Math and Computer Science Honors Theses

Date of Creation

5-15-2026

Degree Type

Departmental Honors Thesis

Department

Mathematics

First Advisor

Tim McEldowney

Abstract

Access to graduate education in the United States remains heavily stratified by structural, financial, and informational barriers. While undergraduate first-generation student outcomes are widely studied, fewer structural analyses examine how graduate-level “educational inheritance” shapes prospective applicants' navigational capital, particularly within competitive STEM fields like mathematics. Drawing upon theories of social capital and the “hidden curriculum,” this study investigates the relationship between an individual's knowledge of the graduate school application process and the highest level of education attained by an immediate family member.

Using the Knowledge-GAP survey instrument funded by the National Science Foundation, data were collected from a diverse sample of undergraduate mathematics majors nationwide (N = 519). Quantitative relationships were evaluated using Chi-Square Tests of Independence and Kruskal-Wallis H Tests to evaluate diff erences across three distinct groups: first-generation students, students from bachelor's-degree-holding families, and students from graduate- or professional-degree-holding families.

The findings reveal a stark, systemic “staircase effect.” While awareness of general application costs is uniform across all groups, technical and strategic navigation mechanisms—such as awareness of application fee waivers (p = 0.007), the necessity of localized faculty recommendations (p = 0.025), and early exposure to standardized testing structures like the GRE General Test (p < .001)—are heavily stratified by familial education history. Furthermore, first-generation students reported significantly higher perceived financial and psychosocial barriers (p < .001), alongside sharply lower levels of institutional, peer, and familial encouragement. These results demonstrate that familial educational background acts as an implicit mechanism of stratification. Ultimately, this study underscores the immediate need for mathematics departments to deconstruct the academic pipeline's hidden curriculum, shifting the burden of navigational literacy from the individual student onto proactive institutional support frameworks.

Download

Share

COinS