D so far isn’t really clicking with the LAC’s we’ve visited. Swarthmore was a firm no. Wesleyan the same. Haverford was a maybe. We recently visited Vassar- she doesn’t think the student body is the right fit for her and she did comment that the emphasis on social activism “might be exhausting”. So this is all good to know.
So far her most enthusiastic response has been to Yale (lol), but she spent the first decade of her life in Manhattan so the urban environment was very appealing to her.
I asked her father last night what type of school he sees as a best fit for her- his answer was “a place like Villanova or Princeton”. Given her reaction to the LAC’s, he may be right. She’s just not interested in considering Princeton. She did like Villanova but they don’t have much of a music program.
My goal is to visit schools while students are on campus so she can get a feel for the student body and overall atmosphere. I’m just not sure we will have a chance to see them all.
Should we expect a similar atmosphere (to Vassar) at Williams or Amherst? D liked Amherst’s description in the Fiske guide. I see her as a kid who could benefit from a flexible curriculum.
What about Skidmore? Or Clark U? She’s very interested in visiting both.
We still plan to visit Tufts, Holy Cross, Boston College, William and Mary and Case Western.
Her father thinks we might want to consider Cornell. I’m concerned about its reputation as a high stress school.
Any feedback on the general atmosphere at these schools would be incredibly helpful (Williams, Amherst, Skidmore, Clark and Cornell especially).
I’m a Cornellian. My D wouldn’t even apply after our visit. Felt that Cornell tied with CMU for having the most stressed out and unhappy students (for engineering). That was definitely not our experience but we are over 30 years out now and I agreed that the students we interacted with were very tense.
For a student who prefers an urban location, Cornell is also not it.
Why is Brown not considered. Of the Ivies, from what you describe as her preferences, that seems a better fit than Yale. It’s urban but beautiful campus. Thayer Street is fun. Music program is small but good.
Brown, Tufts, Clark, Skidmore all make sense. Amherst has the advantage of being in the 5 college consortium and it is a bustling town.
Should you cross off Oberlin and Williams since they are rural? Ditto Bard? Or does she want to include them.
It looks like she could have a list of 4-6 schools.
Visting means tours and info sessions which have their place. But we hung out in the dining hall, library, on the green and the bookstore (where we could even check books for classes). “Vibe” sounds important!
We will definitely visit Brown! And Amherst seems like a decent option given the location and consortium. She didn’t vibe completely with Vassar so I’m expecting a similar reaction to Oberlin.
I’ve shared a couple of Skidmore’s Facebook posts with her. She thought the students seemed happy, fun and did not seem to take themselves too seriously. Hard to get an accurate read from social media. Clark seems low key to her, which she also likes.
I appreciate the feedback about Cornell (and CMU). They seem like intense environments.
I have been slow to respond to this, but something does come to mind.
As a math major, I knew a number of other students who also majored in math. We ended up with a rather wide range of careers in a number of different fields. There are quite a few different careers in fields that need quite a bit of math.
Just as some examples. One friend with a math degree then went on to get a law degree at Harvard. Years after graduating with a degree in math I happened to run into a different friend who I had not seen since graduating. He showed me what he did (down to the detailed equations). He had gotten a master’s degree in acoustics, and was working on the acoustics of a particular concert hall. There is a LOT of math involved in making sure that every seat in a concert hall has good sound quality. Someone else with a degree in math became a software engineer. My first job was at a cyclotron, and was mostly involved in aligning the beam. Again a lot of math is needed to keep a beam of protons at relativistic speeds aligned and on track to their destination. I then ended up with a career in a very different field (but specialized enough that I would rather not say which one). Some other math majors go into econometrics, or finance, or accounting. Teaching is a possibility (and is what my mother did with a degree in math). AI and machine learning are also possibilities. Internet security and encryption also use math. At one point I had a tour of a radio telescope – again a lot of math. I was interested to learn at the time that the most accurate way to determine the exact distance between a large radio telescope in Massachusetts and a large radio telescope in Germany involves using a lot of computer power and a lot of math to analyze data coming from some of the most distant objects in the universe. They can measure the drift between Europe and North America down to a fraction of a centimeter (apparently we are still drifting apart rather slowly).
There is a lot that a person can do with a degree in mathematics. While a bachelor’s degree in mathematics does not immediately point to any one specific career, it can be a very useful stepping stone in the way to any one of many different very good careers.
Some of these careers involve rather large sets of simultaneous equations, and solving these equations is often done by computer. Having some CS experience can be a valuable supplement to a degree in mathematics.
And math and music go together quite often.
Which specialized career follows a degree in mathematics is something that a student can figure out even after they get their bachelor’s degree. It is possible to try a bit of this and a bit of that before figuring this out.
I am very happy that I got my bachelor’s degree in mathematics. If I were to do it over again, I would most likely do the same thing.
