mindreader

Hi all, I will be applying to graduate school programs this fall for admission to academic year 2013-2014. My TOEFL exam is slated for july 15 and I was wondering if I should send my scores this early or not. In this way, I could avail of the free score reporting that ETS provides. Thanks!

@R deckard - that's a great comprehensive list! Yes since I'm taking the GRE Math, I'm applying to CMU too since the application's free anyway. Btw, what do you think of Boston University? I mean for one, it's located in Boston beside Harvard and MIT! Since they're requiring GRE Math might as well ponder about it.

Hmm, thanks R Deckard for your advice on UIUC. The location feels a bit off to me as well, judging, again, from whatever I find on Wikipedia. That's a more compelling reason for me to drop it off my list. Do you mind telling me where you're heading to? And when you mention "There are a lot of other good programs in interesting cities for applied math as well", do you have other recommendations? Preferably schools in the east coast. I am kind of allured to the New England feel that's why Providence (and its proximity to Boston) appealed to me a lot... @TakeruK - hey its fine! a master's in canada doesn't sound so bad... I do appreciate the advice though! And I'm still debating whether it's worth it to apply to European master's programs since most of them have scholarships or great funding.

R deckard, I sense that you are staunchly vouching for UMaryland. lol Are you attending there this fall? Where are you heading to? To me, I haven't been to Maryland before but comparing Baltimore and College Park from whatever I can muster from Wikipedia, Baltimore seems like the ideal city. Not sure so perhaps you can correct me on that. Note: I've spent 6 weeks in London and I pretty much enjoyed the city vibe. It wasn't as crazy as NY but it was certainly not a quiet town in the midst of nowhere... Last time I checked, UIUC has an applied math master program, aside from the actuarial science masters program in the math department. Although I might be dropping this option since I've started considering other safety schools. JHU is certainly the master program of my choice as the courses and tracks they offer appeal to me. The teaching experience I could gain from there would be no doubt invaluable. With regards to UMass, I am applying to it because after sifting through the profiles of Brown's PhD students, I came across one student who did her master's here before embarking on the PhD at Brown. The intention is not really to emulate her academic path but rather a gauge of what schools Brown deems as "acceptable." Would you mind expounding how doing a master's might not be a great idea? What aspects are you talking about? I'll be pretty much young once I finish my undergrad (21) and so an extra 2 years won't really hurt that much.

@TakeruK - do you think McGill is an ambitious goal? It seems that McGill's applied math program jibes with the focus of my undergraduate studies and yes, as you mentioned, master's students are normally funded. I checked other schools such as UToronto and UBC but the applied math program for the latter does not focus on my research interests while the program for the former seems to imply that funding is not available for students in the terminal Master's. My end goal is to pursue a PhD in the states due to personal reasons and that's why I'm not interested in the doctoral stream master's...

@R Deckard - hey man thanks loads for the advice! Ok I have decided, bregrudgingly, to take the GRE Math and I'll start preparing for it after I take the TOEFL exam which is scheduled after I finish my summer research project. Well, right now I'm slightly confused. On my list, I only plan to apply to 3 PhD programs - Cornell and Brown (Applied Math) and Columbia (IEOR). My research interests are in stochastic DE and stochastic control hence I am considering Brown. I chose Applied Math over ORIE at Cornell because the ORIE program places too much emphasis on optimization and statistics rather than probability. Columbia, on the other hand, does not focus on stochastic D.E.'s in its Applied Math Department. In choosing the schools I want to pursue a PhD in, the location is a major consideration. An exception would be Cornell - it appealed to me because they mentioned on their site that they accept about 150 applications and that they admit 10-15% of the students (whereas for Columbia IEOR, they receive about 300 applicants for 10 places). Brown and Columbia are in phenomenal locations (with Providence being close to Boston) and I would not hesitate spending the next 5 or so years of my life there. Other than that, I'm applying to Master programs for the safeties. I thought Maryland might be a good choice but they don't offer funding for Master programs. I have, however, scouted some schools which offer TAships to Master students (which entitles them the tuition waiver) and a reasonable stipend. I thought that doing a Masters degree would somehow strengthen my foundations and would better prepare me for the PhD program. That being said, the location of the school doesn't matter that much as it is only for 2 years but I prefer universities in the east coast. So far, I'm considering these schools for the Masters degree in applied math: Johns Hopkins, UIUC, UMich-Ann Arbor, and UMass Amherst. What do you think? @TakeruK - seems reasonable to do a masters program in Canada! But I'm not entirely sure that all of the master programs are funded. Let me check on that again. I was thinking of applying to ETHZ and EPFL for their applied math masters too (not sure if you've heard of 'em) because they offer scholarships and that my school has partnerships with them...

