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Honest Suggestions Please - Fall 2017 Applied Math Phd Applicant

Posted: Mon Sep 05, 2016 4:06 am
by aurkoa
Hi all,

I've just joined this forum and would immensely benefit from your experience and insight, so please do provide an honest suggestion if you can.

I'm an international student. I graduated from Oregon State in Math with a 2.54 GPA. My GRE Score was Q: 159, V: 157 AW: 4.5.

I'm planning to give my MGRE Subject Test on Sep 17 2016 and hope to retake the Gre General around November 2016 to boost my Quant score.

I'm currently enrolled and in my 2nd year of Masters in Math at the University of Southern Mississippi doing a thesis which I'll hopefully defend late March and have strong hopes that it might turn into a paper.

I have also maintained a 4.0 GPA in my first two semesters [mainly took applied math courses] at USM and my low GPA at OSU was mainly because I was enrolled in Electrical Engineering in my first two years and was really stupid and partied too much. I'm actually better than that and I'm hopeful that I will get good recommendations.

In light of all that, which applied math grad schools should I apply to for PhD in applied math?

I wish to apply to around 15 schools [including USM] and my tentative list goes:

High-end [almost sure rejection]
1.Stanford [advisor got his PhD there]
2.MIT/Harvard/Dartmouth
3. U of Wahington
4. UC Davis
5. UT Austin [or Texas A&M maybe instead]
6. U Maryland College Park


maybe possible range
7.U Colorado Boulder
8. Michigan State
9. Arizona State
10. North Carolina State
11. Florida State
12.Virginia Tech
13. U of Iowa/Iowa State

safety
14. U Delaware
15. USM
16. Washington State/U of Alabama/U of Central Florida


Please help me. Thanks a lot!

Re: Honest Suggestions Please - Fall 2017 Applied Math Phd Applicant

Posted: Mon Sep 05, 2016 2:40 pm
by MathCat
Unfortunately, many programs have a 3.0 undergrad cGPA minimum. This is often not set by the department, but by the graduate school - sometimes there is nothing the department can do about this. It really sucks, especially for somebody like you who has improved in a Masters program. I'm not saying you can't get in anywhere, but you may have to cast a wider net because of this. I'd suggest looking at the "sub-3.0 GPA success stories" thread in The Lobby section of Grad Cafe forums. There is lots of good advice from people in your situation who have been successful in their PhD applications. Also, what is your undergrad math GPA?

Also, since you asked for honesty: I think your undergrad GPA makes applying to Stanford, Harvard, or MIT a waste of money.

Re: Honest Suggestions Please - Fall 2017 Applied Math Phd Applicant

Posted: Mon Sep 05, 2016 11:00 pm
by aurkoa
Hi, thanks a lot for that. Yeah, some universities do impose that minimum 3.0 GPA requirement.. even the ones which are not top-notch schools! So the ones which do NOT explicitly say that are ones I'll shoot for and yeah I was being slightly delusional in going for the Ivy schools so I'll drop that and not applying to 4 of those would enable me to apply to around 6 'more realistic' schools because these top schools are super expensive to apply to anyways.

My undergrad GPA in Math was around 3.0 and I actually did better in upper level courses.

I have also signed up for the gradcafe and am currently getting info and insight on sub 3 undergrad GPA situations but I'm positive that I'll be able to maintain my 4.0 GPA in Master's and will hopefully have a good-ish Subject Test and maybe get my Gre General score up by around 5 to get past the 320 mark. Please let me know if you [or anyone else who can help] know of some good schools among the list I put up and beyond that accept people with my credentials. Thanks a lot!