That is exactly my concern.
If he’s open to Grinnell, he really should consider Carleton. And Reed.
I think Grinnell only because a family friend majors in Math there and gave him some good feedback. Somehow I had it in my mind that Carleton gives essentially zero merit aid, which is why I added Macalester in on his visit to UMN, even though he’s not all that interested.
^ Yes, Carleton offers NMFs 2K. That’s it for merit.
Yeah, Carleton merit aid is pretty limited, but it’s one of the top LACs in the country. My son considered majoring in math at Macalester but was underwhelmed at their offerings when we visited for an accepted students day. Carleton would have been a reach for him, and I couldn’t get him to apply.
https://apps.carleton.edu/admissions/topics/merit_scholarships/
But that is all the merit you can get at Carleton. My kid at Mudd also got into Mac with $15K/year of merit.
Yeah I think he has enough financial reach schools on his list, so I’m trying not to add any more of those;-) Williams and Washington & Lee are sending him a lot of stuff lately, but apparently not the right stuff to interest him. W&L at least seems to offer some very good competitive merit aid. I imagine if the spring ACT test results factor into mailing lists, he’ll be getting a lot more spam soon.
How advanced is the student in math? If he is very advanced (i.e. college courses beyond single variable calculus while still in high school), then he may want to carefully look at each school’s upper level and graduate level math offerings, so that he does not run out if he chooses to major in math.
Some LACs, like Harvey Mudd, do offer graduate level math courses, presumably recognizing that there are super-advanced math students around, but some other LACs may be limiting for such students.
Right- that is one of the reasons I think he is looking at grad school rankings. I think his counselor suggested most LAC would probably not offer him enough depth in his major. It’s a generality I know, but perhaps knowing some exceptions like Mudd would be beneficial to him for Math and Physics. He takes multivariable calculus next year and will have a modest amount of AP credits, depending on the school.
OP, I know you said Ohio State doesn’t seem any better than UIUC, but it has advanced honors courses in math, physics and economics that might make it a better UG fit. I don’t know exactly what the honors designation entails, but it could be worth looking into.
I second Rochester.
Ohio State has some pretty good scholarships, even for OOS students, too.
I think many LACs would ‘run out’ of professors or classes in advanced math and physics unless that school was concentrating on those departments. When we looked at a few schools in the 2000-3000 student range, some departments were pretty small and while the catalog may have had plenty of courses offered, they weren’t offered every semester. At some we noted the number of professors was pretty limited too, so if you didn’t like Mr. Brown or Ms. Green, well…
At the school my daughter did pick (3500 students), this is a problem but not for the STEM subjects. It’s an engineering school, so physics and math departments are big, but history or English? Pretty small.
If an LAC is part of a consortium, that might make it much less of an issue as another school in the group may offer plenty of options.
A tier down from what? MIT and Stanford?
Harvey Mudd is one of the top Stem schools. I don’t think it’s a tier down at all from the schools your son is considering. In fact…it maybe a tier up from some.
What @thumper1 said. Harvey Mudd is VERY MUCH tier 1 for STEM. It routinely steals students who got into HYPSM.
I think the OP was talking about Lawrence, not Harvey Mudd.
[quote]
He’s definitely on the Swarthmore printed mail spam list. I can’t recall seeing one for Mudd. ** I know it’s a tier down, but I had encouraged him early on to keep Lawrence (WI) on his list,** but unfortunately I think Grinnell is the only LAC he’s even remotely considering at this time.[/quote[
I see now…sort of.
So my question to the OP…are you looking for high rankings, or are you looking for excellent undergrad programs for physics and math?
And I think I asked this before. If you are looking for top rankings…what do you mean? Top 20, top 50, top 100?
For undergrad…not grad. The stats for grad programs can be very significantly different than for undergrad programs.
Remember too that LACs with outstanding physics and math programs will not appear in the grad school rankings you are using AT ALL…because they don’t have grad programs.