Thank you so much for the thoughtful post. This is precisely what I try to tell her - no need to worry about a specific job or career path anytime soon. A degree in math would open up many many options later in life. And, I think, a low stress environment with flexible curriculum would allow her to explore other areas of interest in an enjoyable way. She’s currently tutoring a student in math for $20/hr. She enjoys the easy money
I commented a while ago but S24 is at Williams and is a likely math/physics major. He applied to Williams Ed. He did not really like skidmore but was planning on applying, Vassar came off the final list and he did not like Wesleyan at all. Williams is very different in vibe than the others but they do work very hard. It is cold and rural but he has not had reason to leave the school except to eat food in town come home for break so I am not sure he would notice if he was in a more suburban or urban area. Happy to chat more through pm
I’m not sure why you would think a degree on math is conducive to low stress, even if the campus itself is laid back (and few of the colleges you’ve identified are going to be easy to excel at). Math makes it more obvious than any other subject quite how large the gaps are between the truly gifted and the merely talented students. I was good enough to get a math degree and PhD from a very elite college and still spent a lot of time feeling intimidated by much more gifted students (future math professors including Fields Medal candidates). Those students who were less good really disliked their experience as they were always struggling to keep up. I imagine it could be low stress for a truly gifted student. For the rest of us, not so much.
So just beware that high school math being “relatively easy” doesn’t say much about how you would compare to other math majors at an elite college. Everyone in my college class had been the best in their high school. But within the first term we knew how we compared to each other.
My daughter transferred to St. Olaf this fall, and absolutely loves it after starting in 2023 at a more “prestigious” school she didn’t end up returning to after the first semester. She’s a math and education major and very involved in dance. She never did HS math competitions, hadn’t taken Calc in 3 years, but absolutely loved her calc class this semester and can’t wait to take 2 math classes next semester (that did not come from me). As parents we have been super impressed with the school and the music program seems amazing. I don’t know how much expressing interest factors in but I would recommend contacting your admissions counselor, and letting them know that, signing up for online admissions events etc.
One other thing, besides the initial drive to get her there, it is much more convenient to get in and out of Northfield via shuttles to the airport than for us to drive 5.5 hrs each way to her first school, which was not at all near a convenient airport.
Thank you for your response. I really do think she would love so much about St Olaf. Right now we all have a bit of a “why should she go all the way to Minnesota” mental block. But we are also struggling with the atmosphere at many of the northeast schools, so this really is a great suggestion for her. Thank you.
I am happy to hear your daughter found the right fit. That is what we want for them. Best of luck to her!
St. Olaf is a great recommendation for your student’s interests but I hear you that it’s far. One of the smartest and most talented young women I know is a St. Olaf grad, had a fantastic experience, and was able to pursue her music and her STEM major at a very deep level. She turned down much higher ranked schools for St. Olaf because of the school culture. Bonus too that they give merit money.
Just a thought on “vibe” or a school’s reputation for intensity—
Don’t let the outliers define the entire college for your D- especially if it’s a place as big as Cornell (or some of the other U’s). A smaller college- yes, fit is important of course, and the tone can indeed be set by the outliers (at both ends) even if the majority of students wouldn’t be described that way. But at a place like Cornell there is room for all sorts… the pre-meds gunning for A’s, the Ag students worried about the safety of the food supply and climate change, the history students who volunteer in reading programs for elementary students in Ithaca, etc. In my experience the more varied the academic programs, the greater variety in personalities and intensities you will find on campus.
Julliard- a mono-culture.
U Michigan- lots and lots of sub-cultures.
etc. You get my point!
I agree that Clark and Holy Cross are worth a look.
Yes to the merit money! Even for transfer students. And because mine is on partial FA too, she was able to apply to a fund that paid most of the dance team dues.
I don’t think I’ve said this here yet (but I might have, because I’m feeling some serious deja vu) but if you’re heading to Worcester to look at Holy Cross and Clark, you might want to consider WPI. They have a strong math program, and a music minor, with really robust (especially for a small tech school) program of music and theater related extracurriculars. The students tend to be very collaborative and supportive of each other. It is a STEM school, so there are a lot of engineer and computer science types and not a broad array of humanities, but it’s a lovely campus and a potentially interesting option for her. (And heck, if you’re in Worcester already for the other two, may as well stop by if you have the time.)
Both St. Olaf and Lawrence stand out to me as ideal places with likely merit money. The reason to go all the way to Minnesota is to get an equally good product at half the price! Sounds like a good reason to me.
I have visited many Midwest LACs as an admissions consultant: Beloit, Kalamazoo, Oberlin, Earlham, Macalester, Grinnell, DePauw, Albion, Carleton, etc. etc. Lawrence and St. Olaf stand out as having some of the kindest, sweetest, least pretentious, least social-climbing kids I’ve ever met.
