Graduate school self-doubt (currently an undergraduate)

Question

I don't know if this is the right place for such a question, so please redirect me to a more appropriate place if necessary.

My main question is, if you go to a small school, are you doomed to fail right from the get-go? My secondary question is, what are my options then, if I am indeed doomed to "fail"? The following is more of a personal description, so obviously it doesn't apply to everyone, which would make the question "not general enough", but I suspect that there are many others caught in a similar situation.

I'm going to be a senior (fourth-year) in the fall (August) and am currently doing my "homework" on graduate school admissions. I go to a small liberal arts college in the Midwest that you've almost certainly never heard of (we hover around 90-110 on the usnews.com ranking, and only offer a Bachelor's in math). From what I've read and heard, I'm extremely discouraged and I'd say I'm borderline depressed about my future, but the truth is, I don't really want to do anything else other than learn more math (and get a PhD in the process if I'm capable of it).

Some background information: I'm an international student (from Asia) majoring in math and computer science, and minoring in philosophy. I currently have a 4.0/4.0 GPA in each of these concentrations, and a 3.99/4.0 overall GPA, but of course, this doesn't mean much at all to admissions committees, given the obscurity of my school.

I like to think that I've worked very hard (but everyone says the same thing). In an awkwardly backwards fashion, I took topology, complex analysis, and algebra in my first year; real analysis, statistics, graph theory, and set theory in my second; and number theory and Galois theory in my third. I've been told that none of my coursework means much to graduate schools simply because of the obscurity of my school. Furthermore, much as I can get a great recommendation letter from pretty much anyone in my department, I've heard that since none of them is "relatively well-known" in their area, and everyone who applies to graduate schools gets glowing reviews anyway, I can't compete with other applicants at all.

I've taken the Putnam twice, but have only gotten a 21 each time. I've gone through all of Herstein, a little more than half (i.e., as much as I could) of Rudin, most of Hoffman/Kunze, and the first half of Munkres. Of course, none of these texts are actually used at my school. In other words, I don't think I've given any less than I'm physically capable of in the last three years, and if that isn't enough, I really shudder to think what is.

I haven't taken the GRE yet but am currently studying for it. But it's no secret that the GRE is a relatively silly measure of grad school success. A bad score would condemn me to eternal hell, but a good score isn't a direct ticket to success.

I've heard the "anything can happen ... who's to say that you can't succeed ... people from small schools have gotten into big schools" argument, but in all realisticness, there's absolutely no reason to pick me over a Princeton graduate who has the exact same credentials, and there are tons of them. So what are my best options given this reality?

Any advice/encouragement/experiences would be very much appreciated. Thank you.

Answer 1

I think a good place to start is not to be so down on your school. You didn't go to princeton, but it doesn't sound like you went to a bad school. And at your school it sounds like you have done exceptionally well and have tried to do as much as possible within the limitations of your situation. If you had gone to an "obscure" school and done poorly, then there might be an issue.

One thing to emphasize, both in whatever statements you write for the applications and in your recommendations is your potential. Tell the people writing your letters about all the extra work you have done to try and empress upon them the effort you have put in so far and would be willing to put in at a graduate school. While your recommenders may not be well known, at a small school they do have the chance to get to know you really well and that benefit shouldn't be underestimated.

Once you have an idea of what you would like to study and where you would like to go, try contacting some people at those schools in those areas. Tell them who you are, what you would like to do, and if they had any advice for someone preparing for graduate school. Ask for some papers that would serve as good introductions to research. Many will be happy to do that for you, and you will have a contact at that school that knows who you are and sees that you already want to start doing some work. These are both good things.

And when you are looking at schools, apply to a wide range. When I applied at the end of my senior year (also at a small midwestern liberal arts school), I didn't get in anywhere. So I took a year off, took a grad class at the University of Iowa, got a job at a community college, and reapplied. The second time I lowered the general range of schools, still applying to some good ones but including more lower tier programs, and I got in.

I think it worked out for me. Just because you don't go to a great school doesn't mean you can't get in somewhere. And once you are in you can do the work to make a name for yourself. You can try a masters first, or go straight to a PhD, but you can still succeed.

Answer 2

You've gotten some good advice so far; permit me to chime in with the perspective of someone on the other side of the lectern. I've been teaching at small liberal arts colleges for longer (far longer) than any of my current students have been alive and over the years my colleagues and I have seen many of our majors accepted at good-quality graduate schools, both for Master's and Ph.D. programs. Let me get your major question out of the way immediately

[I]f you go to a small school, are you doomed to fail right from the get-go?

This is easy to answer: no! as I've mentioned above.

Now that that's out of the way, I first need to back up a little and ask you the question you should ask yourself,

Why do I want to get a Ph.D.?

The process of obtaining a Doctorate is long and, frankly, painful. If you've decided put your life on hold for five to seven hard and exasperating years, you'd better have a good reason. If your goal is to continue doing mathematics and eventually producing results of your own that add to the body of what is known, that's commendable. If you view the Ph.D. as a high-falutin' teaching certificate and see yourself as primarily a college professor, that's also commendable. If, on the other hand, you're contemplating merely drifting into a way to keep doing what you're good at, it might be a good idea to ask yourself whether there might be some other way to spend the next few years, since a Doctorate in mathematics won't help you very much in the Real World outside of academia and may actually harm more than help in eventually landing a job out there.

