# Questions about math grad school and such

I just discovered this closed question, and have voted to reopen it. It is not a technical mathematical question, but it is a question which could be of interest to many readers of this forum, and one on which many contributors (in particular, experienced members of academic math departments) could give sensible information and advice.

I posted the following comment in relation to my reopen vote:

I am voting to reopen this question; this is a question to which people who have been on graduate admission committees in U.S. math departments can make concrete responses. Furthermore, such responses will surely be very subject dependent; hence I don't see that a catch-all academic site could have much that is useful to say. (E.g. while it is true --- as stated by the OP --- that in math a masters is not required, and probably not typical, for most U.S. programs, is this true in other subjects? I don't know, and it's irrelevant in any case.)

Just to explain: An earlier comment on the closed question suggested that questions of this type are off-topic here, but would be ideal for a forthcoming academic stackexchange site, but, as the above comment shows, I disagree. I think that questions about graduate admissions and such are likely to be subject-dependent, and that there is no guarantee that the participants on this site who are in a good position to answer the question would also participate on the general academic site.

Thus in addition to this particular question, I would like to argue that more generally such questions are on-topic for this site. Does anyone else feel the same? Am I expressing a minority opinion?

• I also voted to reopen. I agree with Matt's logic. As I've stated many times before, I think mods should avoid using their closing superpowers (as done here) except for spam or blatant offensive material. All else should be decided by the community – Bill Dubuque Sep 2 '11 at 23:45
• I have also voted to reopen. – davidlowryduda Sep 2 '11 at 23:49
• For the sake of transparency: I cast the third vote to reopen. – t.b. Sep 2 '11 at 23:59
• @Theo: In case you didn't know, there is transparency in the revision list after it is opened: math.stackexchange.com/posts/46142/revisions – Jonas Meyer Sep 3 '11 at 2:16
• @Jonas: Thanks, I was aware of that way of finding out who was involved in re-opening the post. I just thought it couldn't hurt to document it here as well. – t.b. Sep 3 '11 at 2:26
• I wish I could upvote the question twice. I used to be afraid of asking such questions here, which were indeed something I really wanted to ask. Now I relieve. :) – Jack Sep 3 '11 at 14:32
• Will you also be in favour of a question about the usefulness of a certain French math degree in Germany? – Phira Sep 17 '11 at 8:36
• @thei: Dear thei, Although I couldn't answer such a question, I don't see why it shouldn't be asked. Regards, – Matt E Sep 17 '11 at 11:43

## 3 Answers

I agree with your assessment. For some reason, the FAQ's list of topics that are explicitly welcomed does not include academic or educational aspects of mathematics, but nevertheless we have had good posts on (for example) the topic of grad school / preparing for grad school, like this, this, this, and this, that have met with nary a complaint about their appropriateness, and received many useful answers. As you point out, the OP will likely get better answers here than on academia.SE (which is still in commitment phase, anyway) because the people most qualified to answer the question may not participate in academia.SE - in fact I would bet that qualified people are much more likely to use math.SE than (will) use academia.SE.

I've cast the 5th and final vote to reopen.

• +1 I think we should warmly welcome such education-related questions. – Bill Dubuque Sep 3 '11 at 0:24

People who find these sorts of questions interesting should commit to the Academia proposal at Area 51.

• Dear Noah, Perhaps this is true in principal, but as a matter of practice, I will answer these sorts of questions on MO or Math.SE if I come across them and think I have something useful to add, but I doubt that I would spend any time on a site dedicated to them. Best wishes, – Matt E Sep 16 '11 at 1:34

I checked a few pages of tags at mathoverflow and found "mathematics education" and "career". I don't see why this site should be fussier.