<p>Hello, everyone. I’m not applying to grad school yet, but a friend of mine is an undergrad math major (so am I, but that’s another story). He’s looking at grad school in a year or so, and was wondering: how much raw talent does it take to go to grad school for math? He’s no slouch, but by his own admission he’s not a math genius, and I’ve heard it can be tough. His natural talent is in verbal/writing skills, but in his own words math research appeals to him more than writing scholarly articles on literature into his old age. For both of us, committing to an area we don’t excel in as much as we’re used to is a little disconcerting. He’s wondering if there’s any way to evaluate his performance so far, so he can get a little more on track in his next year/year-and-a-half of undergrad. Thanks!</p>
<p>Econphd.net has a list comparing the difficulty of admission into different Ph.D. programs.
PhD Fields in Order of Difficulty of Entry
(The higher up the more difficult)</p>
<p>Computer Science, Physics, Mathematics</p>
<p>Economics</p>
<p>Electrical Engineering, Biology, Chemistry, Chemical Engineering</p>
<p>English, Philosophy</p>
<p>Mechanical Engineering</p>
<p>Psychology</p>
<p>Earth Sciences, Material Science, Political Science, History</p>
<p>Civil Engineering</p>
<p>Industrial Engineering</p>
<p>Anthropology / Archaeology, Art History</p>
<p>Theology, Sociology</p>
<p>Communication</p>
<p>Based on average “quality” and “competitiveness” ranks. List excludes some professionally oriented fields (architecture, business, education, medicine, public administration) that may have distinctive tests and requirements.
If you’re friend is dead set on mathematics then the best course of action would be to talk to his professors about what he should expect in the admissions process. They will have a much better idea of his ability than almost anyone on this forum can provide. However, if your friend is somewhat skilled in verbal/writing skills he may be able to apply his love of math to economics. Granted, one will not be doing pure mathematical research in economics, but you do deal with mathematics extensively and get to conduct statistical research (if you are an econometrician ), and you would use (somewhat) advanced mathematics in constantly. Either way, many a school could use a mathematician who is fairly articulate so his verbal ability would still be useful in teaching mathematics.</p>
<p>I would say, if he enjoys thinking about mathematics just by himself, without anyone asking him to do it, he could be interested in styding it for a long time. If this is the case, the path is to do PhD, since there’s quite a lot of training as in any profession.</p>
<p>Mathematics Ph.D.s can be competitive, but certainly not only for geniuses. I think some hints that this could make sense for him would be if he sometimes gets complimented his math abilities. But, seriously I don’t know how to express, but, I think, it’s something that comes from inside. You either just like math, or not.</p>
<p>Hope that answer to 3-month old question helps :)</p>