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Getting into top schools

Posted: Sun Nov 23, 2008 11:26 pm
by msmath
I just got my scores for the October exam. I had 880, which was 97th percentile. I'm planning to apply to Stanford, MIT, Columbia, Cal Berkeley, Duke, UT Austin, UChicago, and Cambridge University. I would hope that my chances of not getting into any of these schools is pretty small, but I really have no idea. My grades are good (all A's), and I have research experience and ten graduate courses. My rec letters will also be good, but this is all coming from the University of Mississippi, which I think is a pretty obscure school. On the other hand, application reviewers might view being from Mississippi as a plus for diversity reasons. I would like to get some reactions from others who may have applied to top schools in the past about how realistic my chances are of getting at least one or two acceptance letters.

Posted: Mon Nov 24, 2008 2:28 am
by moo5003
I would bet on very good. Average GRE score is ~80-85% for the top schools, any GPA above 3.8 is competative. Though the school you come from matters the fact you scored so highly on the GRE should show that it has prepared you for graduate school. You should feel comfortable with your choices imo.

Posted: Mon Nov 24, 2008 10:05 am
by prce
OMG
I wouldnt be worried at all :)

Posted: Tue Nov 25, 2008 4:09 pm
by Nameless
impressive :shock:

Re: Getting into top schools

Posted: Mon Aug 03, 2009 10:36 pm
by rubylv
msmath wrote:I just got my scores for the October exam. I had 880, which was 97th percentile. I'm planning to apply to Stanford, MIT, Columbia, Cal Berkeley, Duke, UT Austin, UChicago, and Cambridge University. I would hope that my chances of not getting into any of these schools is pretty small, but I really have no idea. My grades are good (all A's), and I have research experience and ten graduate courses. My rec letters will also be good, but this is all coming from the University of Mississippi, which I think is a pretty obscure school. On the other hand, application reviewers might view being from Mississippi as a plus for diversity reasons. I would like to get some reactions from others who may have applied to top schools in the past about how realistic my chances are of getting at least one or two acceptance letters.
so good :o

Re: Getting into top schools

Posted: Wed Aug 05, 2009 12:26 am
by zombie
I'm sure you'll get more than 1 or 2 acceptances. My question would be what type of numbers would be expected from someone without graduate coursework experience in mathematics by these types of programs?