High school preparation for US student looking at Oxbridge/Imperial

[mdpmdp]

@Twoin18

So some of the senior year courses you mention above would overlap, but that would probably be helpful given the intense workload and rigorous treatment.

I agree. If he’s going somewhere as demanding as Oxford/Cambridge, I don’t mind him repeating material he’s seen in high school.

@Twoin18

I think the most useful background would be some of the proof and problem solving approaches typical of AOPS, which I don’t really see in my kids’ US high school curriculum (or even in first year college courses, I know my D got an A in Honors Calc 3 just by memorizing the formulae).

He’s done a couple AOPS classes, although they were a couple years ago now. The Intro to Number Theory was one of them, which he liked a lot. Could look at the Intermediate Number Theory class.

@HazeGrey

His AP path was similar - CS A in 10th, BC & Physics C in 11th. That was all Oxford cared about and I believe it was helpful for those to be completed at the time of application.

Thanks — very good to know.

@HazeGrey

At Oxford, the joint Maths/CS program is a four year program, so not as much savings there, plus as was noted, that is one of the more expensive degree programs. The three year straight maths is a more cost effective option.

I see the cost difference on Oxford’s webpage, but both the Maths and Maths/CS pages seem to say 3 years for a BA and 4 years for an MMath (or MMathComSci). It’s very possible I’m misunderstanding something, though.

Thanks for everyone’s comments — they’ve been very useful to me!