dream schools?

College Search & Lists
1

Hey everyone on cc! I’m a Junior in (residential) high school currently, with a 4.0 GPA and 1550 SAT (800 Math, 750 Reading). The only SAT subject test I have taken is Math 2; I got an 800. I will be taking the Physics and Chemistry subject tests at the end of this school year. I have taken 2 AP’s so far: AP Calc BC and Stats, got a 5 on both. My school doesn’t offer AP classes so I self-study for the exams; this year I am signed up to take Lang, Physics C (both parts), CS A, Chem, Bio, Psych, and US History.

In undergrad, I hope to do one of the following:

Major in Mathematics, Minor in Physics (theoretical)
Major in Mathematics, Minor in Computer Science
Double major in Mathematics and Physics (theoretical)

Throughout my past two years in high school, I have attempted to take the most challenging math courses possible: multivariable calc, linear algebra, ODE’s, number theory. I am also enrolled in real analysis and an independent study in point-set topology for next semester. I have qualified for AIME for the past two years, studying to qualify for USAMO (though honestly idt I can get to MOP), and spend much of my time outside of academics tutoring/teaching. Each week, I lead hour-long seminars at discussing machine learning, sometimes theoretical and sometimes practical (using sklearn and TensorFlow). I am also part of non-profit that teaches competition math to middle schoolers at nearby libraries each Sunday, at an AMC / early AIME level. I also tutor my peers for 2-3 hours per week at my school in Math, Physics, Chemistry, English, Computer Science, Mandarin, and a few other subjects. Outside of these extracurriculars, I play tennis 3 hours a week (I was only on JV last year, hoping to be varsity in this year’s season). I also play piano quite often, I think about 8 hours a week, but I have not done any competitions yet.

This year, I have also been doing mathematics research in the field of combinatorial algebra (specifically, combinatorial Hopf algebras), hoping to publish at the end of this year or continue research over the summer while interning at my dad’s software company. Speaking of summer, last summer I participated in the PROMYS program at Boston University.

My dream schools are Stanford, Princeton, Yale, and Caltech. I’m planning on doing REA at Princeton or EA at Caltech. Do I have any chance of getting into any of these?

P.S. thanks for reading through this entire thing, ik it was kind of long

2

For the top schools, including “Stanford, Princeton, Yale, and Caltech”, we really can only split students roughly into two groups (with many students sort of in the middle). There are students with superb stats who have a chance, and students who really do not have a chance.

You have superb stats. You have a chance. However, these schools are high reaches for everyone.

By the way, I was a math major with an informal computer science minor. There are a lot of schools that have great programs in this area. The ones you mentioned do, but so do quite a few others.

I think that it is worth your sending in an application to these schools when the time comes. However, you also need to find two solid safeties that you would be happy to attend and that you know that you will be able to afford.

You also should think quite a bit about what you want in a university, and you should visit a few schools. You also need to find out what your budget is and run the NPCs unless you and your parents are fine with your being full pay.

3

Thank you for your advice and reassurance! Btw, I have visited Caltech, Princeton, and Yale, and absolutely love the location of all of them. For you and anyone else who sees this, here is my full list of schools which I plan on applying to:

MIT (extreme reach)
Princeton (reach)
Stanford (reach)
Yale (reach)
Caltech (reach)
Oxford (reach)
UC Berkeley (target/reach)
WashU (target/reach)
Rice (target)
UCLA (target)
Cornell (target)
Boston College (safety)
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (safety as long as I don’t do CS)

4

Your list is all high reach and reach schools. BC maybe a match. UIUC is a match only if you are instate.

You need to look at acceptance rates, not just where your stats fall. And if you are OOS for any of the state schools, understand it’s more competitive than the overall published acceptance rate.

IMO this list is a recipe for heartbreak.

5

OP, I’m here to give you a reality check. I’m also half wondering if this post is legit because Cornell is no one’s target.

BC is no safety for anyone, except maybe the Pope’s son. Virtually every school on your list is a high reach for everyone. And unless you live in Illinois, UIUC is not a sure thing. Even if you live in CA, UCB is not a sure thing, nor is UCLA.

Your lack of compelling/interesting ECs makes me inclined to say that you are unlikely to get into any of those schools. Perhaps Caltech might be interested in your research, if you get published.

You need to understand that while your stats of course fit in to the top of all accepted students, each of those schools will use holistic admissions when reviewing your app. You are not considering the acceptance rate. You are not considering that these colleges will reject thousands of applicants who are more well-qualified than you. Stats just get you to the gate. It’s the rest of the app which gets you through it. Your essays will be critically important. If you come across in those as you are coming across here, you’re going to be very disappointed at the end of March.

You need to add at least a couple of schools that you will be happy to attend and that you can be sure you will be admitted to. You need a couple of schools that admit at least, I’d say, 35% of all students, NOT including public U’s, unless you live in that state.

6

The Princeton Review suggests colleges for math in a sampling, “Great Schools for Mathematics Majors,” that includes schools you’ve listed such as MIT, Caltech and Rice, but also lists others such as Harvey Mudd, UChicago, Harvard, Brown, Carnegie Mellon and URochester that you may want to consider.

7

What state are you from?

I think that you should add another safety or two. Your in-state public schools will be worth looking at. If you are from California, you might want to add a couple more in addition to UCB and UCLA.

I think that Cornell and UCLA are likely low reaches, rather than targets/matches.

If you do get into MIT, you might want to look at the major 18-C. I am sorry that they did not have it when I was there, but I pretty much took the classes anyway:

http://math.mit.edu/academics/undergrad/major/course18c.php

Do you have $300,000 for four years of university or have you run the NPCs on the schools on your list?

