Request for profile evaluation

[sankha012]

Undergrad Institution: Chennai Mathematical Institute, arguably the best place for undergrad math in India. Known for its strength in Algebraic Geometry.
Major(s): Mathematics
Minor(s): Physics
GPA: 9.00/10
Type of Student: International Asian Male

GRE General Test:
Q: 168 (95%)
V: 158 (79%)
W: 3.5 (38%)
GRE Subject Test in Mathematics:
M: 810 (82%)

TOEFL Score: 108 = R30/L26/S24/W28

Programs Applying: Math PhD

Research Experience: Summer internship at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences in Chennai, India on fractals with an emphasis on computational methods.
Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Selected twice for the Indian IMO selection camp.
Letters of Recommendation: Two in Math and two in Physics. One of the Math profs is particularly famous in the country for his research on Measure Theory and his long career in teaching. Another was both a graduate student and a prof at SUNY SB.
Any Miscellaneous Points that Might Help: My institute awards a dual degree on Mathematics and Physics so I have taken a significant number of Physics courses too. My interest is in Dynamical Systems which has a physical flavor in it.


Applying to :
School - SUNY Stony Brook - Math - Dynamical Systems - Pending
School - UMD College Park - Math - Dynamical Systems - Pending
School - Pennsylvania State University - Math - Dynamical Systems - Pending
School - Tufts University - Math - Dynamical Systems - Rejected

[ghjk]

Undergrad Institution: Chennai Mathematical Institute, arguably the best place for undergrad math in India. Known for its strength in Algebraic Geometry.
Major(s): Mathematics
Minor(s): Physics
GPA: 9.00/10
Type of Student: International Asian Male

GRE General Test:
Q: 168 (95%)
V: 158 (79%)
W: 3.5 (38%)
GRE Subject Test in Mathematics:
M: 810 (82%)

TOEFL Score: 108 = R30/L26/S24/W28

Programs Applying: Math PhD

Research Experience: Summer internship at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences in Chennai, India on fractals with an emphasis on computational methods.
Awards/Honors/Recognitions: Selected twice for the Indian IMO selection camp.
Letters of Recommendation: Two in Math and two in Physics. One of the Math profs is particularly famous in the country for his research on Measure Theory and his long career in teaching. Another was both a graduate student and a prof at SUNY SB.
Any Miscellaneous Points that Might Help: My institute awards a dual degree on Mathematics and Physics so I have taken a significant number of Physics courses too. My interest is in Dynamical Systems which has a physical flavor in it.


Applying to :
School - SUNY Stony Brook - Math - Dynamical Systems - Pending
School - UMD College Park - Math - Dynamical Systems - Pending
School - Pennsylvania State University - Math - Dynamical Systems - Pending
School - Tufts University - Math - Dynamical Systems - Pending

Let me give it a try. For SUNY, PSU and Tufts, 90% would be admitted, with TA package. Now, for UMD, things get a little bit trickier, as the pool of applicants, especially in their AMSC programs, are pretty strong with very few people admitted (they are constrained on funding I believe). But the fact that you're good enough to be on the Indian IMO Selection Camp (made sure you highlighted how amazing this fact is) could help you overcome an otherwise standard application that might be on the fence (your Math GRE is good, but not outstanding, so not enough to help you standout at competitive programs). Unfortunately, India IMO teams are not doing very well traditionally, so it's a little LESS impressive when they take that into account, compared to Chinese or Vietnamese applicants.

Therefore, it all comes down to FIT from the LOR + SOP. If one or two of your LORs is FREAKING awesome (saying something like "he's the next Ramanujan... Or I would take him as my graduate student without hesitant") and their reputations are internationally recognized in the fields, you're probably in. Otherwise, SOP + Indian IMO camp twice will make or break your application. I'm not sure how many faculties at UMD specialized in Dynamical Systems, and how close the fit is. I would say your chance is 50% - 60% of admitted. I might be deadly wrong, but I hope I'm not:)

Best of luck to you man! Welcome to the States:)

[sankha012]

Thank you very much for the welcome
The Dynamics group at the UMD is pretty strong, actually. (https://www-math.umd.edu/research/resea ... amics.html)
They have some very famous people like Giovanni Forni and Michael Brin.

Also, are you sure about that 90% rate for Stony Brook? An excellent candidate from my institute got rejected last year.

[pat2211]

Actually your chance of admission for PSU is not that high. They weight the GRE subject test heavily. It is unlikely that they will accept an international student with subject test below 90%. As far as I know, most of the offers were sent out

[ghjk]

Actually your chance of admission for PSU is not that high. They weight the GRE subject test heavily. It is unlikely that they will accept an international student with subject test below 90%. As far as I know, most of the offers were sent out

Really?? 90% for a state school? That's quite insane:P I saw an American applicant who got in with no subject test score. So far, 3 offers have been sent out (http://thegradcafe.com/survey/index.php ... ics&t=a&o=).

[ghjk]

Thank you very much for the welcome
The Dynamics group at the UMD is pretty strong, actually. (https://www-math.umd.edu/research/resea ... amics.html)
They have some very famous people like Giovanni Forni and Michael Brin.

Also, are you sure about that 90% rate for Stony Brook? An excellent candidate from my institute got rejected last year.

I got in Stony Brook's Applied Math program 2 years ago with weaker profile than yours:) Sound scarily competitive this year then.

[pat2211]

This standard is only for international students. My friend got into that school last year. At that time, he was working with a Prof at that school. That Prof even told him to forget everything else and try to break 90%. Your chance would be much higher if they used to accept students from your school and these students performed well

[ghjk]

This standard is only for international students. My friend got into that school last year. At that time, he was working with a Prof at that school. That Prof even told him to forget everything else and try to break 90%. Your chance would be much higher if they used to accept students from your school and these students performed well

Such a disdain discrimination. Too bad, that department's research in Math does not live up its high-standard recruiting bar:(

[pat2211]

This standard is only for international students. My friend got into that school last year. At that time, he was working with a Prof at that school. That Prof even told him to forget everything else and try to break 90%. Your chance would be much higher if they used to accept students from your school and these students performed well

Such a disdain discrimination. Too bad, that department's research in Math does not live up its high-standard recruiting bar:(

You can see that 80% of the students they accepted are Chinese. The average subject test score on their web page is the average of both international and domestic students.

[arima]

This standard is only for international students. My friend got into that school last year. At that time, he was working with a Prof at that school. That Prof even told him to forget everything else and try to break 90%. Your chance would be much higher if they used to accept students from your school and these students performed well

Such a disdain discrimination. Too bad, that department's research in Math does not live up its high-standard recruiting bar:(

You can see that 80% of the students they accepted are Chinese. The average subject test score on their web page is the average of both international and domestic students.

The numbers quoted here don't make sense. Go to the PSU site and see that the average test score for the last 5 years is around 800. There about 100 grad students in the program which translates to about 20 new students per year. Now if we take that 80% are Chinese and the minimal score for them is 90% (which is about 860), then this means that the 4 non-Chinese (presumably, domestic) students would be averaging around a 560 (or 26 percentile). That is just silly. So, I don't buy the 90% minimum for internationals at PSU to get accepted. The data show a very different story.

[pat2211]

I mean 80% of the accepted international students are Chinese. Last year, there are 5 or 6 international Chinese students. Half of them come from Fudan University. Fudan is well known at PSU

[ghjk]

I mean 80% of the accepted international students are Chinese. Last year, there are 5 or 6 international Chinese students. Half of them come from Fudan University. Fudan is well known at PSU

Do you know anything regards to other factors that come into play at PSU's admission? I meant, there gotta be a bunch of applicants meeting the 90%. Do they even care about the grades and number of grad courses taken + how well you did on them? How about research experience factor?

[KatrinaElizabeth]

Actually your chance of admission for PSU is not that high. They weight the GRE subject test heavily. It is unlikely that they will accept an international student with subject test below 90%. As far as I know, most of the offers were sent out

Really?? 90% for a state school? That's quite insane:P I saw an American applicant who got in with no subject test score. So far, 3 offers have been sent out (http://thegradcafe.com/survey/index.php ... ics&t=a&o=).

Just wanted to point out that there have been 9 offers on GradCafe, not 3. If you search for mathematics and math separately, and then sort by institution name, it adds up to 9.

[ghjk]

Actually your chance of admission for PSU is not that high. They weight the GRE subject test heavily. It is unlikely that they will accept an international student with subject test below 90%. As far as I know, most of the offers were sent out

Really?? 90% for a state school? That's quite insane:P I saw an American applicant who got in with no subject test score. So far, 3 offers have been sent out (http://thegradcafe.com/survey/index.php ... ics&t=a&o=).

Just wanted to point out that there have been 9 offers on GradCafe, not 3. If you search for mathematics and math separately, and then sort by institution name, it adds up to 9.

I tried that, but same result. Don't know where you got 9? Minds showing the link to 9?

[KatrinaElizabeth]

Really?? 90% for a state school? That's quite insane:P I saw an American applicant who got in with no subject test score. So far, 3 offers have been sent out (http://thegradcafe.com/survey/index.php ... ics&t=a&o=).

Just wanted to point out that there have been 9 offers on GradCafe, not 3. If you search for mathematics and math separately, and then sort by institution name, it adds up to 9.

I tried that, but same result. Don't know where you got 9? Minds showing the link to 9?

