Admissions
To request application forms for admission and financial
aid and additional information on the Ph.D. program in mathematics,
please go to the web site
http://www.gsas.harvard.edu or write to the
with all other requests, please write to the Graduate Studies Coordinator of the Mathematics department.
Here are the addresses and links:
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All graduate students are admitted to begin their studies
in the fall semester.
We plan on an entering class of about ten to twelve students.
Since we normally get over two hundred applications,
the competition is keen. Financial aid in the form of
scholarships and/or Teaching Fellowships is available.
In general students without outside support will get
scholarship support in their first year, but are required
to act as a teaching fellow for one half course (i.e. for
a one semester course) in their second through fourth years
and for two half courses if they stay for a fifth year.
We do not grant a terminal Master's, but a Master's degree can be obtained "on the way" to the Ph.D. by fulfilling certain course and language exam requirements. In general, there isn't a "transfer" status of application to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, nor to the Department of Mathematics. There is no formal "credit" given for an M.Sc. or M.A. and you would be considered as a first-year applicant along with all others applying. Once you arrive, the only difference that your degree will make is that you might be in a better position to prepare for our Qualifying Exam, which is required of all students.
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Guide To Graduate Study
The Ph.D. program of the Harvard Department of Mathematics is
designed to help motivated students to develop their understanding
and enjoyment of mathematics. It seems to be generally the case
that enjoyment and understanding of the subject, as well as
enthusiasm in teaching it, are greater when one is actively
thinking about mathematics in one's own way. For this reason,
a thesis involving some original research is a fundamental part
of the program. The stages in this program may be
described as follows:
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The Qualifying Exam
| The qualifying exam in mathematics is designed to measure the breadth of a student's knowledge in mathematics. The exam may identify those areas in which a student's knowledge is weak. Passing the exam is an indication that a student is ready to begin more specialized study leading to research work. The exam is given at the very start of each semester. A student may take the exam as often as (s)he likes. There is absolutely no stigma attached to `failing' the exam. `Failing' it may well provide more useful information than `passing' it. `Passing' the exam early is mainly an indication that a student has been an undergraduate at a university with a broad undergraduate program in mathematics. It is not a good predictor of the quality of the eventual PhD thesis. Students are strongly encouraged to first take the exam no later than their second semester. Before passing the qualifying exam, students should take three beginning 200 level (or 100 level) math courses each semester. In a semester in which they are teaching they need only take two such courses. After passing the qualifying exam students are usually excused from grades in any math courses they take. Students are expected to pass the qualifying exam by the end of their second year. The exam consists of three three hour papers on three consecutive days. Each paper typically has 6 questions covering a broad range of mathematics. The questions aim to test your ability to solve concrete problems by identifying and applying important theorems. They should not require great ingenuity. In any given year the exam may not cover every topic on the syllabus, but it should cover a broadly representative set of quals/topics and over time all quals/topics should be examined. |
The Qualifying Exam Syllabus
The syllabus is divided into 6 areas. In each case we suggest (sections of)
a book to more carefully define the syllabus. The examiners are asked to
limit their questions to major quals/topics covered in (these sections of) these
books. We have tried to choose books we think are good. However there are
many good books and others might better suit your needs. In each case we
divide the syllabus into two sections. Section U is material which are
usually covered in our undergraduate, not our graduate, courses. Section G
is material usually taught at the graduate level. Where appropriate we
list courses which will cover some of this material.
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Some Old Qualifying Exams
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Some old departmental qualifying exams are available here: | Some PDF files of questions arranged by topics. | Collected by Danny Calegari and Tom Coates source. |
Teaching Requirements
For those students without outside support: In your first year we automatically
offer you the full departmental stipend and you have no obligation to teach.
In your second, third and fourth years we offer you half the departmental
stipend without an obligation to teach, and you are required to teach to
cover the other half of the stipend. However we cap the teaching you are
required to do: if you teach one section of calculus, or the equivalent, and
this does not pay half the annual departmental stipend we will supplement
your pay up to that level. In your fifth (and subsequent) years you are
required to teach to cover your whole stipend. However again we cap the
teaching required: if your teach 2 sections of calculus, or the equivalent,
and this does not pay the annual departmental stipend we will supplement your
pay up to that level.
There are of course other possibilities, which will be judged on an ad hoc basis, but this list gives an idea of what is expected. Every student, whether or not they have outside support, are required to have two semesters of classroom teaching experience during their time here, as preparation for their likely future role as teachers. If you are not required to teach as part of your financial aid package, then the pay for this teaching will simply supplement your other sources of support. The department will help you to find the teaching jobs you are required to have. While we would like to accommodate your preferences for what sort of job you would like to have, we are working under many constraints. It is necessary to balance your preferences with those of other graduate students and the needs of the department. If you have done a good and conscientious job on your previous teaching assignments, you are more likely to get your preference in subsequent years. You should make your teaching plans well in advance and in consultation with the department. You should not change them at short notice. If you are making satisfactory academic progress and if you can find the jobs, you may teach beyond the minimal requirement outlined above. If you do so, whatever money you make will be in addition to your usual stipend. In assigning teaching positions, first preference will be given to those required to teach. After that positions will be allocated to those with the strongest teaching credentials. Here are some typical examples of the above policy. I will use 03/04 figures.
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Professional Development
This part of the page was put together by Stephanie Yang.
