I agree, that I have a wealth of information to work with right now. Just trying to honestly balance it (felt like LW fit the theme somewhat).
On the one hand, both of those scores are my first time, and they were taken cold. And, I could argue I thought a lot of homework in school was unimportant and unnecessary (because of a poor philosophical attitude).
But of the 26 questions wrong or incomplete on the practice Math subject test, roughly 16 of them I had sufficient knowledge, but I simply wasn't fast enough. And the Algebra class, was really hard, and I did do homework eventually.
It's not like I haven't been very successful in some courses. Graduate Complex Analysis, and stochastic processes come to mind. And the admissions director at my undergrad (University of Oregon) has told me directly I am ready for graduate school, but he would prefer I went to a better school.
I'm just lost. It seems in this context, failure speaks louder then success. Even if I was smart enough, perhaps I simply haven't worked hard enough (or on the right things). The practical consequence would be the same. I wish I knew what the admissions officer saw, it's hard to suppress the feeling he's only saying that because I did well in his courses.
on the practice Math subject test, ... I simply wasn't fast enough
Here's some heterodox advice: Take stimulants. Before I wrote the SAT, I stayed off caffeine for a couple of weeks. Then I drank lots of coffee right before the test, and in the break between sections. Caffeine affects me very strongly, so you can use some other stimulant. It might shorten your life by a week, but it's probably worth it.
I'm sorry if this is the wrong place for this, but I'm kind of trying to find a turning point in my life.
I've been told repeatedly that I have a talent for math, or science (by qualified people). And I seem to be intelligent enough to understand large parts of math and physics. But I don't know if I'm intelligent enough to make a meaningful contribution to math or physics.
Lately I've been particularly sad, since my score on the quantitative general GRE, and potentially, the Math subject test aren't "outstanding". They are certainly okay (official 78 percentile, unofficial 68 percentile respectively). But that is "barely qualified" for a top 50 math program.
Given that I think these scores are likely correlated with my IQ (they seem to roughly predict my GPA so far 3.5, math and physics major), I worry that I'm getting clues that maybe I should "give up".
This would be painful for me to accept if true, I care very deeply about inference and nature. It would be nice if I could have a job in this, but the standard career path seems to be telling me "maybe?"
When do you throw in the towel? How do you measure your own intelligence? I've already "given up" once before and tried programming, but the average actual problem was too easy relative to the intellectual work (memorizing technical fluuf). And other engineering disciplines seem similar. Is there a compromise somewhere, or do I just need to grow up?
classes:
For what it's worth, the classes I've taken include Real and Complex Analysis, Algebra, Differential geometry, Quantum Mechanics, Mechanics, and others. And most of my GPA is burned by Algebra and 3rd term Quantum specifically. But part of my worry, is that somebody who is going to do well, would never get burned by courses like this. But I'm not really sure. It seems like one should fail sometimes, but rarely standard assessments.
Edit:
Thank you all for your thoughts, you are a very warm community. I'll give more specific thoughts tomorrow. For what it's worth, I'll be 24 next month.
Double Edit:
Thank you all for your thoughts and suggestions. I think I will tentatively work towards an applied Mathematics PHD. It isn't so important that the school you get into is in the top ten, and there will be lots of opportunities to work on a variety of interesting important problems (throughout my life). Plus, after the PHD, transitioning into industry can be reasonably easy. It seems to make a fair bit of sense given my interests, background, and ability.