I’m an upcoming senior in high school planning to major/double major in econ/statistics/math major. I’m looking for colleges with good weather, strong academics, little partying culture, and strong career services. I don’t care about the campus or social scene much, but I would like an undergraduate focus with good teaching. I really don’t thrive in cuttroath atmospheres, so looking for collaborative student bodies as well. Stats are 4.0 uWGPA and 1560 sat score. Any college suggestions: right now, I’ve got these colleges (mainly because they are strong in finance, but many are public so they aren’t going to be very undergrad focused): UCB/UCLA (in-state), USC, Claremont Mckenna, Rice, Emory, UNC, UT Austin, Duke.
CMC is a great place for this academic focus, not only because of its own excellent econ department, but because you’d have the course offerings of the whole consortium at your fingertips. It’s got a bit of a party culture, but most schools on your list do… and there’s substance-free housing if you want to opt completely out of the party scene. I’d definitely say it’s collaborative rather than cutthroat. The caveat is that CMC accepts an astonishing 77% of its incoming class Early Decision. So the ED acceptance rate is 32%… the overall acceptance rate is 9%… which means the RD rate is even lower than 9%. So if you really like CMC, consider ED; and if you don’t like it well enough to ED, consider it an unlikely admit.
Emory could be a great choice - you might also want to look at their Public Policy and Analysis major, which is very quantitative, in addition to the math/stats/econ options.
Reed is also very strong in math/econ and could be a great fit for your more independent personality.
@aquapt I did hear about CMC’s party culture- does it overwhelm campus culture (I would definitely take substance-free housing). I can’t make the financial commitment of ED though, so it’ll have to be RD.
I didn’t realize that my list overall had a strong party culture- I know UPenn did but I still wanted to apply for the strong finance program. Do you have any suggestions for colleges with a little less of a party culture?
And i’ll check out the public policy/analysis major and Reed college as well!
I think you have a great list so far. Berkeley, Duke, UNC, CMC, etc. are as good as it gets for a econ/business and stats double major. They’re quite strong in public policy too, as @aquapt pointed out.
Take a look at JHU and U Richmond. The weather in VA and MD isn’t quite as nice as the weather in SoCal, but they’re a good fit for your interests. The supposed “cutthroat” atmosphere at JHU is blown way out of proportion, at least for those who aren’t in the pre-med classes.
I attended Duke. You can party as much or little as you’d like. There are some students who go out three nights a week and other students who virtually never go out partying. There’s students who attend every basketball game and camp out for tickets to the UNC game, while other students graduate without ever going to a game. Duke - as are the others on your list - is big and diverse enough that most students can find their niche.
There is a tendency on CC (and I’ve been guilty of it in the past) to reduce heterogeneous student bodies to stereotypes – Chicago is the “nerd school,” Williams is a “jock school,” Brown is a “hipster school,” Wisconsin is a “party school,” etc. It’s overly simplistic and leads students to overlook colleges that are potentially very good fits, I think. While there is some truth to these reputations, it doesn’t mean you won’t fit in if you don’t match the stereotype.
You could consider Scripps - very little of the 5C’s party culture occurs on the Scripps campus, so Scripps students get to go to the parties as much as they want, but come home to more refuge-like living situations. The downside is that only CMC students can access the CMC econ department; but econ at Scripps/Pitzer/Pomona is also very good, as well as math, to which Mudd contributes excellent course offerings as well. You won’t find much in terms of finance per se, though - it would be more on the theoretical side. Scripps offers up to half-tuition merit aid, for which you’d be a strong candidate, so that’s a plus!
I do think you might like Reed, based on how your describe yourself. It’s somewhat anti-establishment - no major intercollegiate sports, no Greek life. It’s in the top 10 producers of eventual PhD’s in an impressive variety of fields, and top 3 for both math and econ. There’s no merit aid though, only need-based, so that’s not a plus for your situation.
Tufts is a great place for quantitative econ, but again no merit aid. Brandeis has a campus culture you might like, and strength in your areas of interest, and merit would be likely there. URochester could be another good fit with merit potential. CWRU also. In Minnesota, both Carleton (minimal merit aid, only for NMF) and Macalester (more merit potential) are very strong in math and econ, and St. Olaf (same town as Carleton, and theoretically a dry campus) is very good too. Whitman in eastern Washington could be worth a look also - probably good merit there, and a top-20 future-PhD producer in math and econ.
For whatever reason there seems to be a correlation between strong finance programs and party culture. (Lehigh, for example, would be a great fit for you academically but socially not so much.) Seems like the more pre-professional business-y majors tend to attract more extroverts as compared to the more pure-academic theoretical econ-type majors, which I guess isn’t counter-intuitive.
You might also see what you think of the Honors College at U of Utah, which is a great bargain for an excellent education (either through WUE or through their one-year path to in-state status, and you might even get full-tuition merit with your stats) and has a honors-level Finance major https://eccles.utah.edu/programs/undergraduate/academics/majors/finance/ as well an honors-college-only math program that offers small classes even in lower-division coursework.
You might also look at what Irvine has to offer, as it has the Campuswide Honors program with guaranteed honors housing, an undergrad business school, and strong math, CS, Informatics, etc. - you might find that you’d like the vibe there better than UCB/UCLA. Worth checking out, anyway.
@lovescookies
Have you checked out Emory’s QSS program.
@emorynavy I didn’t know about that- just looked at it now, seems interesting! Do you know how strong the major is?
@aquapt and @warblersrule that was incredibly helpful, thank you :). I am applying to UC Irvine for sure :). But for Tufts and Reed, I do think I’d prefer colleges with at least some chance of merit aid/
The course offerings at CMC and Pomona suggest different emphases within their economics departments, with CMC appearing to have a more pre-professional leaning.
https://catalog.claremontmckenna.edu/preview_program.php?catoid=17&poid=1270
http://catalog.pomona.edu/preview_entity.php?catoid=24&ent_oid=1391
You already have Rice on your list, and it seems to check off most of your boxes. Rice is not cutthroat, has an undergrad focus, great teaching, small classes, and great econ and math offerings. Many students at Rice double major. Students at Rice party like they do at any university, but Rice does not have an overwhelming party culture, perhaps because it does not have Greek life. My daughter is not into the party scene and is very happy at Rice. The weather in Houston is HOT until the end of September, but the rest of the school year the weather.is very nice except for a few cold days in January. Rice ranks very high for quality of life and happy students.
@lovescookies
It’s innovative and new. Its interdisciplinary an draws from both the QTM department and another major of your choice. The elective classes for the major is where the interdisciplinary aspect comes more into play. Yes Emory’s program is strong. its one of the firsts to do it.