Writing papers and submitting themApplying for jobsWriting a CV
Writing a Cover Sheet
Research StatementsWriting letters of recommendation |
Senior Faculty Research Interests
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How to obtain copies of past Ph.D. theses
| In general, past Ph.D. theses from any university can be obtained from: | Past Harvard Ph.D. theses may be obtained directly from: | ||
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The request must be sent in writing. They may reply with e-mail if you
include your address, and will state the cost. Upon receipt of
the requested dollar amount, they will send you a copy. Since 2001, the titles of dissertations are listed online: 2001: 2001 Source:Klenke, Tomas Antonius Modular Varieties and Visibility 2001 June 14376 Mann, William Russell Local Level-Raising for GLn 2001 June 14376 Pollack, Robert Jordan On the p -adic L -function of a Modular Form at Supersingular Prime 2001 June 14376 Savitt, David Lawrence Modularity of Some Potentially Barsotti-Tate Galois Representations 2001 June 14376 Vologodsky, Vadim Hodge Structure on the Fundamental Group and Its Application to p-adic Integration 2001 June 14376 Warrington, Gregory Saunders Kazhdan-Lusztig Polynomials, Pattern Avoidance and Singular Loci of Schubert Varieties 2001 June 14376 Williams, Samuel Rufus Mod p L -functions and Analytic Kolyvagin Systems 2001 June 14376 2002: 2002 SourceArinkin, Dmitro Olexandrovich Fourier Transform for Quantized Completely Integrable Systems 2002 June 14593 DeMarco, Laura Grace Holomorphic Families of Rational Maps: Dynamics, Geometry, and Potential Theory 2002 June 14593 Grushevsky, Samuel Effective Schottky Problem 2002 June 14593 LiBine, Matvei A Localization Argument for Characters of Reductive Lie Groups 2002 June 14593 Liu, Chiu-Chu Melissa Moduli of J-Holomorphic Curves with Lagrangian Boundary Conditions 2002 June 14593 Mantovan, Elena On Certain Unitary Group Shimura Varieties 2002 June 14593 Scott, Ralph H. III Closed Self-Dual Two-Forms on Four-Dimensional Handlebodies 2002 November 14716 Trifkovic, Mak On Mu-Invariants of Elliptic Curves over Q 2002 June 14593 Yang, Huan Hecke Algebra Action on Siegel Modular Forms 2002 June 14593 2003: 2003 SourceChen, Jiun-Cheng Flops and Equivalences of Derived Categories for Threefolds with only Terminal Gorenstein Singularities 2003 June 14883 Cheng, Hsiao-Bing Li-Yau-Hamilton Estimate For the Ricci Flow 2003 June 14883 Clark, Pete L. Rational Points on Atkin-Lehner Quotients of Shimura Curves 2003 June 14883 Jao, David Yen Supersingular Primes for Rational Points on Modular Curves 2003 June 14883 Karigiannis, Spiros Deformations of G2 and Spin(7) Structures on Manifolds 2003 June 14883 Liu, Yu-Ru Generalizations of the Turán and the Erds-Kac Theorems 2003 June 14883 Lucianovic, Mark William Quaternion Rings, Ternary Quadratic Forms, and Fourier Coefficients of Modular Forms on PGSp(6) 2003 June 14883 Pop-Eleches, Cristian Central Values of Rankin L-series Over Real Quadratic Fields 2003 June 14883 Rasmussen, Jacob Andrew Floer Homology and Knot Complements 2003 June 14883 Weissman, Martin Hillel The Fourier-Jacobi Map and Small Representations 2003 June 14883 2004: 2004 SourceCoskun, Izzet Degenerations of Scrolls and Del Pezzo Surfaces and Applications to Enumerative Geometry 2004 June 15099 Dumas, David A. Complex Projective Structures, Grafting, and Teichmüller Theory 2004 June 15099 Lee, Edward Dole A Modular Non-Rigid Calabi-Yau Threefold. 2004 November 16069 Manolescu, Ciprian A Spectrum Valued TQFT from the Seiberg-Witten Equations 2004 June 15099 Marian, Alina Intersection Theory on the Moduli Space of Stable Bundles via Morphism Spaces 2004 June 15099 Mirzakhani, Maryam Simple Geodesics on Hyperbolic Surfaces and the Volume of the Moduli Space of Curves 2004 June 15099 Plamenevskaia, Olga Contact Structures and Floer Homology 2004 June 15099 Ramsey, Nicholas Adam Geometric and p-adic Modular Forms of Half-Integral Weight 2004 June 15099 Rauch, Daniel Perturbations of the D-Bar Operator. 2004 March 15005 Rogers, Nicholas Franklin Elliptic Curves x3 + y3 = k with High Rank 2004 June 15099 Yang, Stephanie Tze-Ping Special Linear Series in P2 2004 June 15099 2005: 2005 SourceGreen, Peter Eric Geometricity of Local p-Adic Representations. 2005 June 17164 Grigorov, Grigor Tsankov Kato's Euler System and the Main Conjecture. 2005 June 17164 Kaplan, Jonathan Robert Morphlets: A Multiscale Representation for Diffeomorphisms. 2005 June 17164 Khosla, Deepee Moduli Spaces of Curves with Linear Series and the Slope Conjecture. 2005 June 17164 Mast, Jerrel Harlan Pseudoholomorphic Punctured Spheres in the Symplectization of a Quotient. 2005 June 17164 Mohta, Vivek Applications of Chiral Perturbation Theory. 2005 June 17164 Neel, Robert Weston The Heat Kernel at the Cut Locus. 2005 June 17164 |
Birkhoff Library
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Photos and Media
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