UIC or Wake Forest for MS?

Forum for the GRE subject test in mathematics.
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corkquark
Posts: 31
Joined: Wed Feb 08, 2023 11:53 am

UIC or Wake Forest for MS?

Post by corkquark » Wed Apr 05, 2023 10:15 am

Hi all.

Having massive difficulty deciding between the two. I prefer UIC’s location but Wake’s program is much smaller (basically 1:1 faculty:student) and maybe offers more support. That being said, only UIC has a doctoral program and is like twice to three times as big as Wake so has many more opportunities for different research areas. I have a slight interest in topology.

Can anyone advise?
Thank you so much!

aoi_teal
Posts: 9
Joined: Sun Feb 20, 2022 4:46 pm

Re: UIC or Wake Forest for MS?

Post by aoi_teal » Wed Apr 05, 2023 1:45 pm

I go to a liberal arts college in undergrad so my experience of studying math in a small school might be similar to being in Wake Forest. You are right that small programs usually could provide more supports. When I was first in college I was a bit intimidated by pure math and didn't think I was smart enough to do pure math research. Professors in my school are so nice, supportive and patient, and definitely served as an important reason/trigger of going to grad schools for me. That being said, as I became a junior/senior I quickly ran out of classes to take, and because the dept is small it's hard to find a professor whose research field is exactly what I'm interested in.

When I applied for grad schools, my professors basically all told me to go to big public schools for similar reasons you said about UIC, unless I have a professor in a small school that I'm determined to work with.

In general, it definitely depends on where you are in your pure math study path. If you haven't learnt much math and you are not sure whether you want to do a PhD after your MS, I'd say go to Wake Forest. Otherwise UIC seems like a better option. I'm only saying this based on school size. I don't know anything about their research strength.



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