Admission to the University of Washington Math Department's graduate program is based on a holistic assessment of the total record and demonstrated promise to complete a graduate degree in mathematics. The minimum requirements to be considered for admission to any UW graduate program are a bachelor's degree from an accredited college or university in the U.S. or its equivalent from a foreign institution, and an overall grade-point average of 3.0 (B) in your most recent two years of study. For more information about the University's requirements for admission to graduate school, see the UW Graduate Admissions webpage.
Of special note for Master's applicants: competitive applicants often have taken courses in several of the areas listed below.
Our program is very strong and we have only a limited number of funded PhD positions, so to have a realistic chance of getting admitted to the PhD program in mathematics, you should have received grades of at least 3.5 (A–/B+) in most of your mathematics courses.
In addition, applicants are required to have taken at least five year-long courses (30 semester hours or 45 quarter hours) in mathematics beyond precalculus. Every entering mathematics graduate student should be thoroughly familiar with the following basic subjects:
- advanced calculus (one variable and multivariable)
- differential equations
- linear algebra
Advanced undergraduate courses in both of the following subjects are required for admission to the PhD track.
- Abstract Algebra (groups, rings, and fields; Galois theory is desirable, but not required)
- Real Analysis (theory of differentiation and integration, uniform convergence, and metric spaces; Lebesgue integration is desirable, but not required)
Ideally, these will be full-year courses with a strong emphasis on writing proofs so that you have depth of understanding in both subjects.
In addition, a selection of courses in the following subjects are helpful for PhD applicants but not required:
- Complex Analysis
- Topology
- Differential Geometry
- Partial Differential Equations
- Combinatorics
- Probability
- Number Theory
- Algebraic Geometry
- Optimization
- Scientific Computing