<p>I just learned about the ISP program at NW. Due to previous cross town rivalry, I would never have poked around the NW site otherwise :)</p>
<p>[Integrated</a> Science Department](<a href=“http://www.isp.northwestern.edu/index.html]Integrated”>Integrated Science Program - Northwestern University)</p>
<p>Wondering if there are other similar boutique programs in other schools that exist but are not generally known or apparent to those not in the know?</p>
<p>A high school friend of my son’s was in the ISP at Northwestern. Very, very rigorous but she liked it a lot.</p>
<p>Northwestern has a similar social-science focused program, which is also very successful I believe. Mathematical Models in the Social Sciences (MMSS)? Or something like that?</p>
<p>Hard to tell to what extent this is really different, and to what extent it is slapping a marketing label on what students who are pointing towards PhDs are advised to do everywhere.</p>
<p>James Madison University in VA has an extremely well regarded integrated Science and Technology major that places students quite well in the large consulting areas. It is a hidden gem. [Integrated</a> Science and Technology - JMU - CISAT](<a href=“http://www.isat.jmu.edu/]Integrated”>http://www.isat.jmu.edu/)</p>
<p>Yes, MMSS is the program that JHS is referring to. [MMSS</a>, Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences, Northwestern University](<a href=“http://www.mmss.northwestern.edu%5DMMSS”>http://www.mmss.northwestern.edu)</p>
<p>I was in this program many, many moons ago when it was relatively new. It is an honors program, whereby you major in Mathematical Methods in the Social Sciences plus another social science major (mine was Economics), and very rigorous. I will say that “in my day” students in the program tended to go to business, non-profit and academia / research in fairly equal numbers, whereas these days students tend to be a bit more pre-professional and use it to head towards business / mgt consulting / finance. Nonetheless, it’s a unique program and it is why I chose NU over Wharton.</p>
<p>If you are interested, in the attached link are the newsletters. They really provide a good historic overview and show a lot of what grads can do with the program.</p>
<p>princeton has the integrated science program as well</p>
<p>JHS,</p>
<p>All I heard is ISP is very hard. A large fraction of graduating seniors (EC05) won prestigious graduate fellowships (I counted 7 out of 18); I think that says a lot about the program. [Integrated</a> Science Program Current Students](<a href=“http://www.isp.northwestern.edu/currentstudents/index.html]Integrated”>http://www.isp.northwestern.edu/currentstudents/index.html)</p>
<p>UBC (the University of British Columbia) has a unified first-year curriculum called Science One. You feed back into the main school after that, but it helps avoid most of the really massive classes and can build good social connections.</p>
<p>Not math/science, but still “boutique”–Wesleyan (a largish LAC in CT) has the College of Letters (COL) and College of Social Science (CSS) majors, integrating European humanities and the social sciences, respectively.</p>
<p>This is an interesting thread. I wonder about Math/Science in the LAC’s? Not the Swarthmore Tier.</p>
<p>Wesleyan also has the science in society program, which integrates science and the social sciences/humanities ([Wesleyan</a> University - Science in Society program](<a href=“http://www.wesleyan.edu/sisp/]Wesleyan”>Welcome, Science in Society Program - Wesleyan University)), and the math/econ program ([Wesleyan</a> University](<a href=“http://www.wesleyan.edu/econ/newmecoblue.html]Wesleyan”>http://www.wesleyan.edu/econ/newmecoblue.html)).</p>
<p>Interesting. There probably are a lot more but its hard to find out about them, unfortunately.</p>
<p>Almost everyone has a science-in-society or history of science program. Those aren’t hard to find at all. The math/science combos seem more unique.</p>
<p>JHS, I was thinking more along the lines of any science or math related little programs embedded in schools, ones that seem to require additional applications/admission and bring some special course of study that is not available to the general student population. Something like Honors Colleges but more focused along science or math studies.</p>
<p>U Southern California has the Freshman Science Honors program. The classes are much smaller and have the best, and hardest professors teaching them. It is one of 4 Honors programs at USC which are offered to top incoming freshman by invitation.
<a href=“http://college.usc.edu/honors/[/url]”>http://college.usc.edu/honors/</a></p>
<p>I just want to point out a lot of programs with seemingly interdiscipilnary titles are not really “integrated”. The ones I see most often are business/econ and math combo for which you are asked to take math courses and econ/business courses from two “separate” departments/schools. They are really more like “double-major lite”.</p>
<p>UC Santa Barbara has an amazing boutique school for highly qualified undergraduates:</p>
<p>[College</a> of Creative Studies, UC Santa Barbara](<a href=“http://www.ccs.ucsb.edu/]College”>http://www.ccs.ucsb.edu/)</p>
<p>I don’t know about its other programs, but the one in physics (limited to 10 kids a year) puts students right into graduate research opportunities and graduate-level work. It’s a spectacular opportunity for the right person, at a fraction of the cost of MIT, CalTech, etc.</p>
<p>^^ Thanks for your post, I did not know this about UCSB - worth looking into the details.</p>
<p>Interesting program. As the mother of a hopeful physicist, I’ll have to look into it.</p>
<p>Another option you might like: [Ohio</a> University: Honors Tutorial College:Home](<a href=“Honors at OHIO | Ohio University”>http://www.honors.ohio.edu/)</p>
<p>Dalhousie U in Nova Scotia has a [first year] integrated science program too: [Dalhousie_Integrated_Science_Program</a> - Faculty of Science](<a href=“Faculty of Science | Dalhousie University”>Faculty of Science | Dalhousie University)</p>