In addition to ones off those lists already discussed above, Clarkson, Case, and Rochester definitely seem worth checking out as well. And more, but I am thinking about colleges that might throw merit at this profile.
5 Likes
I should have said many private schools are unlikely to give much in the way of DE credit! Most want students there for 4 years.
4 Likes
Cambridge has fabulous pastoral support for students (all round support from academic to financial and well-being concerns). I would not worry about this there (it might be an issue at some of the other UK universities that have been mentioned however). However, I donāt think thereās a lot of funding for international undergrads, so that would be my concern. Around Ā£30k tuition, most colleges around Ā£12k college fee (those two combined add to around $56k at current exchange rates), plus most food and transport expenses.
5 Likes
Upper and graduate level math courses are likely to be small, but you may be able to see class sizes on the collegeās schedule of classes.
1 Like
Presumably, if he attends that same school, it will accept its own courses.
4 Likes
Here is a thread that describes the schools that give large merit awards for National Merit status:
Big merit NMF/NMSF schools and their specialties
4 Likes
Yes, we have looked at the financial piece for Cambridge/other UK schools and while it is the most expensive, you do get the three years to finish benefit.
Yes, this is true of course. I would just caution to budget for allowing extras that may not be obvious - apart from the prospect of rising airfares , there are random miscellaneous expenses that individually are not large but can add up (coach fare to/from Heathrow, gown, may ball tickets and tux, etc). That said, if you have the means to do it I can imagine few places better suited to a mathmo. @Twoin18 has more personal experience of actually studying math (maths) there and I am sure can chime in.
5 Likes
In addition to the many fine recommendations so far, I think you should consider NYU as a low reach and Stony Brook as a low target. Both are outstanding in math.
Completely agree with this. If you can visit a college, try to setup an in-person meeting, but if not, see if you can get someone on the phone to discuss how you might be able to continue your math education there. And by the way, what you learn can really help if the college has a āWhy Usā essay.
7 Likes
To be clear, I am not a math expert. Nor am I a professional in college admissions. These are just the thoughts of an interested parent.
Are there particular areas in math that interest your son? Some of the math specialists who will see this thread may then have particular suggestions, and your son will want to check out the offerings and faculty interests at any colleges that have smaller programs, even if they offer through a doctorate in math.
As @MWFan1921 already addressed, no college would expect your son to go back to calculus, whether they accept AP or DE classes or not. The question will more be about how many additional courses are necessary to complete the universityās requirements (i.e. whether he has to āretakeā any classes, whether he places out of everything heās done and is just taking the same number of classes, but at a more advanced level, or whether heās viewed as having completed X classes toward the major and only needs to take required classes ā X to complete the major). Depending on the school, I suspect that options 2 and 3 are more likely. There are colleges (mostly publics) that will allow almost everything your son has taken to transfer and likely to transfer for specific courses, meaning that he could graduate in 2-3 years, if so desired.
I am curious as to whether Harvey Mudd has sufficient depth for your sonās interests, particularly in math, as it doesnāt offer any graduate coursework in any subject, though I believe that what it does teach, it teaches to a very high level. Iām just not sure whether your son has (or will soon) surpass the level offered there. If heās not interested in a core curriculum, that also raises question marks for me, as Harvey Mudd views itself as a liberal arts college with students expected to take a range of non-STEM courses.
Additionally, though you think your son lacks ECs, the depth of his studies, particularly in math but also in chemistry, is such that I think that some of the āreach for allā schools are not impossibilities for him.
Regardless, however, I think itās important to start building a college list with the likeliest schools to accept your son, be comfortably affordable, and where he would be happy to attend for four years. Thus, that is where Iām focusing on in this list of schools:
Extremely Likely (80-99+%)
-
Clarkson (NY): About 2500 undergrads at this school. Iād be stunned if your son did not receive sufficient merit aid to bring this price comfortably within budget.
-
Colorado State: About 26k undergrads, your son would be highly likely to receive WUE here, meaning that costs would be about $36k (and potentially less).
-
Michigan State: About 40k undergrads. Sticker is about $56k for out-of-state students, but I strongly suspect your son would receive significant merit aid here, though I didnāt see a chart (source).
-
New Mexico M&T: About 1200 undergrads and a WUE school. With WUE, costs would run about $25k (and potentially less).
-
Missouri S&T: About 5500 undergrads. Sticker price is about $44k and your son would receive at least $20k in merit aid here, bringing the costs down to $24k, or less (source).
-
U. at Buffalo: About 20k undergrads with a sticker of about $48k, and again, Iād be pretty surprised if your son did not receive sufficient merit aid to make this comfortably affordable for your family.
-
U. of Minnesota: About 40k undergrads at this school in the Twin Cities. Sticker is close to $50k, but your son would likely receive at least $15k in merit (the NPC used to give a minimum estimate).
-
U. of Utah: About 27k undergrads. Out-of-state sticker is about $43k, but if he stays here over the summer, then he can get in-state pricing, bringing the costs to about $23k for the remainder of his time.
Likely (60-79%)
Toss-Up (40-59%)
Lower Probability (20-39%)
Low Probability (less than 20%)
Additionally, your son may want to take a look at Occidental. It has about 1900 undergrads and its students can also take courses at Cal Tech (source). I think it would be worth inquiring whether it is also open for courses that have departments at Occidental (like math & chemistry) but that are beyond the scope of those offered at Occidental. There is merit and need-based aid here.
