Yes I am aware his goals and desires can change. We are just trying to ensure all routes remain open. One easy way to close the UK route for example would be not to do 5 AP classes or miss that Calculus BC is a requirement.
Most universities on the list offer most majors. If he wants to study something else when he is off to college that his choice. The list of colleges can be tweaked too, but it fundamentally won’t change anything.
Some data on TMUA (you can find it yourself for confirmation.)
It’s meant for A* A Level Maths students, so, the top 15-20% in the already selected post AS Level maths. Most of those are probably in Further Maths also, if their school offers it.
Among those, as per the link I posted above, you can see that most students score 1-4.5 - though strong A* A Level students can reasonably expect to score 4-4.5 with preparation. Depending on the university and course, a 4.5 can be sufficient for the cut off. The most competitive CS courses would require 7. LSE wants a 6.5 which is at the tippy top of A* students (again: selected group: A-Level maths; among those, A* students).
The goal is to determine who the students who "think math"are among these top students - the scores are cued so that the top 10% will score 7 or above 7, at which point odds of an offer are 50%.
Top 10% of top 15% of a selected, advanced group.
A TMUA score of 6.5 is incredibly difficult. You can look at the papers to gauge how much so. The amount of time it’d take to reach even 4.5 would be tremendous.
That’s why non TMUA universities - if @Hockey_Dad is serious about keeping the UK path open and viable - would be preferable.
Bristol was suggested. St Andrews is already on the list.
And in terms of ease of access+likelihood of survival+prestige combination, Trinity Dublin would have the best ROI.
This kind of thinking makes more sense in cases where admission is based primarily on SAT, GPA, number of AP classes and similar stats. If you are Canadian, it would make sense that you would think this way, since I believe it’s typical for the top Canadian universities to have more predictable admission policies, placing significant weight on stats.
There are universities in the US that have primarily stats-based admission, but these aren’t typically the most selective institutions.
The most selective schools in the US have holistic admissions, placing significant weight on other aspects of the application. Accepted and rejected applicants may have very similar stats!! Applicants are distinguished by additional holistic factors that stand out to admissions officers, as well as institutional priorities involved in shaping a first-year class with a desired mix of students’ backgrounds, talents, interests, etc.
When looking at universities with an admission rate below 10%, each student isn’t actually going to have the posted chance (as though dice were being rolled). Some students actually have really strong holistic factors and have a much higher chance (but still must fit institutional priorities), while others are weak on the holistic front and have a much lower chance. That’s why you will see some students admitted to multiple sub-10% admit rate institutions, while others with similar stats are rejected by all in this range.
Although students and their parents can look up typical accepted student stats, it’s not really possible to look up “typical accepted student holistic factors.” Even when looking at accepted students’ narrative descriptions of their successful applications online (such as here on CC or on reddit), it can be difficult for a student or parent to evaluate how much stronger or weaker their own application is, because of the importance of holistic factors and institutional priorities that ultimately drive admission decisions at these universities.
I won’t comment on UK universities since I don’t have personal experience.
I googled what a good TMUA score is and the result was a 6.5. We aren’t shooting for meeting the requirements. We are shooting for doing our best and hoping to beat them. It’s quite possible we won’t be able to meet one or more requirements but that’s just fine.
Knowing the average TMUA would help to some extent but not very much. Let’s say the data was known and the average profile was an 8. It could very well be the case the average for UK citizens is an 9 and US citizens only a 7. If they have international quotas etc.
The more data one has the more accurate the model would be. However, TMUA is a requirement of 2 out 20 universities across 3 countries on the list.
I plugged in rough conservative estimates for accept probabilities. The model is meant to serve as a rough handkerchief calculation, not something which serves as a basis of billion dollar bets where we are trying to estimate accept probability accurate to seven decimal places.
For data, please see my posts above.
Yes US colleges have a holistic admission process and that’s fine. We are trying to raise well rounded kids for which reason I don’t have them to summer school and encourage participation in athletics and other extra curriculars.
He has a very decent extracurricular profile which will include being varsity captain of the hockey team, coaching neurologically disadvantaged kids how to play hockey, starting a club to prevent bullying in the locker room.
