Qualifying Exam Requirements for the M.A. in Mathematics

For the M.A. degree in Mathematics, students have two options:

Option I. Write a Masters thesis and satisfy the University requirements.

Option II. (a) Receive at least an MA Pass on two PhD written exams from the following list, and write a scholarly paper (as required by the Graduate School):

Algebra (Math 600, 601)
Analysis (Math 630, 660)
Geometry (Math 730, 740)
Probability (Stat 600, 601)
Statistics (Stat 700, 701)

A student in pure mathematics can use at most one of Probability and Statistics to satisfy the exam requirement. Note that students are required to take the exams that are written at the PhD level and receive a MA Pass. No separate MA-only exams will be written.

The Geometry exam will be discontinued after January 2020. Until then, it will only be available to students admitted during 2017 or earlier.

(b) In addition to the Qualifying Exams, students using Option II must take three additional semesters of courses from the following list. Courses with grades less than B cannot be included (for example, B− is not allowed).

Math 600, 601 (Algebra)
Math 630, 660 (Analysis)
Math 730, 740 (Geometry)
Stat 600, 601 (Probability)
Stat 700, 701 (Statistics)
Math 634 (Harmonic Analysis)
Math 642 (Dynamical Systems I)
Math 712, Math 713 (Logic)
Math 734 (Algebraic Topology)
AMSC 666, AMSC 667 (Numerical Analysis)
Math 631 (Real Analysis)
Math 670 (ODE)
Math 673, Math 674 (PDE)

The three semesters are not required to be in the same sequence of courses. For example, Math 730, Math 670, and AMSC 666 would be acceptable. These three semester-long courses must be distinct from the ones supporting the qualifying exams. For example, if the Algebra Exam is used as one of the Qualifying Exams, then neither Math 600 nor Math 601 can be used for the three-course requirement.

 

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  • Predictive Science and Deep Learning - A Bright Future or an Odd Couple?

    Speaker: Wolfgang Dahmen (Aachen, University of South Carolina) - https://sc.edu/study/colleges_schools/artsandsciences/mathematics/our_people/directory/dahmen_wolfgang.php

    When: Wed, September 20, 2023 - 3:15pm
    Where: Kirwan Hall 3206
  • The optimal paper Moebius band

    Speaker: Richard Schwartz (Brown University) - https://www.math.brown.edu/reschwar/

    When: Fri, September 29, 2023 - 3:15pm
    Where: Kirwan Hall 3206
  • Riehl (TBA)

    Speaker: Emily Riehl (Johns Hopkins University) - https://math.jhu.edu/~eriehl/

    When: Fri, October 6, 2023 - 3:15pm
    Where: Kirwan Hall 3206
  • Categorification and geometry

    Speaker: Lars Hesselholt (Nagoya University) - https://www.math.nagoya-u.ac.jp/~larsh/

    When: Fri, October 13, 2023 - 3:15pm
    Where: Kirwan Hall 3206
  • Mathematics Around the Heisenberg Group

    Speaker: Roger Howe (Yale University) - https://www.norbertwiener.umd.edu/fft/2023/Speakers/Roger_Howe.html

    When: Thu, October 26, 2023 - 3:45pm
    Where: Kirwan Hall 3206
  • Decoding Time's Mysteries for Better Predictions

    Speaker: James Howard (Johns Hopkins University) - https://www.norbertwiener.umd.edu/fft/2023/Speakers/James_Howard.html

    When: Thu, October 26, 2023 - 6:45pm
    Where: Kirwan Hall 3206
  • A tale of two invariants

    Speaker: Paul Feehan (Rutgers) - https://sites.math.rutgers.edu/~feehan/

    When: Wed, November 15, 2023 - 3:15pm
    Where: Kirwan Hall 3206
  • Using logic to study homeomorphism groups

    Speaker: Thomas Koberda (University of Virginia) - https://sites.google.com/view/koberdat

    When: Wed, November 29, 2023 - 3:15pm
    Where: Kirwan Hall 3206
  • Generative Models for Implicit Distribution Estimation: a Statistical Perspective

    Speaker: Yun Yang (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign) - https://sites.google.com/site/yunyangstat/

    When: Thu, January 25, 2024 - 3:30pm
    Where: Kirwan Hall 3206
  • Video Imputation and Prediction Methods with Applications in Space Weather

    Speaker: Yang Chen (University of Michigan) - https://yangchenfunstatistics.github.io/yangchen.github.io/

    When: Tue, January 30, 2024 - 4:00pm
    Where: Kirwan Hall 3206
  • Arboreal Galois groups: an introduction

    Speaker: Robert Benedetto (Amherst College) - https://rlbenedetto.people.amherst.edu/

    When: Wed, February 7, 2024 - 3:15pm
    Where: Kirwan Hall 3206
  • Higher theta series

    Speaker: Zhiwei Yun (MIT) - https://math.mit.edu/~zyun/

    When: Wed, February 28, 2024 - 3:15pm
    Where: Kirwan Hall 3206
  • Random lattices and their applications in number theory, geometry and statistical mechanics

    Speaker: Jens Marklof (School of Mathematics, University of Bristol) - https://www.bristol.ac.uk/people/person/Jens-Marklof-6eb63e14-a018-4833-9cf8-b95272b5a09e/

    When: Fri, March 1, 2024 - 3:15pm
    Where: Kirwan Hall 3206
  • TBA

    Speaker: Svetlana Jitomirskaya (University of California, Berkeley) - https://math.berkeley.edu/people/faculty/svetlana-jitomirskaya

    When: Thu, March 14, 2024 - 3:00pm
    Where: Kirwan Hall 3206
  • Instantaneous everywhere-blowup of parabolic stochastic PDEs

    Speaker: Davar Khoshnevisan (University of Utah) - http://www.math.utah.edu/~davar/

    When: Wed, April 3, 2024 - 3:15pm
    Where: Kirwan Hall 3206