2 Likes
There is grad-level math in the consortium, via Claremont Graduate University. Institute of Mathematical Sciences - Claremont Graduate UniversityClaremont Graduate University I have no personal experience with how attending HMC and augmenting the coursework with CGU grad classes would compare with attending a research university where the undergrad and grad programs are all in the same department. As you say, the breadth that Mudd values may not be what this student is looking for, although math + lab science combo majors are very good here.
I was also thinking about Michigan State. They have some big merit awards, and they have the Lyman Briggs Residential College which could be a good fit. Theoretical and Computational Chemistry is a significant focus area in terms of chem research and graduate study.
4 Likes
Math courses available to CGU students are listed at https://www.cgu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/CGU-IMS-GraduateMathCourses.pdf . However, note that many of them would be in the statistics department at universities with separate statistics departments, and some would ordinarily be in the computer science department.
Harvey Mudd math courses are listed at Mathematics Course Descriptions | Mathematics | Harvey Mudd College ; a few of them are listed as being graduate level. Some of the course titles look similar to those in the CGU list. If interested, the OP should ask whether they are actually the same courses.
3 Likes
UChicago has one of the strongest math programs in the US, especially given the opportunity ED provides (the only schools I would say are more rejective, like MIT and Princeton). You can research their honors analysis sequence, which is offered to sufficiently high-placing freshmen and is a graduate level course at most universities. I would research it in depth and consider EDing.
One downside to UK universities is that they will be unlikely to accept transfer credit. I would have him prepare for the STEP exam - his odds at Cambridge would be low, but with practice he stands a good chance of getting in to Warwick, which is a little flexible with math courses (I believe you can take classes that are one year ahead). I would not apply to trinity college at Cambridge, as itās significantly more selective.
1 Like
OP, you can also use transferology to see where credit has transferred.
Also, many colleges offer departmental challenge exams for placement or credit.
I have heard of students at NCSU taking graduate classes relatively early, although you would need to talk with students there (reddit or discord)
1 Like
But if they think his academics are strong enough to admit to the university they would pool him into another college.
2 Likes
UChicagoās core curriculum might not be the best fit, given what Iām reading from the OP. That would be one of the things they should research in depth about the school.
3 Likes
I have heard of very strong profiles - those which certainly would have at least warranted an interview at other colleges- getting rejected pre-interview because Trinity is just that overwhelmed with exceptional applicants.
The pooling process you mentioned only occurs after interviews; those rejected pre-interview have no such option.
Keeping in mind that UChicago does the quarter system so a single course there isnāt as long as a semester course. And donāt most of the other US universities mentioned have similar requirements?
That does remind me:
No general education requirements (other than two writing courses), no prerequisites for any course, and you can take courses in a tutorial format. You get a lot of scholarship money. OU also has a math PhD so the course ceiling is quite high, and of course tutorials can go beyond that.
3 Likes
As mentioned I grew up in the U.K. and did my maths undergrad and PhD at Cambridge (but was admitted for NatSci and changed to maths during my gap year because I enjoyed maths more and discovered it was less work, at least if you can do the problems, if you canāt it would be very depressing).
I note that OP suggested a double major in math and chemistry if attending a US college. I assume that they would likely be looking at NatSci at Cambridge rather than math. STEP makes Cambridge admissions very problematic for math unless you are taking a gap year (you take the exam in June and donāt find out until mid-August when U.K. A-level results are released whether you were successful, which is after many US colleges have already started the fall semester). So I would always recommend Oxford instead of Cambridge for a US maths applicant (despite Cambridge nominally having a higher reputation).
You can compare TMUA with STEP and TMUA is vastly easier (I looked at a TMUA paper when it was mentioned in another thread and could just write down most answers without thinking, even after not doing proper maths for many years). MAT at Oxford is somewhere in the middle (and you take it as a filter before interviews in Oct/Nov). STEP has the same format as Cambridge undergrad math exams (20 points per question, you need about 14 or more points to get an alpha and an average of 4 or more alphas per paper is a first - undergrads take four 3 hour papers back to back over 2 consecutive days). Whatever you take you need to spend a good part of your summer preparing for the test. All the material is free and online.
Note also that U.K. degrees donāt allow you credit for classes taken previously, everyone does the same course. Having said that, extra preparation is a great thing, given the speed at which everything moves and the very short 8 week terms (it is typical to spend most of the 4 week Christmas and Easter vacations revising and catching up on everything from the previous term). I had a very strong maths preparation from my high school (ie could answer every single A level question in both maths and further maths and got 100% in timed practice exams) and it made the first year at Cambridge far easier than it would otherwise have been.
A fairly clear cut ordering emerges in the first term within your subject group at your college, after which you basically know what degree class you are likely to get and that can be dispiriting to some (my spouse, brother and both SILs went to Cambridge and all found this - one who knew they couldnāt get a first however hard they tried said they felt they might have been better going elsewhere for college). Your depth of understanding is also what is tested in the interview, you should live and breathe your subject, ie read math books and do math for fun, even if you donāt do serious competition math (eg a few years ago I used to enjoy doing Putnam problems for fun while traveling). I recommend GH Hardyās A Mathematician Apology and (more challenging but fascinating) his lectures on Ramanujan to those who havenāt come across them:
The Cambridge maths syllabus even points this out as desirable āmathematics itself can hopefully be recreationalā:
10 Likes
Iām hoping @WayOutWestMom will provide input about the New Mexico colleges (UNM and Mexico Tech).