Then there’s the summer program at Oxford that was done last year, the language immersion being done in Germany coupled with getting an A+ in his German Honors class every year. And some AI related entrepreneurship projects. Next year he is planning to do some summer entrepreneurship program at Wharton and go to summer school at Imperial.
So I believe the extra curriculars will be competitive at most US schools
Something to consider is that not every question on the TMUA involves calculus. Have your son look at some of those questions on the past papers. From 2016 - Paper 1:
It is given that the expansion of (ax+b)³ is is 8x³-px²+18x-3√3, where a, b and p are real constants. What is the value of p?
The expression 3x³ +13x² + 8x + a, where a is a constant, has (x+2) as a factor. Which one of the following is a complete factorisation of the expression?
The line segment joining the points (3, 3) and (7, 5) is a diameter of a circle. The circle is translated by 3 units in the negative x-direction, then reflected in the x-axis, and then enlarged by a scale factor of 4 about the centre of the resulting circle. What is the equation of the final circle?
Are these problems doable to him? Are they interesting to him? Is he improving as he completes them? Algebra 2 should be enough to give him an idea of where to begin as he tries to solve them. If this is the case, then I suspect that studying for the TMUA alongside calc and precalc will be feasible, though I say that not as an expert, but as a student who’s trying to do this himself.
We are still researching how to prep him for TMUA. I ran one problem past him, he knew how to do it instantly. I need to spend more time on to access where he stands.
We did one GCSE test that wa posted here. He was able to solve all problems that related to what he has learnt in school.
I think with practice and tutoring it will work out but I might be wrong.
For anyone reading this … summer programs like RSI at MIT help with admissions to the " highly rejective " universities. Pay to play programs are neutral - likely won’t help but probably won’t hurt. Every summer spent at one of the pay to plays-- won’t help, can hurt. (USA only, since these activities are irrelevant overseas). Being fluent in German helps, assuming that an expensive immersion program is impressive will not.
OP has a lot riding on the hoops the son is jumping through for the UK while still maintaining an appropriate profile for the US. Whartons summer programs are a cash cow for the U, fyi. As I recall the minimum GPA requirements is around a 3.5? And the fee is over 5k for three weeks??? And nobody at Penn will tell you that the program helps with Wharton admission. So caveat emptor.
Lists of ECs aren’t quite the same thing as the holistic factors desired by admissions officers. They’re looking for evidence of personal qualities such as leadership, intellectual energy, stamina to follow through on something difficult, personal responsibility, genuine care for others, etc., that can be demonstrated in all sorts of different ways.
Have you read the famous “applying sideways” blog post from MIT?
(Note also that summer programs where you pay to participate aren’t impressive ECs just because they take place on a famous university’s campus. Summer programs can certainly be enjoyable or educational for the student themselves, but are not necessarily more impressive to an admissions officer than a regular summer job, or helping to care for Grandma.)
I will look into Trinity Dublin. There is also Boconni where kids seen to go. Problem with US and UK schools when you move down the ratings ladder is that they are not competitive with the top Canadian universities which have very low cost and high acceptance rates and high global rankings. And my son is a Canadian citizen.
Things would have been easier if he just did pre calculus over the summer and calculus as a junior but that his call.
I would be curious to know if anyone knows top TMUA tutors with proven records.
My current plan is
Junior year
Precalc, AP Stats, AP Comp Sci P at school.
AP Macro online.
Possibly AP Precalc with me.
SAT prep
Summer
Extracurriculars
Calculus bootcamp
Senior year
AP German, AP Comp Sci A at school
Either
Calculus BC at school or,
Calculus AB at school and Calculus BC online.
TMUA prep
Canada’s top universities have a much larger capacity for undergraduate students in proportion to Canada’s total student population, compared to top universities in the US. Therefore, they can have a higher admit rate and a much simpler process. And because they are public universities they’re also cheaper. It’s a great deal for Canadian citizens, if a large public university suits the student’s needs.
That is the core issue — people here think I “disdain” lower ranked US universities. This really is not the case. It’s just they are not price competitive with what Canada has to offer. That pretty much a fact at least as far as Canadian citizens are concerned.
