From Deny to Defer status

CountingDown
Thu, 14 Dec 2017 21:41:07 +0000

Would your S be happy at Penn State even if he doesn’t get into the honors program? If not, he needs some other likely admits. Everything else on his list is reachy, if for no other reason than those schools have low acceptance rates. If he likes math, look at UMD-College Park. Great department, easy to double major in CS, lots of brilliant kids. Count me as a +1 for looking at Case and Pitt. If he likes data, look at applied math programs.

Am the parent of S who got a math degree along with lots of grad CS courses; most of the schools on your list were ones my S considered seriously. He went to UChicago. S was on the math team but did not do much in the way of the big math competitions – he was seriously involved in the CS equivalents and research that got him some big awards. He majored in math to enhance his CS tool kit and to prepare for a PhD in theoretical comp sci. He’s at a SV company doing lots of big-picture language and algorithmic development, which he finds more fun than research.

My DH was a decision sciences and accounting major at Wharton. It was lots of playing around with data, and he learned lots of useful skills that he applies every day in a non-math, non-CS job.