Ask HN: Any Tips for Applying to Berkeley or Stanford?

[brentr]

This morning I woke up and checked the temperature. It is currently -18 degrees. This is much too cold for me, and I am seriously considering crossing off Michigan and anything in New England for grad school. As a result, I am now thinking about some schools on the west coast. Does anyone have any tips for applying to Berkeley or Stanford's mathematics program? Were you already published? Besides good grades and GRE scores, did you feel you needed something more to get into either of these schools?

[lacker]

The most important thing is your recommendations. If you have three professors who went to a top-tier school, and who will give you a good recommendation, then you should get in.

So, how to get a good recommendation. Just ask your professors, would you give me a recommendation, and would you expect me to get in. If they are actually going to give you a good recommendation, they will tell you that they definitely expect you to get in. If they are sort of noncommittal, you are probably going to get a mediocre recommendation. Ask them what you would need to do to be a great candidate. Then do that.

Publication helps of course, especially in convincing your professors to give you a good rec. If you don't have any publications or ideas on how to get some, you might try a REU.

[cperciva]

Does anyone have any tips for applying to Berkeley or Stanford's mathematics program?

Win the Putnam. :-)

[brentr → cperciva]

I already have my first bachelor's degree, therefore, I cannot take the exam.

[palish → cperciva]

Any other tips?

[cperciva → palish]

In most cases it makes sense to pick the supervisor and then go wherever he is, rather than picking the university. I've heard people say that the relationship a student has with his supervisor is the second most important one in his life, after the relationship he has with his spouse; I've also heard people dispute this and argue that the supervisor is more important.

Of course, in order to be in a position to pick a good supervisor, you need to make yourself attractive. Do research; publish papers; go to conferences and present your work there; talk to other people in your field. Faculty are always looking for more good graduate students, and meeting them at conferences will give you a chance to figure out if you get on well with them at a personal level.

That said, I did almost none of the above -- but I was a special case, in that I didn't particularly need any supervision (I'm pretty certain that I literally saw my supervisor less than two dozen times while I was a graduate student, and interacted far fewer times than that).

[njoubert]

Recommendations and research experience (published if possible) is absolutely the dealbreaker