US student
Arizona
Highly selective/rigorous HS school
Need merit or meets need schools. Could cash flow 45-50K max. but it would make parents stretch to do it (no family vacations/eating out for four years). They are willing to do that for their only child.
Double Major in Chemistry and Math
3.9 UW GPA - school doesn’t do weighted GPA
School doesn’t rank
36 ACT
List your HS coursework
School doesn’t offer APs but have done 8 AP tests with all 5s.
English: In top level English track at school.
Math: Have completed 16 university courses in Math with all “A” grades (many 400 level courses). Finished Calc 2 as a 7th grader.
Science: Everything at top level, except Bio (did honors HS bio). Organic Chem at university, Physics for scientists and engineers at university.
History and social studies: AP US, AP World, and AP Gov.
Language other than English: Spanish (didn’t do AP test, but took four years.) Not my strength.
Awards None
Extracurriculars. Struggle to do much due to ADHD. Hard to manage course load and more once medication wears off.
Part time job - math tutor at university and writing tutor.
Essays/LORs/Other
Really hard for me to guess but I imagine they will be strong.
Schools
Reach for the Stars - Cal Tech, Stanford, Harvey Mudd, Cambridge, Michigan
Are the Net Price Calculators coming back as affordable for your family for Stanford and Harvey Mudd?
Besides very deep and strong programs in math and chemistry, what are you hoping for from your college experience? Some questions that my prod your thinking include:
What size school do you prefer?
What size classes do you prefer?
How do you feel about a core curriculum or distribution requirements?
What are your climate preferences?
Are there regions of the country that you prefer (or prefer to avoid)?
How do you feel about significant enthusiasm for intercollegiate sports?
How do you feel about Greek life (fraternities/sororities)?
Are there any particular interests (outside of your majors) that you’d like to pursue in college?
Are there any factors (like politics or religion) that will influence your college choice?
School size - Open to most anything. If at a large university, hope to be in a smaller honors college.
Class size - Prefer smaller (<20) but open to anything. Major classes at least should be small.
Core curriculum - Has already had a very rigorous core curriculum. Would prefer a school that accepts all university classes (even if not counted toward major). Don’t want to be forced to retake math starting at Calculus.
Climate - Cold, hot, anything but super humid.
Regions - Don’t want to be in the South. Parents prefer the West for proximity. Student is happy to go East.
Sports - Doesn’t matter
Greek Life - Doesn’t matter
Pursuits - Hiking, outdoor activities, or exploring new places in large cities. Clean air is important to me too.
Politics/Religion - Prefer a more liberal crowd and a non-religious school.
The private schools aren’t likely to give any credit for DE courses. They may give some credit or placement for some AP test scores of 4/5.
That’s not going to happen. Each college generally has a math placement exam. With that said, I would expect the onboarding for your student might be a bit different and require some discussion with the head of the math dept.
I do like the idea of Cambridge for an advanced math student with light ECs…BUT students have to adult in UK colleges more than they do in the US because there are fewer supports, less overall structure, etc. Do you think this could work for your student with ADHD? What math and STEM AP tests has your student taken?
Yes, even with ADHD keeping up with academics isn’t hard, as they have a natural academic mind and can hyper focus on that. That is why I like the UK for them also. Has taken AP Chem, Physics (both), CalcBC, Stats, all with 5s.
Is that really widely true? BU, CMU (2 random ones I checked) or RIT where my kid is going, will take DE under certain criteria.
One of my kids goes to school where most kids take a lot of DE courses (physically at a big research university, not a CC in at the HS) and my understanding is Harvard is only one that gives zero credits for DE under any circumstances. Others will review syllabi or may have other requirements like you took the class on the college campus (and not in your HS) ..another common requirement is that the DE course didn’t count as a HS requirement..etc etc
I may be wrong about “the only harvard” part but some private schools do give credit for DE courses I am sure.
These classes are all being taken at the local research university. Other HS students at same school have experienced some colleges not taking them, and some taking them (mix of both private and state schools).
Looking outside the US has some obvious pros, and possible cons.
Have you considered the University of Toronto, for example? I don’t know a lot about how they teach undergrad Math, but I know they have a top shelf Math Department. I believe their admissions policies would be favorable for this case.
The old Scottish universities all have fine traditions in Math. St Andrews, Edinburgh, Glasgow, all could be worth checking out. I know most about St Andrews just because my S24 applied there (and was interested enough that we visited), and so I know they have a Chem and Math joint course:
Inside the US, Minnesota has an excellent Math Department and OOS merit. Michigan State and Pitt maybe too. I note I am focusing on Math because that seems like the more limiting factor, but all these schools have excellent Chem too, and I would probably list Minnesota first for that too.
Finally, have you looked at CMU? I think they might bite on this sort of profile.
Add Northwestern. At all your reaches start reading the Math dept webpage and reach out to professors whose work you find interesting. Do run the NPCs.
Beside UToronto, what about UBC and Waterloo? They wouldn’t care all that much about ECs and you could mostly take math classes.
UK: is it within budget?
Look into costs and bursaries/scholarships.
For math, in the UK, you’ll need an extra test.
Cambridge or Oxford
You can add 4 more degree programs on UCAS. Look into
At St Andrews, you would likely qualify for 2nd year entry. Worth looking into.
Look into the curriculum at Edinburgh, Herriot Watt, Glasgow.
I’ll be back with some thoughts, but just going to post some research I did. I used College Navigator (feds’ website with IPEDS data) and this site that looked at the undergraduate origins of people who arned a doctorate in the U.S.: https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/jonboeckenstedt/viz/DoctoralRecipients1958-2023/AllData. I looked at the areas of Chemistry and Mathematics & Statistics to see the number of alumni who went on to earn a doctorate in the field (viewing that as solid preparation in those fields) as well as how many Bachelors degrees were earned in SY22-23 (the latest year available in the IPEDS data).
