Here, Rob Kirby describes some of his experiences as an undergraduate at Chicago, and how he "snuck into graduate school".
He apparently got
As an undergraduate, I'd been far more interested in chess, poker, and almost any sport, than in the game of mathematics. I had little chance of getting into a good graduate school. However, I failed German and didn't get a B.S. in four years, so in my fifth year I took most of the graduate courses on which the Masters Exam (really a Ph.D. prelim) was based. With a B.S. I asked to be admitted to graduate school so as to take the Exam. They cautiously said yes if I got grades closer to B than C in his the fall quarter. I got a B and a C (measure theory from Halmos and algebraic topology class!from Dyer) and a Pass, and no one told me to leave.
The Masters Exam could have four outcomes: you could pass with financial aid, pass without aid but with encouragement, pass with advice to pursue studies elsewhere, and fail. I got the third pass, but really liked Chicago and turned up the next year (1960) anyway.
