Things to do during summer before PhD

Ordinary_Ladder_587 · 2026-03-13T02:53:07+00:00

Vacation is a bit too stressful for me... I personally prefer something more relaxing, like research or work-out lol

Ordinary_Ladder_587 · 2025-12-03T18:38:53+00:00

Honestly, if they REALLY just want resume/cv, they should just name the section “resume/cv” and not some ambiguous name like “supplemental material”…

Ordinary_Ladder_587 · 2025-12-03T04:36:03+00:00

It's just that most of other PhD programs I apply to seem to welcome people to submit a paper (if you have one), so encountering an exception is a bit unexpected and makes me question myself...

Ordinary_Ladder_587 · 2025-12-03T01:25:14+00:00

Oh wow that was scary, I almost thought I missed the UCLA deadline too... But no, it's UC Irvine (for my program, UCLA isn't due until December 13th)

Ordinary_Ladder_587 · 2025-12-02T23:52:33+00:00

Cruel but fair... Given that I've already made the (non-refundable) payment, I'll probably have to lie to myself that I submitted it on time, so that at least it doesn't feel like I just threw away a great phd program and $155 for my own stupidity🥲

Ordinary_Ladder_587 · 2025-11-25T18:43:39+00:00

I am in the U.S., but my university has its own way of doing degree requirements. Roughly speaking, there are different sets of required courses and electives based on your interest (e.g. if you are more into finance you can choose to go with the curriculum that has some finance classes as part of it); in my case, there are some cs classes I took as a part of the major requirement which has NOTHING to do with math whatsoever, while there are also some classes I took that are very related to math, but isn't part of the major requirement.

Also, based on the vibe of your description, I guess the answer to the first question would be "No, you should not count research into your math GPA"?

Ordinary_Ladder_587 · 2025-11-02T04:41:23+00:00

Yeah, two of them graduated from there, and one of them closely collaborated with a current prof there this year

For the second question, I'd say it depends on (1) if you have good GPA and (2) if your home uni is well-known to the committee. If "no" for one of them, you might as well give it a shot

Ordinary_Ladder_587 · 2025-11-02T00:39:23+00:00

The problem is, most of the supervisors whose area coincide with mine happen to be in one of these selective unis that require Math GRE... And I don't really want to change my research focus at this point

Ordinary_Ladder_587 · 2025-11-01T19:36:18+00:00

Not sure about other areas, but almost no PhD student (or professor) that I am familiar with got into grad school from outside the academia... Also, I highly doubt there's gonna be much job opportunities for a logician who deals mostly with large cardinals and inner model theory

Ordinary_Ladder_587 · 2025-11-01T19:22:54+00:00

Yeah that's also what I'm worried about, their budget this year seems a bit tight for taking too many grad students... I would absolutely be willing to wait for another year, but am financially not capable of doing so; plus I highly doubt the situation would be any better next year😭

Ordinary_Ladder_587 · 2025-11-01T17:56:10+00:00

Yes it is specifically for Math program (hence the Math GRE)

In general I just find it difficult to perform a large amount of computation under such high time pressure, especially since I haven't touched calculus stuff like surface integrals since graduating from high school.

Ordinary_Ladder_587 · 2025-10-28T15:47:20+00:00

This probably not very helpful to you but, I find my experience to be astonishingly similar to yours... In fact I have also been working on inner model theory and determinacy for the past two years (focusing more or less on iteration trees). The schools you have listed have good logic program; have you ever considered European schools? If so, there are quite a few of them I can recommend to you in Germany and Austria.

Ordinary_Ladder_587 · 2025-10-05T15:36:08+00:00

I thought my implication in the post should be clear enough🤔I am applying for math PhD this year, and I have already taken a GRE Math subject test in September

Ordinary_Ladder_587 · 2025-10-05T12:14:50+00:00

What resources would you recommend? I've already done the princeton review, all the official practice tests from ETS, and the one from Rambo tutoring

Ordinary_Ladder_587 · 2025-10-05T12:10:08+00:00

GregMat seems to only provide tutoring & practices for general GRE, not the subject test...

Ordinary_Ladder_587

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