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Anyone heard from Washington University in St. Louis?


CauchyFan

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fwiw, a friend of mine that goes to WashU got in the math program with a 50th percentile in the Math GRE (with an 800 on the regular math section). He also didn't hear back until I think mid-Feb that he was wait-listed, and an acceptance came in March.

I would feel better if I had scored anywhere near that percentile. dry.gif

Unfortunately, it would appear that spending all of your time reading Rudin's books does not prepare you for the Math GRE. What a backward ass world academics is...

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I would feel better if I had scored anywhere near that percentile. dry.gif

Unfortunately, it would appear that spending all of your time reading Rudin's books does not prepare you for the Math GRE. What a backward ass world academics is...

Ha! That is true to an extent.

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Well... I see in the results someone got an email from them today... guess that means I'm probably out. :(

I guess doing cryptography won't be such a bad job... I will certainly make more money than I would have as a professor...

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Well... I see in the results someone got an email from them today... guess that means I'm probably out. :(

I guess doing cryptography won't be such a bad job... I will certainly make more money than I would have as a professor...

How easy is getting into the cryptography field? Do you need a Master's at least.....and what kind of course work? How far in CS etc...... Thanks if you have a chance to give more info there. Hope you still get your acceptance letter!

Best of luck.

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How easy is getting into the cryptography field? Do you need a Master's at least.....and what kind of course work? How far in CS etc...... Thanks if you have a chance to give more info there. Hope you still get your acceptance letter!

Best of luck.

Well, I'm turning to that as my backup because I have some connections that can get me a job there. Without that I might not be so confident in that career path.

But to answer your question, from what I understand the fileds that are important for work in cryptography are Number Theory, Combinatorics, Probability/Statistics, Algebra/Group Theory, and Linear Algebra.

My plan of approaching it is to continue on with grad school at my current institution (where I pretty much do what TAs do as an undergrad) and get a Masters focusing on Probability and Combinatorics (since we have very good applied programs in both). In so far as CS, I plan on taking courses in algorithm design.

A good book that I read on it is "Introduction to Modern Cryptography" by Jonathan Katz. It made for some great summer reading! It also does a very good job of portraying what you would be doing in the field if you were to work there. :)

Of course, there are many different fields of cryptography that could involve different specializations, like Quantum Cryptography and Elliptical Curve Cryptography. But I think the courses I listed above would build a solid foundation for it. As far as I can tell not many schools actually have a program in it (except maybe Brown). I know with the NSA if you sign on as a mathematician they put you through three more years of schooling to get you up-to-date on it.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Got my rejection letter on Monday.

Sucks for them. Now I'm just going to get my Masters from my current institution, and once I have that 4.0 glow-in-the-dark transcript I can put my slow start as an undergrad behind me and aim higher than them.

Because seriously, I just dominated a class full of grad students with cushy funding and what not on our first Metric Spaces exam (a course I am the only undergrad in, and I made a 98 on that exam). And I did that while taking 19 hours and working 40+ hours a week between two jobs. So there's no limit to the possibilities for me with some sort of support/funding.

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  • Warelin changed the title to Anyone heard from Washington University in St. Louis?

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