Admission to the CSME Program as a new incoming mathematics graduate student requires joint admission by both the mathematics department admissions committee and the CSME admissions committee. This is done through coordination between the two committees, without a separate application to the CSME Program. A student applying to the mathematics department who also wishes to apply to the CSME program simply notes on their application that they wish to by considered for the CSME Program. Existing mathematics graduate students who wish to obtain the computational science specialization to their PhD through the CSME Program must also apply for admission into the CSME Program even though they have already been accepted into the mathematics department; admission to the program is then decided by the CSME admissions committee.

CSME/Mathematics Qualifying Examination Structure:

The qualifying examination requirements for the PhD in the mathematics department for non-CSME mathematics graduate students is currently as follows. (See the Mathematics Department webpage for the most updated information.) Each graduate student must pass three written qualifying exams within a specified time period; the first exam is in real or complex analysis, the second exam is in algebra or applied algebra, and the third exam is in one of numerical analysis, topology, or statistics.

Mathematics graduate students who are participating in the CSME Program are released from one of the three exams in order to allow them to prepare for, and take, the common CSME qualifying examination. These mathematics/CSME graduate students will be required to take one exam in real analysis, a second exam in numerical analysis, and then the common CSME qualifying exam will play the role of the third exam. As described in more detail in the CSME Proposal, the common CSME qualifying exam consists of the final exam in each of three quarter-length courses in three core areas of computational science.

Modifications to this default qualifying examination structure for mathematics/CSME graduate students is allowed under the following guidelines. With permission of the mathematics department, the qualifying exam in complex analysis may be substituted for the real analysis exam; similarly, with permission of the mathematics department, one of the other mathematics qualifying exams (excluding real and complex analysis) may be substituted for the numerical analysis exam. It is understood that such substitutions would have some research justification; a typical student would otherwise likely be best served by taking the default real analysis and numerical analysis exams.

All other requirements and timetables for the PhD in mathematics remain the same for students earning a PhD in mathematics and the specialization in computational science through the CSME Program.