8

Rice has an acceptance rate of 11%, IIRC. That is a reach school, not a Target. I agree with other posters, you need to add a few safety schools to your list.

9

Hey everyone,

Thank you for all of your input, I really do appreciate it.

I am from Illinois, and my family is alright with paying full tuition at the schools I have mentioned. I am thinking of also applying to Harvey Mudd (which would definitely be a reach). I realize that a lot of the schools other than the top ones on the list are more like target/reach (I think except UIUC because I am in-state and would not be doing CS there). I labeled those schools in my list as target not because I think I can get into them with minimal effort, but because my stats are on the upper end of their accepted students.

As many of you pointed out, I also need more safeties.

I am wondering if the following safeties would be good to apply to:

UIC
Loyola
Colorado Boulder
St. Olaf’s (a lot of people at my school apply here as a safety for math)

10

Can you say at what level you would enter the math curriculum on the full college level? Many advanced math students might enroll in linear algebra for their first course, but it appears your goal would be to place into even more advanced courses? Is this the case?

11

Hi merc81,

If possible, if I were to be accepted to one of my top schools, I would like to place into a differential equations class (as I have only studied ODE’s not PDE’s), an intro to geometry/topology, etc.

12

In terms of further research, you may want to read the math course descriptions for the LACs in the Princeton Review sampling referenced above. Haverford, Hamilton, Bowdoin, Pomona, Amherst, Williams, Carleton and Grinnell, along with the aforementioned HMC, are the highly selective LACs that appear. Among the (relatively) moderately selective LACs listed, Bryn Mawr (if applicable), Reed and St. Olaf seem notable. If you were to attend one of these colleges, you could pursue a Budapest semester or an REU to enhance your variety and ambit. From an admissions perspective you may not need these schools, but you may find that a few particularly appeal to you.

In my opinion, I think you’ll get into great colleges, whether from your original list, or from among those you may have yet to consider, or both.

13

Btw, since mathematics and physics overlap substantially (through concept, as well through specific courses in topics such as general relativity and mathematical physics), you might be able to pursue a double major in these fields while also pursuing a minor in computer science.

14

Your boarding school’s college counselor will be far more helpful than CC on this.

15

I think the thought process is way off. I’m seeing a list of prestigious schools taken from a U.S. News rankings list, and those are your “dream schools.” I’m also hearing “Parents are OK paying EVERYTHING.” I’m just not buying it. I haven’t heard anything about your career goals and interests. I’m seeing what I call “prestige dreaming.” That’s the fastest way to find a complete mismatch and 4 years of complete misery. Right now, even if you get accepted, there’s a good possibility the financial aid package is going to be lower than expected, and you end up spending a year at community college.

First, what mom and dad says now versus when you get the actual results from the financial aid package will be much different, I GUARANTEE! Unless your parents have a $300k wad of cash lying around for an all expense paid trip to college, they’re going to have to take out significant debt to send you to these places. That’s why you have to treat cost as a precondition. Run the net-price calculator for these schools, then add 20% to the expected family contribution, then bring the numbers to your parents, THEN see what they say about paying for EVERYTHING.

Second, take some time to explore your interests and career goals. High ranked prestigious schools are quite often poor choices for many career paths. For example, University of Chicago is a highly ranked school, but their engineering program is not ABET accredited, which is needed to get an engineering job for most any company.

16

You mentioned IUC and Loyola as safeties.
But one obvious yet often forgotten morsel of wisdom I learned from CC is that your safety is not really a safety if you are seeing it as a reasonably happy outcome for you. Somehow, I don’t see you happy at UIC, based on your other choices.
Apologies if this sounds judgmental but I hope you know the intentions are all good here.

17

Agreed, and I’m originally from Chicagoland. UIC has its pros (stronger academics than people believe, as well as UIC Medical Center), but it is very much a city school (its environment is, um, somewhat safe, but one does have to take caution, especially at night). Loyola should be a bit safer. I think?

Yeah, based on the OP’s original list, UIC and Loyola do not sound like backups. I mean, if the OP is from Chicago (a city mouse, not a suburban mouse) and knows how to be aware of his surroundings, then perhaps it’s a different story.

OP, don’t make this so difficult. Find an OOS public university that offers CS and where you would be happy if you had to attend. You are a high-stats applicant, so your app should trigger significant merit awards at most schools where you are a significant cut above the typical admitted student. If St. Olaf is strong in math (and you’d be happy studying math there), then it’s a good choice. Someone here on CC should be able to steer you toward public/private uni/LAC options that are strong in math/CS and could be safeties for you. I’m an English guy, so I’m no help to you.

18

Consider substituting the word “match” for “target” as all of the schools to which you apply are target schools.

19

@yeetskeet1 You really overlooked some excellent math depts at flagships: UMD, Penn State, UMN-Twin Cities, UWisconsin, UWash. Also, UCSD . Math is usually not an impacted major at these universities, and since they all have excellent PhD programs, you won’t run out of courses to take as an undergrad. As someone with a PhD from one of the universities listed above, I can attest that their undergrad programs in math and physics are quite challenging.

At any rate, the college counselors at your boarding school should be able to help you sort this out much better than we can. For example, they can possibly suggest which one to do an ED at. My bet would be a Cornell ED app. HYPSM look for much for than what you have to consider for ED/SCEA etc.

20

Regarding St. Olaf, it appears they offer a two course sequence in differential equations (ordinary and partial). Note that colleges with three course sequences generally offer greater depth in subtopics such as nonlinear dynamical systems.