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About Third Tier Universities

Posted: Fri Oct 27, 2017 2:00 am
by Mr Prof
I checked the recent ranking of UT A&M and Stony Brook by QS World University Rankings and saw that the schools were ranked 195 and 382 respectively. So my questions are:
(1) is it advisable to pursue a phd in math in schools in this category (i.e. schools ranked below 100) if one's dream is to walk up the ladder of prestigious schools after one's phd (i.e. to be a faculty in schools like MIT, Stanford etc)?
(2) Can we say these schools belong to third tier universities or are they in a class of their own?
(3) How will I compare with guys from Stanford (in terms of access to quality research adviser, overall exposure to quality phd program etc ) by the time I am through with my phd program?
(4) If I want to work with an influential faculty (i.e one of the leading experts in math) in my field of interest, how do I get to know one since some of them are yet to win the Fields Medal (or any prestigious award known to me) and Wikipedia does not have much on them.(Even if it does, do I need to go through the profiles of all the faculties in about 10 schools that interest me? That will mean reading the profiles of about 400 people!)

Thanks

Re: About Third Tier Universities

Posted: Fri Oct 27, 2017 3:51 am
by mango
Ignore those rankings. I don't know about A&M, but Stony Brook is world class in geometry and topology. Basically anyone at a top place is a leading expert in their field, and there are far more good mathematicians who are really good research advisors than there are fields medalists, so calm down a bit there. If you want to do math, go to the best school that is a good fit for you, and work hard. If you waste your time comparing yourself to people elsewhere, using things that depend on so many different intangible factors and are impossible to quantify, you'll never get anywhere.

Re: About Third Tier Universities

Posted: Fri Oct 27, 2017 6:30 am
by Mr Prof
mango wrote:Ignore those rankings. I don't know about A&M, but Stony Brook is world class in geometry and topology. Basically anyone at a top place is a leading expert in their field, and there are far more good mathematicians who are really good research advisors than there are fields medalists, so calm down a bit there. If you want to do math, go to the best school that is a good fit for you, and work hard. If you waste your time comparing yourself to people elsewhere, using things that depend on so many different intangible factors and are impossible to quantify, you'll never get anywhere.
Thank you so much. I will like to add this to it: I hardly compare myself with people. Just that I want the best that is within my reach. I don't want to miss out on anything cos of ignorance. Your response is a nice one though.