@TakeruK man thanks a lot for the insights! Yeah I am mostly applying to private universities all of which are located in the east coast, mostly in new England and mid west. I just noticed that you did a master's degree first before embarking on a PhD. I've been pondering that as well - for all of my safety schools I'm only applying to their master's programs because I'd want to pursue my PhD in a school that I really really like. The school's location is a big factor in my decision as I'll be spending the 5-6 years of my early 20's over the course of the PhD

and oh, how bad is "real bad" ?

@TakeruK Oh hey that's wicked - you got into Caltech! It oughta be competitive since it's a small size program. Thank God someone feels my pain of having to pay for loads of exams! Not to mention having to pay for them to be sent! and add to that, there's TOEFL for me... I tried the 2nd most recent GRE Math subject test posted by ETS on their site. Though this was published in 2007 and that the most recent was published in 08, the 2007 material was the actual exam way back in 2000. I tried it, without reviewing my courses and discounting the time, and I scored 40/66 which translates to the 68th percentile. Hmm, judging from the scores you submitted to Caltech, adding in some parallelism between Planetary Science and Physics and Applied Math and Pure Math, do you think a score in the 70th percentile would be fine? Fretting a little bit because I've seen on some forums that Chinese students could easily snag a score of 800+/900.

Hi @kka34, thanks for your insights. I've read the same thing as to why GRE subject tests can be useful it's just that I've also read that "students should only take it when they are confident they'd do very very well." In my case, the pure math parts (Topology, Abstract Algebra, and Number Theory) might be detrimental to me. I can always review for the test but at the same time, I'd be occupied with the application process coupled with my upper division courses (which are becoming more time-consuming). About emailing the universities, both Brown and Cornell indicate that it's recommended - no adjectives like "very" or "highly". Perhaps it might be worth a try to e-mail them. Do you think it's advisable to ask them roughly what proportion of their admitted students have taken the GRE math test?

Hi all, I am a rising senior in a top 100 university in south east asia (according to topuniversities.com, upper half) concentrating in Applied Math. I hope to pursue a PhD in Applied Math in Brown or Cornell and both schools indicate that they recommend the GRE Math subject test but it is not required. I am reluctant to take the test because I'd have to spend for it, prepare for it, and that as an Applied Math concentrator, I did not get to take courses such as Abstract Algebra, Topology, and Number Theory. Most of my coursework is on Scientific Computing (Numerical Analysis, Differential Equations), Algorithm-based Math (Optimization, Game Theory), and a few Statistics courses. I have, however, taken Real Analysis part 1 (Theory of differentiation, limits, series, etc., no integration) and I will be taking Complex Analysis in the fall, both of which are required for my concentration. I'd like to know whether anyone has managed to get accepted into the above-mentioned programs without taking the GRE Math. If so, what did you think compensated for not taking the test? (OR is this unlikely? It seems that those who put their details on the tracker here took the GRE Math for Applied Math PhD at Brown.) I am unsure about my profile but my GPA is in the top 5% of my cohort, I have 1 journal publication, 1 conference paper, and I've also done an attachment at Imperial College London. The 2 publications were borne from 2 1-year research programs in my local university. Advice would be appreciated. And if you do have recommendations on review materials, that would be awesome. My target score would be 800 or so. But still, I am reluctant to take it. (BTW, Is this post in the right forum?)