Pure Mathematics PhD admission results

[buckyball]

Oh, great job "zw849"!!

According to the practice book in the GRE website, it says the perfect scores of 66 is rescaled to 890. This is why many people (including me) think the highest score is 890.

[happyentropy]

Top Programs at Universities in US 2007
These are specialt sub-rankings from US News 2007 (copied to a different source, since to get them directly from US News you have to pay).
Algebra/Number Theory/Algebraic Geometry rankings:
1 Harvard University
2 University of California Berkeley
3 Princeton University
4 University of Michigan Ann Arbor
5 The University of Chicago
6 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
7 Columbia University,The School of General Studies
8 Yale University
9 University of Wisconsin Madison
10 University of California Los Angeles
University of Illinois Urbana Champaign
12 Stanford University
13 Brown University
The Ohio State University,Columbus
15 Rutgers University New Brunswick
16 California Institute of Technology
Northwestern University
The University of Texas at Austin
The University of Utah
20 University of California San Diego
21 Johns Hopkins University

[mathgrad]

Math GRE

Well,the practice book gives the conversion scale used in 1997,and in those days(in pre-Oct 1,2001 era),the Math GRE used to be different.It was NOT Mathematics(Rescaled Test).And there is some information about "forms" in page 7 of that booklet,in which the (1,1)th entry of the first matrix is 900.By the way,do you know that in those "good old days",18% of the candidates used to get 990(=99%)?(source:MAth GRE rescaled booklet,page 3).I am not sure whether the upper bound now is 900 or 990,or whether that depends on the "form" you get.

[mathgrad]

Happyentropy ,thanks for your list of rankings!The ranking gives a lot of weightage to size of the university,isn't it?I thought Princeton(closely followed by Harvard) was considered the undisputed best by all mathematicians,but I haven't seen a single report till date in which Princeton is No.1.

[buckyball]

One more thing...As far as I can remember, my GRE test consisted of 66 items. But, amazingly, I added up my omits/wrongs/corrects to 65!! Do you know why?

Probably, I got "Form C" as in the page Mathgrad refered to?

[mathgrad]

Buckyball, well exactly the same thing happened to me.I don't know why!I hope the scores ETS sent me are my own.

[openthought42]

I should just point out that Happyentropy's rankings are specific to Algebra/Number Theory/Algebraic Geometry, as he stated. It is really important to talk to faculty to find out who is good for what. You'll notice that Chicago, MIT, Columbia are all below UMich, but in terms of general respect/esteem this is not the case.

It is generally believed that the top 6 programs are Princeton, Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Chicago, and Berkeley. However, if you want to work with John Baez, and he is at UCR, then it is something to consider, but if your interests shift you could be screwed.

I thought the following blog post was very informative:

Congrats, you’ve got PhD offers… now what? « An American Physics Student in England

It is written by a physicist, but the lessons are generally applicable.

[deadskunk]

My mistake on the GRE score range. I assumed based on the practice test. I did, however, get an email from Penn informing me that I've been recommended for admission (in spite of my sub-900 GRE score).

[zw849]

Stanford is sending rejections all over the place now.

[deadskunk]

I forgot to mention in my last message that the email from Penn had no financial information.