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For the purpose of discussion, let's assume that you have thought long and hard and decided, "Yup, I really want to get that diploma," how can you get your foot in the door? You've earned superb grades in what looks to me to be a reasonably solid undergraduate curriculum. For all but the applicants for the very top schools, that will work in your favor, though you're correct in your assessment that good grades will be a small part of the admissions committee's view of you. Similarly, the GRE will also be a small part of your total package---those scores will primarily be a check for the Committee to ensure that you're not a hopeless idiot. On the other hand, you probably won't have any Fields medalists among your letters of reference, but that's not as bad as it may seem, especially if any recent graduates from your college have made it into a school for which you're applying.

Reference letters are the single most important part of your package, hands down. No matter where you did your undergraduate work and no matter who's writing your letters, the sentence "X was the best student I've seen in ten years" will loom large in the eyes of the Committee. If your English is excellent, make sure one or more of your letters mentions that, since universities are always on the lookout for good teaching assistant material.

Is there an area of math that really excites you? If so, check for universities with strong programs in that area and mention that in your personal statement. It's already been mentioned that it might be a good idea to write to faculty members at your target school and ask about what they're doing in the area of your interest before you submit your application.

That said, where should you apply? I agree that a top-tier graduate school is probably a stretch, though that shouldn't rule out trying for one or two. Who knows, you might get lucky? On the other hand, you probably shouldn't limit yourself to universities whose motto on their seal is "Plenty of Free Parking." There are plenty of respectable universities between those two extremes and for the time being they still need a crop of good applicants (which you are). As I said, we've sent a lot of students off to grad schools and I can't recall a case where one of our students failed to get into at least one of the schools to which they applied. Your task over the next few months is to research those middle-tier schools that look like the best fit for you.

As Ragib and Francis mentioned, getting a Master's degree first isn't all that bad an idea. At least, it might give you an idea about whether going on for the Doctorate is what you want to do (that's what I did, though for different reasons). If you go that route, do your best to make yourself stand out from the crowd, so your subsequent letters will reflect that. Keep in mind, though, that you'll have to dig up the money to pay for your education, since graduate schools rarely offer financial support for Master's students (though many will provide full support for Ph.D. students).

Finally, I fully agree with some of the other answers: don't be discouraged. Things are nowhere near as bad as you've painted them. If that's what you want, you'll almost certainly succeed. Best of luck---keep us posted.

Answer 3

Currently the road I'm considering: Aim for smaller steps up the ladder.

If we were to divide schools up into 3 levels, where your current one is 3, your desired PhD program at 1, then apply to do Masters degrees at schools of level 2. It will probably have to be a 2 year Masters (instead of a 1 year) because otherwise you have to file PhD applications before you can get good recommendations.

This isn't necessarily 2 years wasted, because in this time you do many things you would otherwise do in the first year or two of a PhD program, such as learning more mathematics and honing in on what area you want to research in. If you use those 2 years wisely, impress the faculty and work your butt off, then you could end up with a strong enough case to get into your goal PhD school.

Digression: I'd just like you (the OP) to know, this is a problem that keeps me up at night as well. The best we can do is keep trying, work hard and have hope.

Answer 4

Your brain does not function like a computer program that crashes if some detail of some course prerequisite is missing. There is a huge latitude concerning what can and should be presented in any undergraduate course, and what you take away is a general sense of familiarity and comfortableness, and, to put it simply, the ability to look stuff up. So, if you've been working hard and haunting the library, dipping into lots of texts, then there is a decent chance that you can fill in the gaps as they arise, even if your courses covered less than those in some fancy big-name school.

There is often a big gap between undergraduate and graduate courses, in terms of prerequisites, and the size of this gap varies widely across institutions. Some schools just dump you in the water and tell you to have a nice day, others guide and mentor you to a degree that some might even find annoying. Make sure you assess this quality when you are choosing a school.

As far as which school will accept you, what's the point of worrying? Apply and see what happens. No matter where you go, there will be just a few people who are really important, and you can find such people pretty much anywhere, especially these days when serious mathematicians are waiting in line for jobs at community colleges.

Answer 5

Encouragement: Have more self-confidence!

Bertrand Russell: “The trouble with the world is that the stupid are so confident while the intelligent are full of doubt.”

Despite your self-doubt, you are clearly an intelligent guy (I believe few people take topology in their first year).

Anyway, I believe that not being in a famous big-name school is not the end of the world. Many mathematicians (recently see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liu_Lu who solved the Seetapun Enigma) did not come from the best of universities. Even Galois was rejected from Ecole Polytechnique -- twice.

Ultimately, I think it is the individual that matters most; the university is important but still a secondary matter.

Wishing you all the best of luck. I need it too -- I am in the same situation as you, only worse as I am not studying in U.S.