I'm not sure if this will work.
http://thegradcafe.com/survey/index.php ... =m&o=i&p=8
Bottom of page 7 and top of page 8. Seven results are there. Two more when you replace mathematics with math.

[india_kid4]

Just wanted to point out that there have been 9 offers on GradCafe, not 3. If you search for mathematics and math separately, and then sort by institution name, it adds up to 9.

I tried that, but same result. Don't know where you got 9? Minds showing the link to 9?

I'm not sure if this will work.
http://thegradcafe.com/survey/index.php ... =m&o=i&p=8
Bottom of page 7 and top of page 8. Seven results are there. Two more when you replace mathematics with math.

Here is a combined list of Penn State acceptances to math programs: http://thegradcafe.com/survey/index.php ... te&t=m&o=i

There are 9 acceptances in total.

[pat2211]

Actually, there are not too many students who can break 900 ( I mean 900, not 90 percentile ). Only around 10-20 applicants per year ( and not all of them will attend psu ). If they used to accept students from your school then the transcripts are helpful. They may look at it and see how much advance mathematics you've learned. In this case, you don't need a high subject test score, around 800 is enough. But if you are from an unknown school ( in the sense that they've never accept students from your school ) and your recommenders are not well known then they will only look at the subject test score. They want to make sure that you can pass the qualify exam in your 1st year ( the qual exams of psu are extremely easy, they want their students to start to research as soon as possible ).

[KatrinaElizabeth]

I tried that, but same result. Don't know where you got 9? Minds showing the link to 9?

I'm not sure if this will work.
http://thegradcafe.com/survey/index.php ... =m&o=i&p=8
Bottom of page 7 and top of page 8. Seven results are there. Two more when you replace mathematics with math.

Here is a combined list of Penn State acceptances to math programs: http://thegradcafe.com/survey/index.php ... te&t=m&o=i

There are 9 acceptances in total.

Just learned a new trick! Thanks!

[mathTaughtMeHumility]

Actually, there are not too many students who can break 900 ( I mean 900, not 90 percentile ). Only around 10-20 applicants per year ( and not all of them will attend psu ). If they used to accept students from your school then the transcripts are helpful. They may look at it and see how much advance mathematics you've learned. In this case, you don't need a high subject test score, around 800 is enough. But if you are from an unknown school ( in the sense that they've never accept students from your school ) and your recommenders are not well known then they will only look at the subject test score. They want to make sure that you can pass the qualify exam in your 1st year ( the qual exams of psu are extremely easy, they want their students to start to research as soon as possible ).

10-20 seems too few. 900 is about 97 percentile I think. That would mean only 350-700 take the math GRE in an year, which is definitely not true.

[india_kid4]

I'm not sure if this will work.
http://thegradcafe.com/survey/index.php ... =m&o=i&p=8
Bottom of page 7 and top of page 8. Seven results are there. Two more when you replace mathematics with math.

Here is a combined list of Penn State acceptances to math programs: http://thegradcafe.com/survey/index.php ... te&t=m&o=i

There are 9 acceptances in total.

Just learned a new trick! Thanks!

No problem! The gradcafe search is actually really versatile - it allows you to do OR operators too, so I've got a search query that shows me only pure math PhD acceptances from the places that I've applied too.

[pat2211]

Actually, there are not too many students who can break 900 ( I mean 900, not 90 percentile ). Only around 10-20 applicants per year ( and not all of them will attend psu ). If they used to accept students from your school then the transcripts are helpful. They may look at it and see how much advance mathematics you've learned. In this case, you don't need a high subject test score, around 800 is enough. But if you are from an unknown school ( in the sense that they've never accept students from your school ) and your recommenders are not well known then they will only look at the subject test score. They want to make sure that you can pass the qualify exam in your 1st year ( the qual exams of psu are extremely easy, they want their students to start to research as soon as possible ).

10-20 seems too few. 900 is about 97 percentile I think. That would mean only 350-700 take the math GRE in an year, which is definitely not true.

I mean 10-20 applicants who apply to PSU got this score every year.

[sankha012]

@ghjk Just got rejection letter from Tufts :\

[pat2211]

That's really strange. Tufts rarely declines an applicant with solid profile like you. Btw, have you heard anything new from PSU ?

[sankha012]

No. I am really tensed..I considered Tufts as safety.

[pat2211]

No. I am really tensed..I considered Tufts as safety.

Your undergrad institution is famous. I think your chance for Stony Brook is pretty high. I am waiting for TAMU, haven't heard anything from them

[ghjk]

@ghjk Just got rejection letter from Tufts :\

I'm very sorry to hear:( such a random result...wait for other schools to see what happens...Best of luck!!

[sankha012]

Update : Got rejected by all four

[joga]

Update : Got rejected by all four

Sorry man. Try TIFR i am sure you will be happy there