How important is GRE for grad school admissions?

al2simon
Fri, 11 Sep 2015 19:44:05 +0000

Do they give some consideration to American students if the percetile is so greatly influenced by PRC?

To a large extent, internationals compete in a different bucket than domestic students. It will definitely be easier for an American (and a woman) - not only from a GRE score perspective, but from a total perspective as well.

I was last involved in Ph.D. admissions when the wave of PRC applicants was just getting started, and my field wasn’t math. But here’s what I suspect -

1. I think people know that candidates from the PRC are often prepped within an inch of their lives and the GRE scores probably overrepresent the natural talents of some of these students. But there are so many phenomenal international students who want to go to the top US grad schools that the schools can just raise their “cutoffs” very high when looking at international students from the usual countries.

2. I think math is a bit different than the sciences since in the sciences usually 1/2 the students are doing experiment rather than theory. They’ll cut more slack for an experimental student than for a theory student on the GREs since they’re working in the lab, but that option doesn’t exist for math students so they’ll be a bit stricter when looking at GRE scores. You have to compare math students to science theory students. Even still, the math subject GRE is definitely not the most important factor. Also, I think it’s easier to hit the top of the range on the physics GRE than the math GRE.

I think QuantMech knows more about the current state of funding for Ph.D. programs than I do. I’m sure (s)he is right that almost all math Ph.D. students are funded. But there’s funding and there’s funding. Here’s how it worked 20 years ago -

1. A fellowship is best; an RA with your advisor is a close 2nd; a TA is the 3rd choice. Although I think every Ph.D. student should teach for a few semesters just to get the experience, it can be a chore after a while - it’s not just the time but the interruption to your mental concentration if you’re focused on your research. The ideal is if your department offers you a fellowship for the 1st year so you can concentrate on passing qualifiers, then a combination of fellowships and RAs for the next few years.

Fellowships are often competitively awarded, so it’s worth trying to put your best foot forward on your application.

2. The amount of funding and how many years it is “guaranteed” for matters too. I was on an NSF fellowship, which was considered a pretty good deal at the time. Currently, an NSF fellowship covers tuition and gives you a $32,000 year stipend, and at least in the old days your advisor could give you another 11K for the 3 summer months. With $32,000 or $43,000 /year to cover living expenses you can concentrate on your research and get done better / faster.

Some schools may give you an award where you have to teach or may not offer enough money and students have to supplement their income. Or they may not be able to support all their students past the 5th or 6th year. Or you may only be able to work with professors who have grant money to give out (the usual case). You have to check all this stuff out when you are comparing admissions offers.