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Potential offer?

Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2021 2:10 am
by smooth_manifold
Hi! I emailed UC Santa Barbara about the status of my application and they said they have sent out the first wave of offers and will send few more offers in the upcoming weeks. They asked me about the offers I have gotten so far.

There is a post here that addresses this query and suggests not to mention any top offers or offer from a place that is ranked better than the one inquiring. In my case, I have gotten into Ohio State. But I am not sure which one of them is better or more reputed. Here are the rankings:

UCSB: QS (overall): 152, QS Maths: 151-200, US News (Overall): 30, US News Maths: 39
OSU: QS (overall): 108, QS Maths: 51-100, US News (Overall): 53, US News Maths: 26

It's not that easy to judge them from these. UCSB is probably more selective than OSU, I reckon. It's also a part of the UC schools and is a ~2hr ride to LA airport.

Should I tell them I have gotten into Ohio State? I don't want to miss out on UCSB as it is a good school and the location and weather are superb.

I would really appreciate any suggestions.

Re: Potential offer?

Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2021 7:51 am
by karlweierstrass
IMHO, the Math department at Ohio is much more diverse and vast. Their grad students speak very nicely of OSU and the life there. If you go by rankings, it is pretty obvious Ohio beats UCSB.

Maybe UCSB does a thing or two better than OSU, but if you go by the overall Maths department, OSU is the clear winner.

Re: Potential offer?

Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2021 4:05 pm
by letepsilonbelarge
They asked me about the offers I have gotten so far.
Ask one of your professors/recommendation letter writers for advice on how to proceed. They have much more experience than anyone here on this forum on how to navigate math academia politics (which for better or worse is a necessary skill).

I was in a similar position and my professors advised that I only mention my concrete offers, and not any waitlist positions. Of course, advice will depend on what schools you've heard back from, and again, your professors have much more learned perspective on each school.

Re: Potential offer?

Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2021 6:53 pm
by smooth_manifold
letepsilonbelarge wrote:
Sun Feb 14, 2021 4:05 pm
They asked me about the offers I have gotten so far.
Ask one of your professors/recommendation letter writers for advice on how to proceed. They have much more experience than anyone here on this forum on how to navigate math academia politics (which for better or worse is a necessary skill).

I was in a similar position and my professors advised that I only mention my concrete offers, and not any waitlist positions. Of course, advice will depend on what schools you've heard back from, and again, your professors have much more learned perspective on each school.

Thanks for the advice. My letter writers are from Asia and they hardly ever engage in research. They are totally unaware of both OSU and UCSB and couldn't offer me any advice. That's why I asked this here. From the stats on this website, it looks like OSU and UCSB are pretty close in prestige. Maybe I should just mention OSU in my email and get it over with. I don't think it's easy to say which one of them is better unequivocally.

Re: Potential offer?

Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2021 10:05 pm
by lee_34
smooth_manifold wrote:
Sun Feb 14, 2021 6:53 pm
letepsilonbelarge wrote:
Sun Feb 14, 2021 4:05 pm
They asked me about the offers I have gotten so far.
Ask one of your professors/recommendation letter writers for advice on how to proceed. They have much more experience than anyone here on this forum on how to navigate math academia politics (which for better or worse is a necessary skill).

I was in a similar position and my professors advised that I only mention my concrete offers, and not any waitlist positions. Of course, advice will depend on what schools you've heard back from, and again, your professors have much more learned perspective on each school.

Thanks for the advice. My letter writers are from Asia and they hardly ever engage in research. They are totally unaware of both OSU and UCSB and couldn't offer me any advice. That's why I asked this here. From the stats on this website, it looks like OSU and UCSB are pretty close in prestige. Maybe I should just mention OSU in my email and get it over with. I don't think it's easy to say which one of them is better unequivocally.

I will say OSU is more prestigious than UCSB for their math program. Since you are applying for math program, the ranking for math is more important than the ranking for the overall school. For example Dartmouth College (No offense to those who go there, I just need an example) is ranked 13 for national university (US ranking) but their math graduate program is only ranked 53 (US ranking). When you start your graduate program, you will probably only interact with math people unless you are doing applied math and you do research with non-math people, like bio, ecology, physics, etc. Well, I think both are good schools. Better choose the one whose research sounds more interesting to you.