I don’t believe that New Mexico Tech would be good fit for this student. NMT’s only math PhD program in industrial applications of mathematics. The Master’s program is more oriented toward applied math topics.
University of New Mexico would offer greater breadth and depth in math than NMT. UNM offer tracks in both pure and applied math bachelor’s thru PhD level.
My SIL found UNM’s math offerings sufficiently rigorous. (SIL earned his PhD in physics at UNM and is now a theoretical physicist/mathematician with a number of pure mathematics papers. He just published an original proof for Zauner’s Conjecture. He’s co-authored several papers with a Fields Medal nominee and was a lecturer in mathematics at Institut Henri Poincaré.)
UNM is a WUE participant and annual costs to attend will be about $25K (tuition, fees, housing, meals)
UNM has a Honor program that would help make the university feel smaller than the 17,000 undergrads UNM has,
I believe you can transfer fairly easily from maths year 1 to natsci year 2, which would be a good option for OP, although it’s typically done with physics rather than chemistry. The challenge would be taking natsci chemistry 1a during year 1 of maths rather than the more common natsci physics 1a in the first year of maths. There might be a flexible DoS at one of the colleges, right?
Natsci uses NSAA, which might be a bit awkward for OP’s son if they aren’t very strong in physics or biology as the options for the remaining module, after chemistry, are physics, biology, or advanced mathematics and physics.
Lots of information to comb through - thanks! I will get back late tonight after I’ve had a chance to research what is here so far. I want to reiterate, the main factor I want to address is how these schools will look at a student with weak ECs. While we have looked at a lot of these schools (UChicago for example), we have discounted even applying due to the EC factor.
My two cents is you are right to be concerned about loading up on too many highly selective holistic review colleges, regardless of what sort of fit they might be academically. Of course taking a shot at a handful of those may be fine, but again I think you are right it is critical to make sure there are plenty of colleges on the list where this particular profile could be seen as very competitive.
I can certainly understand discounting applying to UChicago due to a lack of ECs - I cannot understand doing so while keeping MIT, Caltech, and Harvey Mudd on the list.
Well, because we want to take a shot at a few of these schools. So we are going to keep a couple on the highly unlikely list that also meet the ideal climate/proximity to home criteria. (Not that these criteria are necessary in all other targets/safeties.) MIT is not on the list. Caltech/HM/Stanford are - but this is before we thin out what is actually applied to.
I was wondering whether the College of Creative Studies at UC Santa Barbara would be a possibility for this student. I think they have both Chemistry and Math though the student would apply to one of these programs or actually maybe have one as option 1 and the other as option 2. They do allow a student to add a second major. I am not sure if the cost would be doable or whether merit/need is given but perhaps others who are more familiar might know about the matter.
It’s possible some reachier schools might consider this student even with low EC’s. There was a mother with a mathy kid whose EC’s were not that strong. The student ended up at Oxford but posters suggested MIT and Princeton as possible schools that might overlook a lack of EC’s. Those along with the ones mentioned above such as U Chicago, NYU and CMU could be schools that the student might consider adding - or not - if the location is a factor.
There’s also BYU, although it’s certainly not the typical college experience (dry campus, run according to LDS values, etc), it is a good, affordable school.
I didn’t see this above, but just want to make sure you know hobbies and family responsibilities (if real) can be included in activity list… Not sure if this applies, but my kids most interesting ECs were self-directed hobbies…I have occasionally seen people think if it wasn’t organized it didn’t count.
Additional possibilities with WUE reciprocity are U of Nevada Reno (which is California-adjacent, just 15 miles from the border - more than a quarter of UNR students are Californians) which has an undergraduate Honors College https://www.unr.edu/honors, and U of Utah, which has a robust Honors College as well https://www.honors.utah.edu/. Both have strong STEM and merit potential in addition to the WUE discount. (UNR gives an additional 16K/year for National Merit; Utah has several levels of OOS merit but they’re not specifically linked to NMF status that I can tell.) Utah also has a path to residency as an alternative to WUE (OOS tution for the first year, in-state thereafter). Both have honors-specific housing in addition to the other honors programming. While neither state is as liberal as they might prefer, they would find plenty of like-minded students at both universities, and both cities have many progressive residents.
Not likely. You can attend whatever lectures you feel like. But taking exams/getting supervisions is a different matter. There are cross-linked paths between math and NatSci that end up in theoretical physics/astrophysics, but not elsewhere. Cambridge maths actually has quite a bit of compulsory physics starting with mechanics then fluid dynamics, quantum mechanics etc and most math/further math A level students also take A level physics because it’s complementary (like AP Phys C but harder), my high school actually required this for all further maths students.
The usual solution for NatScis with a lack of interest in physics is to pursue one of the ab initio sciences (geology etc). But if you want chemistry, NatSci is the only realistic option at Cambridge.
This is a good point. I do struggle to think of those types of things as ECs. I also don’t want to put too much identifying info into these posts. They do do more than just tutor, but I would consider their ECs very weak compare to most high achieving students. They have school clubs and summer jobs and causal hobbies (but nothing that they are doing with any sort of deep commitment, years long development process).
If you’re looking in the UK, consider Trinity College Dublin. My niece just finished her first year there in engineering. Loves it and praises the program. She’s also saving a lot of money.
Union College in Schenectady, NY is the rare LAC that has engineering and is strong in math. I’ve seen kids get big merit awards there it’s in NY’s capital district and could therefore be visited in conjunction with RPI, which was suggested earlier in this thread.
I also think a university in the UK or Canada would work best for this student, given their academic rigor and relative lack of ECs.
That said, I also think that UCSB’s college of creative studies, in math or chemistry, could be a wonderful choice for this student due to their emphasis in independent, often graduate-level work — if the money worked out. Would the student get enough DE credit that they could graduate in 3 years, thus making the college of creative studies a possibility if the budget is amortized over three years instead of 4?
@gumbymom — is there anything this student could do with a combo of their existing DE credits and possible future credits from Santa Barbara Community College to make UCSB a possibility with a 2 or 3 year duration instead of the usual 4?
We both are on the same wavelength! I suggested College of Creative Studies as well but the cost may be too high of an obstacle to overcome.
I think one problem with some schools outside America is that they may not offer students the choice of doing both chemistry and math. @NiceUnparticularMan suggested St. Andrews as it offers both which may also be the case with Edinburgh and maybe other Scottish schools since the Scottish system has 4 year programs but the British schools often expect one to focus on one subject or two highly related subjects such as math and computer science or math and physics and finish the requirements in three years. Not sure about all schools in Canada but a school like University of Toronto allow students to earn a specialist degree in one subject but also two majors or other combinations like a major and two minors all of which are expected to take 4 years. However, given that this student has so many courses already, perhaps the student would be able to graduate early with transfer credit.
Starting at a community college may not work academically for a student who is already ready for graduate level math and upper level chemistry that are the likely majors (i.e. too advanced for what community colleges offer).