Need Admissions Advice and/or Opinions (UGPA, SOP, etc.)

[williamSCT]

I am applying for Masters and PhD programs in mathematics. Unfortunately, most of the programs I am applying for have rather strict minimum GPA requirements (3.0). My undergraduate GPA was a 2.978. My first question is, if a graduate application only allows three significant figures in the UGPA field, should I round to 2.98, or should I truncate to 2.97. Also, does anyone know how strict admissions officers are about the cutoff? Will 0.001 points make a difference considering I am so close to the required 3.0?

I know that mathematics graduate programs are extremely competitive, but not all GPA's are comparable. For example, I received a C in an Algebraic Topology course where grades were determined by strict percentage (no curve). Had I taken the same course, at the same university, but during a different semester and with a different professor, my 78% would likely have earned me a B+ or an A- because most other professors grade on a curve (and just about everyone walked away from that final exam looking like they had just seen a ghost).

Also, my undergraduate university is a top tier school whose mathematics department consistently ranks first and second in the nation, and unlike certain other top-tier schools (I won't say which I have in mind), my university certainly does not have a reputation for grade inflation. Our mathematics department especially has a reputation for being ruthlessly cut-throat when it comes to grades (my Differential Equations professor told me that he had to pull aside one of his famous colleagues after seeing her final exam in the print room to plead with her not to administer it because, in his words, "she was trying to kill them"). I know of plenty of Universities where Real Analysis, a course I took in the first semester of my freshman year, is the "most advanced" mathematics course required of math majors. Do admissions officers consider things like this, or are they just going to look at my 2.978 and throw my application in the trash?

Also, when it comes to writing my SOP, I feel that I have a lot more to talk about from my high school years than my college years. I know this is atypical, but I feel that my experience is fairly atypical. In high school, I attended a boarding school that was specifically for mathematically gifted students. We were located on a college campus and our teachers were college professors. In my junior year of high school I took Multivariable Calculus, Vector Analysis, Differential Equations, Linear Algebra and Abstract Algebra and I did research in Graph Theory under the supervision of a Topologist from the university. My research involved identifying and understanding the pitfalls of spiral chain theory, a concept developed by Ibrahim Cahit in an attempt to provide a readable alternative to the computer-aided, brute force proof of the Four Colors Theorem. I know that, if I choose to talk about this in my SOP, admissions officers will question why my academic performance in college was not of the same caliber. Regardless of how difficult an undergraduate institution is, it would seem that someone with my credentials upon entering college (I was also a Reagents Scholar, National Merit Scholar, and had won several other academic and leadership awards) would continue to earn top marks no matter what. Unfortunately though, I went through hell in my personal life in college that I didn't have to go through in high school, but I don't want to have to whine about it in SOP. I'm sure admissions committees get to yawning after reading a thousand or so sob-stories about grandmothers funerals and "personal hardships" endured by students who were "finding themselves". Nonetheless, I feel that my case was different. I honestly did not slack off. I worked damn hard all through college, and for my first two years, I received almost all A's. Then my partner was diagnosed with end stage renal failure ("stage 4" kidney disease). I didn't feel it would be productive to freak out or cry about it, so I didn't. We already knew that he had kidney disease and that it would progress, and, if anything, I was glad that he would finally be eligible to be put on a transplant list. What I was not prepared for, however, was the reality and implications of having to spend three to four hours a day assisting with dialysis and having to live with hundreds of pounds of medical equipment and a machine half the size of a volvo in my bedroom that beeped and pumped fluids and screamed alarms 24 hours a day. I didn't sleep much, and I had very little time to study. It also did not occur to me that I would be missing a lot of class due to frequent emergencies. Dialysis is dangerous and patients frequently pass out, sieze, become disoriented, hemorrhage and worse during treatments. And because treatments have to happen every day, I frequently found myself inundated. You can't just walk away from an unconscious patient while his blood is circulating outside of his body just because you have homework due. I never felt that I could explain what was going on to my professors, because I anticipated a response on the order of "What the hell are you thinking? You need to worry about your own life, and if you are in a situation like this you need to get out of it so you can focus on your education". At least, that would have my reaction If I were a professor and one of my students came to me with such a situation. It was also what I was telling myself in my head every day, but, when you love someone who is dying, the thought of actually walking away can be so horrifying and soul-crushing that you suddenly become willing to compromise things you never thought you would. At the time, my father told me that I simply had to learn to "compartmentalize my life", which would have been reasonable if I, like him, had fifty six years of life prepackaged and compartmentalized already, but I was 18, and, apparently, not superman. Anyway that's my story, and I'm trying to work it out of my SOP as much as possible. No one wants to hear about death and disease when they are sifting through applications, and I certainly don't want those to be the associations that admissions committees make with my name when it comes time to make a decision. Nonetheless, I feel that I have to make some mention of it in order to explain my grades, because otherwise, it would be very easy for someone looking at my transcript to automatically attribute the sudden decline in my grades to the fact that I was suddenly taking much harder courses. That would seem to be the natural assumption, although it is not the case. Also, it is hard to really explain the situation given the length restrictions imposed on SOP's without the story eating up space that should be devoted to talking about my research interests and more relevant things. Currently, my SOP is more than twice the length it should be, so I welcome any and all advice on how much of this story, if any of it at all, to include, and/or how to work it in tactfully without sounding flippant or whiney.

