<p>Do grad schools generally want students to have undergraduate experience and does attending undergraduate math conferences help? Like PCUMC?</p>
<p>I think getting research experience (this shows grad schools that you know what grad school is going to be like), taking grad courses (again, the same thing) and doing well on the GRE’s is the best way to get into the best possible grad school. </p>
<p>What year are you right now? If you are an underclassmen, try to get involved in the math department. Start going to office hours, start trying to get ahead in your current courses. If they see you are excelling in undergrad analysis or undergrad algebra, they will encourage you to take grad analysis, grad algebra. In addition to that, they will also write you nice recommendations for REU’s, grad applications, etc.</p>
<p>I emailed every professor in my department during my junior year (I also got a very late start to being a math major, end of my sophomore year is when I took my first course on proofs) and a few of them replied back and those are the ones I worked with. </p>
<p>I don’t know if they really care about attending a conference, it’s nice to attend and it’s good to get the experience, but in terms of that helping them decide whether to admit you or student Y, I don’t see that making a dent.</p>