Need target/safety for top student, very advanced math, weak ECs [AZ resident, 3.9 GPA, 36 ACT, <$45-50k, chemistry and math]

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

Target -

Safety - UofAz, Arizona, UTDallas,…

Thanks

TYPO in title. Should be low level ECs

Purdue would be a likely Target for the intended major and come in at budget.

RPI would also be a Target and they give merit $.

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Given these at in-state prices (minus automatic scholarships), are there any desired characteristics of colleges that are not found there?

Colleges less desirable than affordable auto admit safeties can be dropped from the list.

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This probably means needing a research university with a strong graduate math program for suitable course work and research opportunities.

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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?
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Is the student likely to be a national merit semifinalist?

Also paging @hebegebe for ideas for this advanced math student

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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.

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Yes they will be National Merit SF.

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Yes, Stanford and Harvey Mudd NPCs would be affordable.

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Yes, a strong graduate math program would be ideal. But also need a school that will accept student with few ECs.

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Student would prefer to go out of state/live away from home, so that is the only thing that makes those auto-admits not desirable.

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 just noticed Cambridge on your list, so paging @collegemom3717 @twoin18 @hazegrey @purpletitan @myos1634

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?

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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.

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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.

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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).

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that sounds right to me! I agree with others it may be hard to get credit for ALL of them, but I think a number of schools will take at least some..

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.

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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.

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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.)

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