Are these aims realistic?

Forum for the GRE subject test in mathematics.
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lzxnl
Posts: 14
Joined: Sun Nov 04, 2018 7:25 am

Are these aims realistic?

Post by lzxnl » Sun Nov 04, 2018 7:44 am

Hi everyone. I'm an overseas student looking to apply for some (possibly out of reach) top tier universities and want to know about my chances of getting in. Here is a quick summary of pertinent parts of my application.

Currently: final semester of two year MSc (Applied Mathematics), top university in my country

General GRE:
Q: 170 (96%)
V: 165 (96%)
W: 6.0 (99%)

Maths GRE: 890 (92%)

Research experience: 1 summer project on fluid mechanics + student conference, masters thesis on rarefied gas dynamics which my supervisor is rapt about, writing a paper soon, original work
GPA: 4.00, average score of 90% in masters
Prizes: freshman maths award, scholarship in masters all semesters for academic merit, dean's list first and third year undergrad (not second year because exchange)
Have tutored every maths subject completed in my first two years of undergrad, as well as a few from my third year and one from my masters.
Extra useful info: masters supervisor works at Caltech half the year as a professor (which means supervision in that semester is indeed challenging ): )
Wish to apply for: MIT, Caltech, Harvard, Stanford, UC Berkeley, all under Applied Maths, although I will probably apply for engineering too. Will, of course, apply for others, but my chances at these concern me the most at the moment.

Am I being too wishful here? Any tips for what I can do? I suspect I could email some potential supervisors, but I've been told that is of limited utility at American universities.

ponchan
Posts: 126
Joined: Sat Apr 14, 2018 6:30 pm

Re: Are these aims realistic?

Post by ponchan » Sun Nov 04, 2018 11:13 am

I mean, anyone hoping to get into MIT or Harvard is being wishful, apart from the handful that have reason to be pretty certain. The truth is that no one on here can give you much useful info since we're all undergrads in the same boat. It would be wisest to ask a faculty mentor, since he or she would have more useful data and insights.

lurenjia12138
Posts: 20
Joined: Thu Sep 27, 2018 12:26 am

Re: Are these aims realistic?

Post by lurenjia12138 » Fri Nov 16, 2018 12:17 pm

Any papers?

lzxnl
Posts: 14
Joined: Sun Nov 04, 2018 7:25 am

Re: Are these aims realistic?

Post by lzxnl » Sat Nov 17, 2018 9:25 pm

In the process of writing one as a result of my masters thesis. Probably won't have it published before applications though.

lurenjia12138
Posts: 20
Joined: Thu Sep 27, 2018 12:26 am

Re: Are these aims realistic?

Post by lurenjia12138 » Tue Nov 20, 2018 5:47 pm

lzxnl wrote:In the process of writing one as a result of my masters thesis. Probably won't have it published before applications though.
OK, I think you have a very good profile which would I believe results in multiple offers from these top university you mentioned. Good Luck !

math94
Posts: 8
Joined: Tue Sep 19, 2017 12:42 pm

Re: Are these aims realistic?

Post by math94 » Thu Dec 13, 2018 2:47 am

lurenjia12138 wrote:OK, I think you have a very good profile which would I believe results in multiple offers from these top university you mentioned. Good Luck !
this is way too wishful and misleading

don't apply only to the top 5 places in existence, that's a recipe for disaster. add other safer schools to your list.

lzxnl
Posts: 14
Joined: Sun Nov 04, 2018 7:25 am

Re: Are these aims realistic?

Post by lzxnl » Sat Dec 15, 2018 10:27 am

Ended up applying to Harvard, MIT, Caltech, UCLA, NYU, Brown, University of Michigan Ann Arbor. Let's see how this goes. Thanks for all the posts, guys!

lzxnl
Posts: 14
Joined: Sun Nov 04, 2018 7:25 am

Re: Are these aims realistic?

Post by lzxnl » Tue Feb 12, 2019 7:40 am

math94 wrote:
lurenjia12138 wrote:OK, I think you have a very good profile which would I believe results in multiple offers from these top university you mentioned. Good Luck !
this is way too wishful and misleading

don't apply only to the top 5 places in existence, that's a recipe for disaster. add other safer schools to your list.
Well, I got into MIT, so maybe it wasn't such a bad idea after all.

math94
Posts: 8
Joined: Tue Sep 19, 2017 12:42 pm

Re: Are these aims realistic?

Post by math94 » Tue Feb 12, 2019 3:01 pm

lzxnl wrote:
math94 wrote:
lurenjia12138 wrote:OK, I think you have a very good profile which would I believe results in multiple offers from these top university you mentioned. Good Luck !
this is way too wishful and misleading

don't apply only to the top 5 places in existence, that's a recipe for disaster. add other safer schools to your list.
Well, I got into MIT, so maybe it wasn't such a bad idea after all.
"I played roulette and won so maybe gambling isn't a bad idea"

Congratulations though. To be fair applied math applications aren't as cutthroat as pure so maybe this was safer than it seems.



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