Applying to the Ph.D. Program
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Our Ph.D. program solicits applications from qualified students from the U.S. and abroad in the Ph.D. program. Students are normally considered only for admission in the fall semester and only for full-time study.
The formal process for applying to the Ph.D. program is handled centrally by the Rutgers office of graduate admissions. Please do not send your application materials directly to the Department of Mathematics or the graduate director. The Graduate Admissions office maintains the online application system. For technical issues related to the online application system, please contact that office directly either via email or by telephone at (732) 932-7711.
Two commonly asked technical questions on the online application system are (a) At what stage should be official transcripts be submitted, and (b) The box for entering personal statement would not allow uploading of formatted text containing math formula.
Regarding (a), our program can review applications based on unofficial transcripts. You may first upload your transcript under File Uploads after you submit your application (there may be a 24 hour waiting period after you submit your online application before you can upload supporting documents; and your application status may still show "Official transcripts have not been received"). The certification of official transcript would be done by the office of Graduate and Professional Admissions at a later date if you are admitted. At that point you would need to have your school send the official transcript directly to Office of Graduate and Professional Admissions Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey 56 College Ave New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8541 U.S.A. as described at http://gradstudy.rutgers.edu/apply/before-you-apply As for (b), you can enter a sentence in the box for personal statement indicating that your full personal statement, as a formatted document, is uploaded under File Uploads.
The official deadline for applications is January 15. Applications submitted by this date are guaranteed full consideration for admission. We accept applications submitted after January 15, though they are not guaranteed full consideration (though generally applications that are one or two weeks late do receive full consideration.)
The basic admission requirements and deadlines are here. Applications to the program must include various supporting materials including transcripts of previous collegiate study, three letters of recommendation, and scores from the general Graduate Record Examination. Scores from the mathematics subject GRE are also required. Applicants who are not native speakers of English are required to submit a TOEFL score. Minimum requirements for TOEFL scores are described here. Note that the minimum scores given on that page are not strictly enforced, but applicants that are more than one or two points below the minimum in any category will be at a disadvantage in applying.
Our normal assumption is that students who apply to our program wish to have financial support, and we will normally only admit those students for whom we can provide financial support. If you are interested in being considered for admission without financial support (for example, you have an external fellowship, or are able to pay tuition and support yourself) then when you apply you should send email to grad-director@math.rutgers.edu indicating that you are interested in being considered for admission to the Ph.D. program without financial support.
To be considered for most types of financial support that we offer, you need only indicate in the appropriate place on the application that you wish to be considered for financial aid. Occasionally we may contact applicants later in the process to ask for further information related to financial aid.
Decisions about admission and financial support are made at the same time. Normally, we will not admit a student to our program unless we can offer financial support. If you are interested in being admitted without support, you should send email to grad-director@math.rutgers.edu indicating this.
The financial support we offer consists of teaching assistantships, graduate (research) assistantships, and fellowships. Our support package includes tuition, medical insurance and a living stipend that our students generally find to be sufficient. In addition to teaching assistantships, we have a number of generous fellowships to offer to highly qualified applicants such as Presidential Fellowships and SAS (School of Arts and Sciences) Fellowships. Here is a link to Further information about financial support
Our admissions program is highly selective. Among approximately 250 applicants for admission for the entering class of Fall, 2016, we made 56 offers, of whom 16 enrolled (9 from the U.S. and 7 from abroad; 6 female). Our applicant pool was split roughly evenly between domestic and foreign applicants.
First year students normally take three core courses, which which require certain pre-requisites. Our selection process is partly aimed at ensuring that admitted students are prepared for these courses. (Qualified students may also be exempted from one or more core courses.)
We solicit inquiries and applications from members of groups which have been historically under-represented in mathematics, such as women and minority groups.
For specific questions regarding the Mathematics Graduate Program, contact the program office. Send email to grad-director@math.rutgers.edu.