Advice needed for recommendations.

Forum for the GRE subject test in mathematics.
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rahulshr
Posts: 25
Joined: Mon Sep 19, 2011 12:16 pm

Advice needed for recommendations.

Post by rahulshr » Tue Nov 15, 2011 10:20 am

I have a slightly abnormal case. I am looking for further studies after more than a decade out of college.
So, I am not in touch with my college professors, besides I did not even do well in college (below my potential :)) - esp. in last two years, due to the fact I was not interested in my Major and I was obsessed with programming. Though I did do well in mathematics course in first year - which was mostly Engineering maths centered around calculus.
And hence landed up in S/W programming - and have worked in great projects, with good companies all these years. After all these years, I felt like going back to higher studies, for various reasons.

So - effectively, I do not have anyone from college to write recommendation. How do universities view recommendations just from professional experience - and none from college? I am not targeting top universities (and I can not afford to, after what happened in subj-gre). I am equally inclined towards courses of the type - financial engineering, some mix of maths and computer science, or just computer science.

rahulshr
Posts: 25
Joined: Mon Sep 19, 2011 12:16 pm

Re: Advice needed for recommendations.

Post by rahulshr » Tue Nov 15, 2011 2:12 pm

Also - how rare is to go for Masters, so late in career (after ~12 years of working)? Does it reflect negatively on the application? If so, what can be useful bullet points in CV/SOP to negate that.

owlpride
Posts: 204
Joined: Fri Jan 29, 2010 2:01 am

Re: Advice needed for recommendations.

Post by owlpride » Tue Nov 15, 2011 9:49 pm

I don't know what type of professional experience you have; but without math subject GRE scores or academic references, there will probably be concerns about your preparation for a graduate math program.

As long as your application demonstrates that you are academically qualified for a graduate program, I don't think that 3 professional references will be held against you. That's to be expected after 12 years out of school.

rahulshr
Posts: 25
Joined: Mon Sep 19, 2011 12:16 pm

Re: Advice needed for recommendations.

Post by rahulshr » Wed Nov 16, 2011 1:04 pm

owlpride wrote:I don't know what type of professional experience you have; but without math subject GRE scores or academic references, there will probably be concerns about your preparation for a graduate math program.

As long as your application demonstrates that you are academically qualified for a graduate program, I don't think that 3 professional references will be held against you. That's to be expected after 12 years out of school.
Thanks.

12 years gap - for that reason only I took math-gre (and to cover up for not so good grades in last 2 years of Bachelors)
As for academic qualification - 12 years back, I graduated from the topmost school in my country - toughest to get through, with good rank.
Also, honestly I did not have any trouble recapping the calculus and linear Algebra concepts - only Abstract Algebra and Topology were new to me. However, that did not translate into performance due to different reasons - that I have already cried out loud about :).

But, yes I understand it will be tough to present my case w/o subject gre. Btw, I am aiming for mainly Computers MS, and some maths stuff would be icing on the cake.



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