Also, I know that this post has run on for a while, so I just want to reiterate my less-significant question (above) about UGPA: round or truncate?

[margarets]

I googled "gpa round truncate" and found this:

http://www.murraystate.edu/Academics/RegistrarsOffice/Registration/Grades.aspx

They say you should truncate. I don't know if that is standard advice. Try asking the admissions office at the school you are applying to.

Also, in your SoP, you could summarize the situation as "caring full-time for seriously ill partner".

I do wonder how someone so young could end up in a relationship so serious that they become the full-time caregiver for their partner. Or why you didn't look into taking time off your studies to do so. Most universities have some form of compassionate leave for just these types of situations. I'm totally armchair-quarterbacking here, but it is a curious situation.

[Usmivka]

You might find useful. It has many folks who have or are trying to get into programs with less than a 3.0, and you may find your questions already answered. If the school doesn't tell you otherwise, round, but it won't make a difference if they have a hard cutoff at 3.0--these cutoffs are often enforced at the university level, and the departments--no matter how much they may want a prospective--get little say or ability to countermand if you fall below the standards. So you will need to target schools without such cutoffs.

As for your SOP, I don't think a paragraph saying that you essentially had a full time job caring for a partner in a prolonged life-threatening situation would be viewed as trivial. Take a look in the SOP section of the forum as well for other ideas. I'm guessing you were a running start type student, and younger than most of your classmates in college, or did this happen in your freshman year? You may need to explain how this all took long enough to bring down your GPA that far--if all the shit went down in one year, and your grades improved/looked good thereafter, you should get more leeway from adcoms.

[juilletmercredi]

There's not much difference between a 2.97 and a 2.98, so I don't think it matters whether you truncate or round. I also think that you are wrong about the way that most professors would react - most of them are regular people who also have loved ones, and would work with you on that. That's neither here nor there, though.

I think that it's appropriate to talk about your high school research experience. It sounds like it was serious research, and perhaps not that long ago for you. You can talk about what you did and how that first sparked your interest in mathematics research. I've also heard that mathematics PhD programs don't always expect undergraduates to have research experience because you don't have enough mathematics knowledge yet to do any research. That is not my field so I am not sure of the veracity of that statement, but I've heard it very often from graduate students in math (mostly pure math).

The GPA thing - first of all, if your university is a top-ranked university known for a tough math department, your admissions committee will probably be familiar with that and forgive a certain level of lowered performance. One way to prove that you can handle graduate level classes is to take some graduate-level mathematics courses at a nearby university. How strict programs are on the 3.0 cut-off really depends on the school and program, but if your 2.98 also reflects low performance in major courses you may face difficulty at PhD programs and top MA programs. You may want to consider aiming for a good-fit MA program to prove that you can do grad-level work. I still think you should apply to some choice PhD programs to see if you would be admitted, though.

As for discussing adversity in SOPs, the advice I've always been given (and sounds good) is that if you discuss how something impacted your grades, it should be a situation that was acute, severe, and in the past. A bout with a serious illness for a semester or a year that tanked your grades, but is resolved (either because the illness is gone or because you have it under control)? Fine. Becoming the primary caregiver to a family member or partner going through end stage renal failure is also something that would qualify. But the problem here is - like an above poster, I am a bit incredulous that a 19-year-old became the primary caregiver to a significant other (not to a family member like a parent or sibling, or even an uncle or cousin) and I imagine that an admissions committee would too. And the other problem is that this either lasted throughout your entire college career and tanked all of your grades, or that you had other problems that contributed to a low across-the-board GPA.

If you decide to address it, you shouldn't spend more than 3-5 sentences on it, I think. Nowhere near the level of detail you included here is necessary. Quickly explain that you don't believe that your undergraduate grades during X period are reflective of your actual abilities, because during X period of time you were the primary caregiver for a relative/partner with end stage renal failure. This relative/partner required round-the-clock care which obviously put a strain on your grades. But that problem is resolved for Y reason, so you will be able to fully devote yourself to performing at your maximum potential in classes. And then move on to discussing something that demonstrates that. I've found it helpful to think of a personal statement as an academic cover letter. In a cover letter, you don't spend too much time dwelling on the negatives but focus on your positives, only briefly mentioning very big negatives that may require explanation.

Is your major GPA any higher?