PhD math programs in the US

[Steven G]

Why are the top American math students from decent universities able to get their four year degree (because they are the top students!) but they can't survive the PhD math program at the same university. I know that back in the early 90's Buffalo University was trying to figure this out. At the same time foreign students at Buffalo University were graduating with their PhDs most times with ease.

I was a graduate student at The City Colleg of New York (CUNY). It was a top notch program. I sometimes felt that the goal of the professors there was to make us fail, but with their expert lectures we all passed. I have never seen a college with such high standards. With a few exceptions we were all American students. Some of us were quite bright (not me!) but when we went onto the CUNY Gradate Center for our PhDs we ALL failed at earning that terminal degree. I am still bitter at why it is so hard to earn that degree in math. We all had much much more talent then a typical high school teacher but that was not enough. It seems that in other programs you just have to be better than a high school teacher and of course do the work for that degree.

So my real question is what I stated at the beginning. Why are top American undergraduate math students failing out of American PhD math programs?

 

[pka]

Why are top American undergraduate math students failing out of American PhD math programs?

That is just not my experience at all. I went to one of the top twenty liberal arts colleges. I majored in both mathematics(to please my father who was paying) and philosophy to please me (I thought I wanted to be an Episcopal priest). For graduation I wrote a thesis in both areas, took departmental exams in both as well as the GRE in both. But I gained admission to a PhD program in mathematics with ease but not in Philosophy. I went into the mathematics program (as an aside the philosophy at that univ. payed for me to finish an MA early so that I could teach their symbolic logic courses)
Now I am in no way claiming that I went through a top PhD program, but the whole program was based on the Moore method of mathematics-education. I think the fit is very important. maybe more important that the ranking. I tell anyone that I think the quality of the undergraduate education is more important than the graduate education. Later on I tagged along while my wife was a Fulbright Lecturer in Manchester, UK. I signed up for a course of study in the philosophy of religion. When I went for an interview the program director told me that he was glad to welcome me because he knew of my College because of his two years at SMU. Again he cared nothing about my graduate work.