I dont know how they evaluated, but I believe that my strong grades from undergrad ( at a near top but not top school ), my activity in undergrad activities within the math department, and my performance and dedication ( eg. I had recommendation letters from BSM professors and from professors from my undergraduate institution. I can echo the other answer that the courses were quite difficult, probably closer to a graduate level than undergraduate ( although I probably took more advanced courses ).Īnyway, punchline of the story is that I got in to the top school of my choosing for graduate school. I focused extremely hard both during the summer before BSM, and during my time in Budapest, working on a ( small ) independent research project and rounding out my background, while making sure that I excelled while in Budapest. I simply mean to point out that youre working with absolutely top tier educators and mathematicians who care very much about the program and if youre there for the academics then you have an opportunity work closely with them and have a lot of access. I do not mean to disparage them at all this experience can be very important for personal growth and perhaps even more important than the academic experience. When I was there, academics was not 100% the goal for around half of the other students for many of them its the “study abroad” experience.
Its an excellent program, and I would say that its an even better opportunity to learn a lot. I then applied to and was accepted into BSM.
In my senior year I applied to several scholarships for graduating undergraduates, like Fulbright and Marshall scholarships, but did not succeed. I was confident, and received confirming feedback from professors, that I probably would not be able to achieve this goal with my background. Please keep in mind that this is not true for everyone and was a personal choice ). By my senior year I decided to focus more on math, but didnt think I would get in to a top tier graduate program ( and, for me, it wasnt worth it not to go to a top tier program. I took maybe one or two graduate courses as an undergrad. I was active in the math department, but was not the top student.
I went to a very good but not quite top tier ( in math ) school and jointly majored in a humanities degree and a math degree. I have pretty significant anecdotal insight here. Yeah, that Advanced Algebra class sounded like a bear. (Advanced Algebra, Galois Theory, Character Theory of Finite Groups, etc.) Im definitely an algebra person, not a combinatorics and analysis person, and there are still definitely plenty of advanced course offerings. In fact, the BSM students were pretty much their own closed community…there wasnt as much connection with Hungarian age-peers except for the BSM students who made clubbing a focus of their recreation. Theres another Budapest “abroad” program run in the same building as BSM but its not very rigorous at all and there wasnt a lot of connection between their students and the BSM students. The classes are very comparable overall and many are more difficult than the classes at my home university. I would say that this is a pretty light schedule compared to most people I know here – but then, there are a lot of impossibly smart people at the program, as well. The math is certainly very challenging – Im taking three math classes right now, but I think theres a good chance Ill drop the impossibly tough Advanced Algebra that TheDads daughter dropped, as well, resulting in two math classes and two non-math. Im studying abroad with BSM right now (Wesleyan University is my home school) and I agree that its an amazing experience. The housing costs–there are no dorms, you either share an apartment or stay with a Hungarian host family–are trivial in comparison to the US and you also can eat very well (a lot of eating out) very inexpensively as long as you watch your beverages, which can be expensive (e.g., dont order orange juice and bottled water is an American affectation). I dont know for sure but I think a lot of colleges work it so that you pay your normal tuition to your “home” school and they take care of the program.