I'm in the process of selecting courses for my third year, and I wasn't planning on taking certain mathematics courses (in particular, "pure" courses, such as Algebra). However, upon speaking to come colleagues, I've found that I might want to substitute Advanced ODEs for Algebra, given that I could probably learn the former on my own, and the latter weighs more on the GRE Subject Test, so I should have a good handle on it.
This has made me ask two things:
1) Is the Subject Test even required for all Grad Schools? I'll be doing the GRE, and the schools I'm planning on applying to fall into sort of an "Applied/Computational" category, so I don't know how much of the Subject Test they'd be interested in.
2) Do courses (and their subsequent grades) matter more than scores on the subject test, or is it vice versa, or are they both pretty equal?
I'd love to hear any and all advice. I'm doing a combined honours in general sciences and mathematics, if that makes any difference. I'm close to course selection, and I'd like to have a good idea of what would be useful to take.
Thanks!