Both Ohio State and Michigan State have some attractive scholarships and honors program options and have respectable physics programs, too. He has about a dozen schools now, Hopefully he may add one or both if/when he starts weeding out some he doesn’t like after his tours and some he can’t afford.
Yes, sorry. That was a poorly phrased paragraph. Nothing wrong with Lawrence, either, in my opinion.
How likely is a merit scholarship at Harvey Mudd for someone with his stats and how much is typical if you know? From Kiplingers, it looks like a good percentage receive $10,000 or more which might make it close enough to consider. I had deemed it as being another school he likely couldn’t afford and I’m not sure if he has considered it or not.
I think it would be fair to say that I’m looking for excellent programs, teaching and experience, while he’s more focused on ratings at the moment. I’m working on it, exactly for the reasons you mentioned. For example, we went over some other ratings when we created a spreadsheet, including the USNews undergrad teaching rankings and the PhD production numbers. Vanderbilt, Duke, Rice, Grinnell, Macalester among others hopefully made an impression among those that might offer merit aid and I hope at least a couple like these make his final list too.
If you tap into retirement equity for this child and then need to make the same decision for your younger children and you (bc he will not be able to take out loans w/o you cosigning, so they will be your debt, too) take out $100,000 in loans, how does that financial picture look x3? Will you keep qualifying for loans? Will you be able to to continue tapping into current financial resources without impacting your future stability?
FWIW, I can share a completely different approach for an an incredibly gifted student for whom we decided that the answers to the questions above were no, we couldn’t do it. Our ds graduated from high school with DE credit from our local university for multivariable, diffEQ, linear, cal physics 1&2, modern, and physical/classical mechanics 1&2. He was accepted to multiple top programs, but all of them ended up being expensive.
He ended up being offered a full ride to a lower ranked program. He was accepted into their elite research honors program and has been actively doing research with professors since his freshman yr. He has traveled for one of the projects. That prof has told him she treats him equivalent to a grad student. At the end of his sophomore yr he completed all his UG physics requirements and will taking grad level physics the next 2 yrs. He will graduate with his masters and bachelor’s simultaneously. He was accepted to 3 different top REUs this summer and leaves next week for the one he selected.
When he applies to grad school, he will have strong research experience, fabulous letters of recommendation, have been mentored by great professors, have grad level coursework to strengthen his application, and all with zero debt.
Fwiw, his program is not rated as a top physics program, but other students have gone on to top programs for grad school. I know one is at Stanford right now.
Mom2aphysicsgeek- I agree completely with that strategy and I think he is starting to see it as well now that he’s making his own spreadsheet with costs. For example, there’s a very good chance he attends UIUC. They do have a top physics program, and he will certainly be in the first level of the James Scholar honors program with benefits of scheduling, honors dorm, etc. He’s a reach for the upper tier Chancellor’s campus honors program too. In-state tuition and minimal travel costs leave us with enough money to possibly put into one of the nicer approved private dorms we toured, maybe a car in later years, extra spending money, etc. I guess it’s a “safety” school in that he’s a lock to get into the Physics program and it’s well within our budget, but fortunately it is also one that also meets his criteria. And having gone there myself, it’s on my short list as well.
I see a reasonable chance that he has a tough choice to make when a top-rated school, perhaps say a Washington University St Louis or Vanderbilt, offers him a nice scholarship or even a full tuition offer, but the school isn’t quite as highly ranked in physics grad school rankings vs. UIUC. Dream schools like Princeton, Berkeley or Chicago are still kind of outliers as being reach schools that are also likely to be un-affordable unless circumstances change or he secures some 3rd party scholarships. Chicago has the benefit of no travel costs. I suppose in a very worst case scenario, he could technically even commute in later years if there was no other choice.
Looking at the Common Data Set for Mudd (Google, look at section H2A) – 141 students of the population of 815 have merit scholarships, average amount is $11,310 for the freshman class this year. So about 17% of students get them. My kid did not get one – she had 2380 superscored SAT, and subject tests of 800 Math II & 800 Lit. But her GPA wasn’t tippy top.