<p>Okay, I know this sounds terrible, but I am a prospective freshman applicant to Harvard for the Class of 2018. I know that I am not Math 55 materialI never even went to an MOP camp or even took AMC, AIME, etc. very seriously and only participated once in them on a whimbut I have several serious hooks, in my mind, making me an application to the school still worthwhile. If I were to be accepted and enroll, how bad would it look on graduate school applications to top math graduate schools if I took Math 25 as opposed to Math 55 my freshman year? I have heard that people at Harvard look down upon people who want to enter research in a field but are not the class most brilliant in the subject. How true is this, and how much could that affect me? Is this true at other top universities?</p>
<p>…aaaand this is why people hate Harvard.</p>
<p>^People hate Harvard?</p>
<p>^People from Yale hate Harvard.</p>
<p>Nah, I just hate the insane, frantic careerism exemplified by the OP. It exists at Yale too, unfortunately, but based on my interaction with Harvard students, I think it’s worst at Harvard. No where else have I heard that people “look down upon people who want to enter research in a field but are not the class’ most brilliant in the subject.” I imagine it a very sad experience indeed to go to school in a place where people are worried about their grad school applications before they enroll as undergrads. </p>
<p>(Though in all likelihood, the OP will either quickly change his/her approach or enroll elsewhere.)</p>
<p>Harvard attracts the most applicants like that. I have not found it has an oppressively high number of students like that.</p>
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<p>Yes, I know that I have to do either of the two because I cannot make it as a math student at Harvard. I don’t know what alternatives I have, so I just want to know if there is a place for me at Harvard or in other Ivy League math programs or if I need to default to a state school or find different goals.</p>
<p>The paths to success are long and strange. Going to Harvard undergrad can help you, sure! But even that, let alone the difference between Math 25 and 55, will never make or break you. My thesis advisor, for instance, is a MacArthur-winning titan in his field…who started out at bumblenowhere community college, transferred to state school, and then proceeded to kill it as a professor. I actually respect him more for it than I respect the background of my Princeton-educated son of a Princeton professor Marshall winner professor. I respect them equally as people in the present day, but of those two backgrounds, community college is the one that makes me say, “oh, that’s impressive.” Good luck applying to Harvard, but neither your college choice nor your course selection within it will make or break your life. Math 55 is probably more helpful than 25, but it’s nothing you can’t work past.</p>
<p>OP: Sorry…but, I have been reading this thread with great amusement! Why just “ivy”…are you that provincial/ignorant? Have you heard of MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, Caltech…</p>
<p>…you might want to do some simple googling that any intelligent person can do about math programs…</p>
<p>[Best</a> Mathematics Programs | Top Math Schools | US News Best Graduate Schools](<a href=“http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-science-schools/mathematics-rankings]Best”>http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-science-schools/mathematics-rankings)</p>
<p>I wouldn’t even bother with 2/3 of the ivy schools for math…</p>
<p>Saying Ivy was a mistake. I meant HYPMS. I have no interest in Caltech and Berkeley for several reasons I will not go into here.</p>
<p>Maybe my issue with Harvard and Math 55 is symbolic. That I would be surrounded by people who have taken tons of graduate-level math courses and IMO winners and thus placed into the useless category of theoretical math students is what makes me uncomfortable to pursue study at any top school for mathematics.</p>
<p>Sorry to hear that…
…I have no connections to Berkeley or Caltech…but some of the greatest math minds have been from those schools or teach there…</p>
<p>Moreover…it seems you are only targeting the “street prestige” schools…
and having said that…if indeed, you don’t have a “wow” factor in something like IMO/or similar prestigious awards and applying as a potential “math” major to schools like Harvard or Stanford…you stand little chance of acceptance compared to those who possess these accomplishments…as you have clearly noted in your “concerns”…</p>
<p>…so…I would think long and hard about which schools you are targeting…and truly having a chance of “getting in”…</p>
<p>Applied math is one of the best concentrations at Harvard in part because all the Math 55/25/23/21 hierarchical drama funnels many talented students out of pure math. This kid hasn’t even been accepted yet and it’s scaring him off already.</p>
<p>So yeah, OP? Don’t go to Harvard. You’re only going to freak out even more over your place in the pecking order and probably wind up a comp sci major.</p>
<p>Or, stop being such a p***y and don’t chicken out of a great math education just because you qualify for the class that crams 5 semesters of material into 2 instead of the one that crams 7 semesters of material into 2.</p>
<p>Also, math research as a career is a terrible move anyway. If you were lucky you’d be edged out of it already. But the universe is not being that kind to you today.</p>
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<p>If I am not Math 55 material, I am not a great “math mind,” so I think I have the wrong set of interests and intentions. </p>
<p>Anyway, are graduate school rankings really relevant to a school’s fit for me or the goals and methods of undergraduate instruction and curriculum? And who are the students who are the people who take Math 25? One person suggested that the audience comprises liberal arts and weaker physical science students who just so happened to have taken university-level courses beyond the standard multivariable calculus and linear algebra and worked through texts like Rudin’s introductory real analysis book without being interested in research in math or science, which seems completely fanciful and not describing anyone like anyone I have ever met.</p>
<p>[Harvard</a> Mathematics Department : Courses in Mathematics (2013-2014)](<a href=“http://www.math.harvard.edu/pamphlets/courses.html]Harvard”>http://www.math.harvard.edu/pamphlets/courses.html)</p>
<p>"Meanwhile Math 55 should be taken only by students with extensive college level math backgrounds. "</p>
<p>The expectation that most entering Harvard students have extensive college level math backgrounds is silly.</p>
<p>So…let’s be honest here…you mention wanting to do “math research” as an undergrad but don’t have the math prowess to handle something like Math55…and you are applying to MIT but not interested in Caltech…which is basically a sister school to M…</p>
<p>…I’m getting the picture that you want to basically be a math major (lite) at “these” schools so that you can go into consulting or finance…am I getting warmer?</p>
<p>…it’s nothing to be ashamed of…if that is what you ultimately see yourself doing…</p>
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<p>Caltech is simply too small a school for me to feel comfortable. </p>
<p>I am not completely mathematically inexperienced or stupid, but I am still no genius. By the time I graduate I will have five courses beyond Calc BC, only three of which are proof-based and only one at the graduate / advanced undergraduate level. AoPS and other threads on here say that everyone in the class is former MOP and have taken at a minimum courses in abstract algebra, real and complex analysis, number theory, point-set and algebra topology, etc., some of which I haven’t done even independently beyond an introductory level. I am total math nerd and try to spend my day doing math and would like to do nothing more, but I am bound to being an undesirable “math major (lite)” because I am neither smart enough nor experienced enough to not meet serious resistance at the suggestion of taking a course like Math 55. If I have to fall back on consulting, which is what it seems all this is pointing to, it will not be the end of the world, but if I could I would love to be in rigorous mathematics courses for four years if for nothing else but the fun of it. If that was what I really wanted to do or would not be severely disappointed if that was where I ended up, I would be more interested in finding an easy major and doing closer to the minimum academically just to maintain a high GPA. Would doing a weak math major even be feasible or just simply frowned upon? Would I be looking at a GPA so low that I couldn’t even get a consulting or investment banking job if I wanted to? And based on how everyone is receiving me, I obviously lack the personal qualities needed for jobs that so heavily rely on personality. </p>
<p>Comp sci major at a state school, here I come. :(</p>
<p>Don’t drown in the distance, Op. Just take the next step.</p>
<p>The next step is figuring out what I am going to do with myself for the next few months and finding out what I am actually capable of doing with my life.</p>
<p>Well, you’re not alone. Don’t over think it.</p>