Is it really this easy to get into a UC as a pure math major?

mikei
Fri, 04 Jun 2010 00:45:58 +0000

Well, what I’m trying to say is that they’re getting accepted with “low GPAs” because they’re taking harder classes (well, classes that are graded more rigorously). You know what I mean? In every one of the higher math classes I’ve taken there have only been 3-5 A’s out of a class of 30 or so. And from class to class it’s the same 3-5 kids which leads me to believe that there’s only a small handful of kids with 4.0’s who are taking these higher division math classes at my entire community college.

Even though UCB doesn’t require Physics, a lot of math majors who apply to UCB probably have plenty of Physics classes behind their belt. (Another reason why their GPAs may be lower than the GPAs of Sociology majors or whatever.)

There isn’t really a “demand” for math majors by the admissions office. They don’t have some burning desire to accept unqualified math majors! haha But after college there will be a huge demand for you (if you stay with your major).

I read one thing that you wrote that really concerned me: you asked if you needed to know all the problems in your math book. As a math major, you should understand the concepts so well that you should be able to do all problems in every one of your math books. You will not achieve this by memorizing anything… You need to really understand what’s going on. We all think differently but for me that means being able to “feel” and “visualize” concepts and work with them to solve brand new problems that require really out-of-the-box approaches. If you can’t do this then you’ll find all your classes beyond diff eq/lin alg to be incredibly difficult. This is something I personally believe is achieved through extensive practice. Meaning, I don’t think you’re either born with it or not but I feel like it’s something you should get comfortable with.

BTW, I recommend the book Outliers for a nice and inspirational perspective. There’s an interesting chapter on the 10,000 hour rule and I feel like it applies once you really understand how to get your brain to tackle these concepts. (Note how I keep saying “concepts” instead of “problems” because concepts will teach you how to problem solve but studying problems alone will only teach you how to solve those specific and manufactured problems.)