Guarini will not admit math Ph.D. cohort this year

The Guarini School of Graduate and Advanced Studies has suspended admissions to the next cohort in its math Ph.D. program, which would matriculate in the 2027-2028 academic year. Guarini dean Carrie Colla ’01 and College spokesperson Jana Barnello did not specify when or whether the program would resume admissions. 

Colla wrote in a Nov. 10 email statement to The Dartmouth that Guarini “regularly considers how to best invest in graduate education.”

“As part of those regular reviews, we are pausing admissions to the math Ph.D. program for the 2027-2028 cycle while the School of Arts and Sciences conducts a department review,” she wrote.

The decision to suspend the program “was made in close partnership with leaders in the School of Arts and Sciences and we look forward to working collaboratively with the department on this review,” Colla added.

She wrote in a Nov. 10 email to current graduate students that there “will be opportunities for students to participate in the review” and that she would meet with math graduate students and department faculty on Nov. 17. Graduate students can also reach out to math department chair Dimitrios Giannakis and math professor Vladimir Chernov to share questions and concerns, she wrote. 

“While I know it is disappointing news that your cohort will not be growing next year, I am confident that this approach will allow us to strengthen the experience of both our Ph.D. students and the undergraduate students in the department,” Colla wrote.

During a Q&A at the Nov. 9 general faculty meeting, which The Dartmouth attended but was not permitted to record, faculty raised concerns about the suspension. Math professor Peter Winkler, who opposed the suspension, said at the meeting the decision was communicated to math department faculty on Nov. 6. Winkler declined to provide additional comment after the meeting. 

The Ph.D. program’s pause follows a national trend of decreasing Ph.D. program seats. Data collected from 55 undisclosed research institutions demonstrated that Ph.D. acceptances dropped 15% in 2026 from the previous year, even though domestic applications increased.

In a Nov. 10 email to current graduate students, which was obtained and reviewed by The Dartmouth, Giannakis wrote that faculty members were “continuing to engage” with College administrators to “find a path forward” that would “eventually resume” the Ph.D. program.

Giannakis added in the email that Colla and School of Arts and Sciences dean Nina Pavcnik would attend a math department faculty meeting on Nov. 11 to discuss the suspension.

“While I do not expect a reversal of the decision to pause admissions, I hope there will at least be a constructive dialogue with actionable outcomes,” he wrote. 

Giannakis was unable to comment by time of publication.

The Guarini admissions office communicated the decision to applicants on Nov. 10, according to an email obtained by The Dartmouth. Any materials or recommendation letters that have already been submitted “will not be reviewed,” the Guarini admissions office wrote. Applications for the program, which typically accepts seven to nine students per year, would have been due on Dec. 15, 2026, according to the math department website.

“We recognize this is disappointing news and we are sorry for the disruption to your plans,” the email to people who already submitted application materials reads.

On Nov. 10, Colla wrote to current math graduate students that “status and support” for current students “are not changing” and that the program will see “every currently enrolled student through graduation,” according to an email obtained and reviewed by The Dartmouth.

“Stipends, insurance and the five-year funding guarantee all remain in place for students making satisfactory academic progress,” Colla wrote. “Advising relationships, qualifying exams, degree requirements and teaching and research appointments will continue as planned.”

Guarini Ph.D. students received an annual stipend of $49,862.40 for the 2026-2027 academic year, along with tuition remission, health insurance and other benefits, according to the Guarini website. The College guarantees five years of financial support to students making satisfactory academic progress.

Graduate students typically teach “one course in each of their final three years of study,” according to the math department graduate student handbook. Starting this term, math Ph.D. candidates must also serve as a teaching assistant for one term each year after their third year, while first and second-year Ph.D. candidates must serve as teaching assistants for three terms a year instead of the previously required two, according to the handbook.

Third-year math Ph.D. candidate Jacob Lehmann Duke GR said he and his fellow graduate students learned of the suspension from Colla’s Nov. 10 email. He said he was “frustrated” by the “lack of transparency” surrounding the decision.

“We were all shocked,” he said. “There was no indication that this was coming.”

Second-year math Ph.D. candidate Alex Moon GR said they believe suspending applications for the upcoming cycle sends “a message of instability” to future applicants.

“Part of the deal of graduate school is that you want there to be minimal factors outside of your control that will prevent you from getting this Ph.D.,” Moon said. “If this is something they do once, it’s something they can do later.”

In an interview with The Dartmouth, second-year math Ph.D. candidate Aidan Hennessey GR said “losing out on a cohort of students” would negatively affect the discussions among the “already quite small” Ph.D. program.

“Having people in adjacent areas of math to you — that you can talk about math and learn from, teach and talk through ideas with — all of this is very helpful,” Hennessey said. “Having more students around is nice for community.”

Lehmann Duke added that the suspension could put undergraduates intending to enroll in graduate-level mathematics courses “at a real deficit.” 

Ben Singer ’27 — who said they have taken graduate-level math courses since their freshman year — added that there are “a few core graduate courses” that are “really important for undergraduates here who want to get into graduate school.” A decrease in Ph.D. students raises questions about whether those classes will be offered, whether undergraduates will be able to take them and how fewer course offerings will affect people who want to go to graduate school, Singer said. 

The College “reserves the right to make changes in the offering” or cancel a course with fewer than five enrolled students, according to the Arts and Sciences Registrar’s Office website.

First-year computational science and modeling Ph.D. candidate Ethan Baird GR said “almost half” of his program’s coursework requirements are typically fulfilled through mathematics department courses. Baird added that these classes are the “basis of everything that we end up doing later,” which leads him to worry that the suspension of the admissions will have trickle-down effects on the computational science and modeling Ph.D. programs.

Math major Ribhu Hooja ’27 said the department “did not officially” inform undergraduate students about the pause and that he instead found out from graduate students. If the pause lasts “even for a year, there could still be harm” because of “the relationships formed” between undergraduate and graduate students in advanced math classes, Hooja said.

“We learn how to apply to grad school, and what it means,” Hooja said. “It’s an important relationship I’ve really benefitted a lot from.”

Third-year Ph.D. candidate Michaela Polley GR said she was concerned about the pause’s effects on “research culture” among Dartmouth graduates and undergraduates alike.

“The idea of being a research university and a liberal arts college doesn’t work if you don’t have graduate students,” she said.

During the Nov. 9 meeting, College President Sian Leah Beilock and Pavcnik also addressed faculty concerns about the College’s discontinuation of the Society of Fellows, a three-year interdisciplinary research program established in 2014 to support postdoctoral research and scholarship. The Society has stopped recruiting new fellows and will conclude in summer 2028, when its current cohort completes their appointments, according to the program’s website.

Beilock said at the meeting that the decision follows the need to reinvest funding in other institutional priorities.

Beilock announced at the meeting that the College is “working to reduce Dartmouth’s spending by $50 million,” in order to increase faculty and staff salaries “especially if and when inflation continues to rise,” according to a transcript of her speech published on the Office of the President’s website.

In a Nov. 11 email statement to The Dartmouth, Barnello wrote that the $50 million “reflects adjustments already made” to the budget, and that “roughly half” is “already in place” for fiscal year 2027.

Beilock also announced at the meeting that the College is “preparing” to convert North Park apartments, which are currently listed on the Office of Residential Life website as undergraduate housing, to graduate student housing. The North Park apartments have exclusively housed undergraduates since the 2022-2023 academic year, according to the Dartmouth Graduate Student Council website.

Correction appended (Nov. 12, 9:30 a.m.): A previous version of this article referred to Alex Moon as he. They use they/them pronouns.

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