In addition to gathering those two data points, I created a ratio of the number of doctorates earned in a field between 2010-2023 by the number of bachelors received in SY22-23 to get a sense of how many students were going on for their doctorates from a given program.
You may find the ratio helpful, or you may not. Or your son may prefer to look at the size of an undergraduate math or chemistry department as a more helpful gauge. As a frame of reference, IIRC off the top of my head, the ratio for state flagship students majoring in anything going on to earn a doctorate in anything is around 0.81 (WRONG), meaning that all of these have strong doctoral outcomes for these fields.
EDIT 2: I should not have given a number off the top of my head as I was off by a whole place value. Going back to my notes in this post, the average ratio among the 50 flagships is 0.0928 and the median is 0.0849 (for doctorates earned 2000-2018).
This chart is sorted from highest to lowest ratio for Chemistry:
School
# of Chem PhDs earned by alumni between 2010-2023
# of Chem Bachelors Awarded SY22-23
Chem Ratio of Doctorates to Bachelors
Highest Chem Degree Offered
Cal Tech
82
7
11.7143
Doctorate
Harvey Mudd
50
8
6.2500
Bachelors
Clarkson
31
5
6.2000
Doctorate
Worcester Polytechnic
38
7
5.4286
Doctorate
Washington U.
66
13
5.0769
Doctorate
Case Western
63
15
4.2000
Doctorate
Stanford
46
11
4.1818
Doctorate
U. of Arizona
79
19
4.1579
Doctorate
Cornell
140
34
4.1176
Doctorate
U. at Buffalo
91
27
3.3704
Doctorate
U. of Rochester
75
23
3.2609
Doctorate
Boston U.
91
28
3.2500
Doctorate
MIT
86
27
3.1852
Doctorate
Carnegie Mellon
63
20
3.1500
Doctorate
Northwestern
68
22
3.0909
Doctorate
U. of Chicago
104
34
3.0588
Doctorate
U. of Michigan
129
43
3.0000
Doctorate
Rensselaer Polytechnic
59
22
2.6818
Doctorate
Brandeis
40
15
2.6667
Doctorate
U. of Wisconsin
152
60
2.5333
Doctorate
Rice
40
16
2.5000
Doctorate
U. of Maryland
70
28
2.5000
Doctorate
Colorado State
56
23
2.4348
Doctorate
Harvard
86
38
2.2632
Doctorate
U. of Pittsburgh
122
57
2.1404
Doctorate
New Mexico M&T
14
7
2.0000
Doctorate
Purdue
126
65
1.9385
Doctorate
Missouri Science & Technology
22
12
1.8333
Doctorate
U. of Minnesota
124
68
1.8235
Doctorate
Arizona State
46
31
1.4839
Doctorate
Ohio State
96
66
1.4545
Doctorate
Binghamton
76
55
1.3818
Doctorate
U. of Utah
66
48
1.3750
Doctorate
Michigan State
80
60
1.3333
Doctorate
U. of Illinois
130
116
1.1207
Doctorate
U. of Texas - Dallas
30
30
1.0000
Doctorate
This chart is sorted from highest to lowest ratio for Math:
School
# of Math Phds earned by alumni between 2010-2013
# of Math Bachelors Awarded SY22-23
Math Ratio of Doctorates to Bachelors
Highest Math Degree Offered
Harvey Mudd
88
14
6.2857
Bachelors
Cal Tech
117
25
4.6800
Doctorate
Clarkson
18
9
2.0000
Doctorate
MIT
184
99
1.8586
Doctorate
U. of Texas - Dallas
99
63
1.5714
Doctorate
U. of Chicago
201
156
1.2885
Doctorate
Cornell
96
82
1.1707
Doctorate
Case Western
44
39
1.1282
Doctorate
Stanford
96
88
1.0909
Doctorate
Washington U.
53
53
1.0000
Doctorate
New Mexico M&T
9
9
1.0000
Doctorate
Harvard
161
198
0.8131
Doctorate
Rice
64
80
0.8000
Doctorate
U. of Utah
63
79
0.7975
Doctorate
Colorado State
41
52
0.7885
Doctorate
Rensselaer Polytechnic
59
75
0.7867
Doctorate
U. of Rochester
66
84
0.7857
Doctorate
Worcester Polytechnic
19
32
0.5938
Doctorate
Northwestern
47
82
0.5732
Doctorate
U. of Arizona
66
116
0.5690
Doctorate
Carnegie Mellon
94
188
0.5000
Doctorate
Missouri Science & Technology
14
28
0.5000
Doctorate
U. of Michigan
115
235
0.4894
Doctorate
U. of Pittsburgh
43
92
0.4674
Doctorate
U. of Maryland
71
155
0.4581
Doctorate
Arizona State
77
183
0.4208
Doctorate
Michigan State
54
132
0.4091
Doctorate
Brandeis
21
55
0.3818
Doctorate
U. of Minnesota
77
202
0.3812
Doctorate
U. of Wisconsin
77
221
0.3484
Doctorate
Ohio State
74
265
0.2792
Doctorate
Binghamton
23
88
0.2614
Doctorate
Boston U.
34
136
0.2500
Doctorate
U. of Illinois
87
415
0.2096
Doctorate
U. at Buffalo
22
105
0.2095
Doctorate
Purdue
47
288
0.1632
Doctorate
(Edited to make charts that were only for math or chemistry, to improve readability.)