The most likely outcome for my son is a top Canadian university. Where we save the tuition for a down payment on a home. And pay for a masters in the US.
We will take bigger risks with US universities. I am optimistic he will have some good options here probably just bellow the top tier. Whether they will be worth it another matter.
LSE and Imperial will be long shots as would UPenn or any other top US school. I think odds at LSE would be higher than Penn is he does well on TMUA.
Nothing wrong with Canadian universities… and even given the higher price for US citizens, they seemed to be a good enough bargain that my S23 applied to all the top 3 (and actually got some nice scholarships), and D26 is likely to do the same.
The choice of where to apply is mostly going to be up to your son, though… isn’t it? Within the budget constraints you give him, presumably.
Correct. The list is tentative and just a way to estimate the probability of getting in to at least one school if you apply to multiple countries. Although options in Canada constraint what can be placed on the US and UK list.
The only thing he has told me he “wants to go to Georgetown”. I don’t know how he came up with that given he has never visited. We have to told him if he gets in he can go and we will pay full price even if he has cheaper Canadian options which are competitive.
Many of us are VERY familiar with Georgetown and who they take and who they don’t.
Scratch the summer academic programs. He’s already done one, he doesn’t need to telegraph “We’re so affluent I don’t need to work and my parents can pay”.
He can volunteer-- teach athletics at a camp for developmentally disabled adults. Everyone wants the kids- but there are programs for adults that are begging for “athletic types”. He can get a job- a regular old job. He can get a job AND volunteer.
Georgetown is very much into “service”. Service to mankind, society, your community. They will LOVE the anti-bullying initiative (nobody will care in the UK, and it won’t move the needle at other US colleges). Being sporty AND academic will be great. Showing a ton of interest will be great. Finding a way to show intellectual depth (not via the number of AP’s- but having teachers comment on how perceptive his observations on literature are; he connects the dots in history class as a result of the reading he does independently) etc.
He doesn’t need a paid program at Wharton to get into Georgetown. He needs to bring his verbal SAT up, focus on staying on track with math (which will get his math scores where they need to be) and do something that a Catholic university will consider “worthwhile” or shows initiative over the summers.
My neighbor (the kindest and most generous kid you could imagine) who got into Georgetown in a VERY competitive year from my area this year was an OK athlete (good not great), a strong student (strong but not top of his class), SAT’s just at Georgetown’s midpoint-- and a TON of “service”. Worked on the mayor’s anti-bullying initiative (the only teenager among a group of politicians and educators), regular column in the local paper about unmet needs in the community, ran every “drive” his school had- coat drive in the winter, unused ice skates to donate to the local Boys/Girls club, diapers and wipes drive for parents who were showing up at the local food pantry, etc.
I wouldn’t call him “well rounded”. Not musical in the least. Never been in a school play. Didn’t work in a sculpture studio in his spare time. No photography, fencing, circus clown. Never started his own non-profit, and never been on a “mission trip”. But for a typical “Average excellent” student he was a standout in how he lived his values.
Georgetown’s track record admitting these kinds of kids is relatively transparent so I’m not revealing anything unknown.
It’s good to know. We will tailor the narrative via the essays to the school in question. I told him he would need to improve his verbal score as it is not test optional which will take work. He said he will do it, so the hunt is on for a good tutor. But based on what I hear the score can be improved. Next year’s summer extra curriculars are obviously tentative based on where things stand but he will be given a choice. Plus the mother has her own ideas. We didn’t force him to study only during the summer so next summer is unlikely to be different. The onus is on him to find other schools that would be of his interest as far as I see it.
If he loves Georgetown, picking Fordham for his list was a wise choice. It’s probably the closest in terms of strength in finance/econ plus the vibe. Probably a more politically engaged student body (both by proximity and by kids consciously choosing to be in DC) but plenty of internship and job opportunities.
Villanova, American, GW, Holy Cross…
Fordham is the US safety. The rest of the list will get tweaked by the team he is ready to apply but the onus it upto him to come up with the other names. The issue will be competing with Canadian universities. But I am optimistic Georgetown or something like that will be an option for him.