all depends how many people are making decisions or participating in making decisions. Make no mistake, the decisions are political so yes it is important for the people that make decisions to avoid problems like prolonged and inadequate enrolment. It depends what is important to them. It is also important to have a competetive enrollment class - this is a matter of assessment and assessment is extremely political. Nevertheless, most folks on waiting lists will get sacked thus if you depend on the waiting lists prepare yourself to go empty-handed. But nobody will brag about getting the boot after hanging on a waiting list and that is the reasons why people believe in them. This is like a gambling - how many gamblers you know that would say they lost money? Every gambler always claims he makes money. The propensity of human being to be in a denial is not to be underestimated.

Honestly, the correspondence from that professor sounds like crap to me. The guy needs an "ally" for a student in admission process he is not even a part of? Make sure you do not hold any false hopes here. Most people on waiting lists won't get anything, it is the best to set up realistic expectations so that one doesn't get fooled by some silly "politicians" in education. This always reminds me of late Daniel P. Moyniham. The lower stakes are the more politics, what an absurd. :roll:

Go for what is at hand. It is unlikely you will get an offer before April 15 and you definitely do not want to jeopardize what you have. I sent a couple of declines this week but I think the letters will not arrive before the end of the week. I think a lot of people that are declining offers won't send anything at all, they will just leave everybody in limbo (except some "highly ethical" people here) thus the decisions about second round of offers will go the next week. Believe me, you do not want to be in the group that loses their offer for a lousy chance. If you really get more desirable offer after April 15, you can still ask for a release. FSU is a big school, nobody will stop you there to switch, I think. By the way, I lived in Talahassee and that is absolutely great place to be. Fantastic weather, a lot better place than West Lafayette and a heck of a lot warmer than Ithaca. Of course Cornel is Cornel.

No, I don't believe in that. The fact is that state supported schools depend more on state funds while private schools depend more on endowment. But when economy goes down both of these sources suffer. I honestly don't know in which order, I think first state supported schools then private but this is just my guess. This will be worse the next year since school budgets for this year were already allocated while for the next year they are just coming. The state revenues are going to be real bad this year, the more developed states, the worse it will be.

I think there is also a factor of money in the game. This year some state supported schools are cutting back on funds since their state legislatures were enacting cutbacks. This will have the impact on assistanship offers. That might get a lot worse the next year. In the past some more responsible departments were cutting down the size of their enroling class because of a bad job market. I know that happened in mathematics in mid-nineties. This could easily happen the next year. Economy is going to have a big impact on endowment of private schools as well and this is probably already happening. So yes, do not expect too many admission offers after April 15, grab what you have if anything.

No ranking is not important while you are studying. You can really study anywhere you want as long as you can get in. I see a lot of people brag here applying for Temple University (~10,000 graduate students) and nobody brags about Duke (~7,000). That must be because they are not aware of rankings. Rankings are not important, really. It is only important when you look for a job and for career, social status, bragging etc. Seriously, you can hardly anywhere find so much discrimination and segregation practices as you can find in the US system of education. It is basically a casta system, based on financial status and class position. There is little of social mobility which is professed only in Holywood movies and political advertisments for the naive. Rankings determine one's career and therefore life as well. That is the reality. Everybody is well aware of them, even those who would deny it.

I think this is pretty common, I did not say it is all the same, just usual. This is precisely why you have waiting lists and waiting funding lists. It is not very usual you get admission after April 15 but even if one does do not expect any funding.