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NC State's applied math program

Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2014 10:50 am
by nsm
Hi everyone,

Recently I was admitted off the waitlist into NCSU's program. I did not get a chance to visit and since we have to make decisions soon I was wondering if anyone had any information about the program such as do most people pass their qualifying exams? job placement - is it in academia or industry mostly? does anyone know if the professors are welcoming? also do the grad students get along for the most part and are not competitive with each other? I'm interested in math bio so basically any information anyone has would be super helpful. I feel very indecisive so if anyone visited their program and has any info that would be awesome!

Also the other two programs I am deciding between rank in the teens and one in the late 20's on US News, while NC State is 50ish, so I dont know if that should influence my decision or not?

Re: NC State's applied math program

Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2014 12:13 pm
by kailun
NCSU most people do pass their quals and they try hard to get everyone to pass their quals. You have to pass three quals, and have two tries to pass them. Apparently the professors look out for you and tell you whether or not they think you are prepared. I don't remember the exact percentage (probably because they didn't give us the exact percentage), but they said only a few people fail out.

The job placement is mostly in industry or national labs. They have a lot of connections with the local industry places and the nearby lab. Or they have a much bigger emphasis on placing people into industry. Tim Kelly places almost all of his students in industry, but they said that they also place people into academia positions as well.

I can't say much about the welcomingness of the faculty. We didn't get to interact with them as much as on other visits. They all presented on their research, but we didn't have that many one-on-one meetings with them. One of my friends goes there and he seems to like the faculty well enough.

The students are not competitive with each other at all.

They have a pretty strong emphasis on math bio as they see it is a growing field and want to do a lot of research in it.

Hope that was helpful! The visit was a while ago, so my details may be a bit shaky.

I also don't necessarily know about how big of a deal ranking is. One of the things I would recommend would be look at the job placement (http://www.math.ncsu.edu/grad/brochure/employment.php) and compare it to the other school that you are looking at. All of these schools will emphasize their success stories, but it does give a sense of where people go to teach and work.

The school is also 50-50 men/women, which was just cool when visiting it and comparing it to the 80-20 at other schools.

Anyone else want to chime in?

EDIT: I just remembered: I also don't know how difficult it is to work with someone who you want to work with or if there are any faculty members that are more busy than other faculty members.

Re: NC State's applied math program

Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2014 12:43 pm
by nsm
Thank you so much for all the info!! I see that you declined nc states offer, if you don't mind sharing can I ask why you turned them down?

Re: NC State's applied math program

Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2014 1:38 pm
by kailun
Mostly because I felt more comfortable at the other schools I visited. I liked NCSU and our weekend was great, but it didn't feel like it would be home for the next five years of my life. In addition, there wasn't anyone who I though that I could definitely work with there. Their ranking was lower than the other programs I was considering, and their offer was also lower, so I decided to go with someplace I felt more comfortable at during the visit and also got more funding from.

But the facilities at NCSU are pretty great and all of the grad students I talked with had found a faculty advisor that they connected with (even though some of them switched advisors).

I guess another one of their selling points was that the applied math and pure math programs seem pretty fluid. The quals have overlaps, so if you go in wanting to do applied math, but you take some more pure math courses and like those better, I think you can easily switch from the one program to the other. Another selling point is the REG, where you can do research the summer before or after your first year. All of the students I talked with were very excited that they had that opportunity.

Re: NC State's applied math program

Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2014 9:10 pm
by nsm
Ahh okay that makes sense. Thank you again for the information!