Between small class sizes, accessibility of professors and weekly seminars delivered by mathematics faculty, students have many paths to build connections and refine their research ideas.
See individual program pages for application deadlines. Applications received after the deadline will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
Collaboration with other students and faculty is a defining quality of the Mathematics Department. Many students study together for courses and exams and collaborate on research. TAs sometimes visit each others' recitations and offer advice and constructive criticism. We encourage students to use their peers as resources, while ensuring that they continue to develop their capacity for individual work.
The Mathematics Department office houses a bulletin board where students are encouraged to post mathematical problems, news, announcements and grant and prize opportunities.
Subject GRE scores are encouraged but not required. We do not want to exclude applicants who choose to not take it; all applications to our program receive full consideration.
When deciding whether to take the GRE subject exam, please consider that it can help round out the information we gather from your letters of recommendation and transcripts (to which we give much attention).
Grade point average (GPA) of at least 3.0 is preferred. Applicants with a GPA below 3.0 will not be rejected outright, but the letter of recommendation and transcripts must demonstrate that the applicant is academically prepared for the program.
Transcripts are required, and we strongly encourage applicants to include courses that do not appear on the official transcript.
Letter(s) of recommendation are required, with the number depending on the program. The most informative letters generally come from your professors in recent, advanced mathematics courses and from those who have supervised any mathematical work of an advanced nature, whether that be coursework (e.g., in GW's SPWM program, Penn State's MASS program, or a Budapest Semester in Mathematics) or independent research (e.g., in a summer REU program or a research program at your undergraduate institution). We certainly like to hear about strong performances in classes, but letters should give us information that we cannot gather from your transcript alone. For example, we'd like to get a sense of your degree of motivation, your level of mathematical insight and your capacity for hard work.
Recommendation letters should give us a sense of your prospects for success in graduate mathematics courses and independent mathematical research. Letters from work supervisors, from professors in disciplines other than mathematics or from professors who have not seen your work since you took calculus are typically of little help.
Applicants to the Graduate Certificate in Mathematics program should note several exceptions to the general graduate program admissions requirements:
