I’m an international student and potential math major. Cost is not a problem. My parents would rather let me go to Wellesley for its ranking. But in terms of math dept faculty, UCSD is definitely better. If I choose Wellesley I may want to transfer to other big universities, because LAC is really not for math. Even Wellesley’s cross-registration with MIT doesn’t help too much I suppose. The problem is that I can’t be sure of doing math… if I change my mind some time later (which is very possible), then I’d rather go to Wellesley.
So which one do you think I should pick? Thanks!
Are you already very advanced in math? Wellesley students are able to take classes at MIT but I don’t know how many or if that is sufficient to supplement your major. I know Wellesley is very strong but I do not know much about the math dept. Yes UCSD is going to have broader and deeper math offerings but I don’t know how many of the profs in the dept work with undergraduates. Although both are good I would pick Wellesley for the luxury of the personal attention and excellent reputation. If you are full pay then you can transfer if you feel it is best, but I bet you won’t want to. If you do you will have the best of both worlds with a great start at Wellesley and the opportunity to explore, then a bigger dept for the upper division when classes are smaller. But if you are on aid then you are sort of stuck unless you transfer to a ‘meets full need’ college and that is possible.
You need to get more details about cross-registration for the courses that you would want to take. Contact Wellesley and ask. Or check in with the people in the Wellesley forum here. Some of them may have good information about that for you. If you start a thread there, put something like “cross-registration for math classes at MIT” in the title so that people will know what your question is.
Since money is not an issue for your family, my advice would be to start at Wellesley, and then transfer elsewhere after a year or two if you still are a Math major and have run out of coursework.
I think I’m pretty advanced in math… I finished learning most contents in the lower division courses already. What worries me is not about the courses available. I can take those offered in MIT anyway, though the two colleges are actually quite far away from each other (which is also a problem). But speaking about research opportunities, faculty etc, I don’t think Wellesley has enough resources to help me…
I’m full pay so I’m not considering aid problem here.
@BrownParent Could you elaborate a bit on “I bet you won’t want to (transfer)?” Because of the low transfer acceptance rate or…? I have a good academic record in high school… I know transferring is extremely hard but if I maintain a good GPA in college, I suppose there is some possibility?
@happymomof1
Thanks for the advice!
I’ve researched into the cross-registration quite thoroughly. MIT has many courses I want to take that Wellesley doesn’t offer. But it’s not possible to take all of them at MIT… there’s an one-hour ride between these two colleges. There’re also seminars and colloquia in MIT that happen on a weekly basis, not to mention the research opportunities etc. And Wellesley lacks all of them. That’s why I was considering UCSD.
As for transferring, how feasible is it to transfer after only one year?
Feasibility of transfer depends on many different things - where you are transferring from, where you are transferring to, whether you are full-pay, what you did in secondary school, what you did in the first year of college, etc. Yes, you would almost certainly get in somewhere, but whether you would get into your target college/university is a whole different thing.
You may want to send a PM to b@r!um. She was a math major at one of the other women’s colleges, and ended up taking many of her classes at another university where she could co-register. She knows more about math issues than I do.
Obviously Wellesley will not offer the same resources for research as UCSD. They are very different types of schools and environments. Rankings and prestige should not be factors here because the schools are on totally different playing fields. If you feel you will be limited in opportunities because Wellesley is a LAC, go to UCSD.
Well, based upon Wellesley’s math department’s page, their alumnae go onto graduate school in math quite frequently.
When you said you are finished with most lower division courses already, what do you mean? Are you finished with the calculus sequence through multivariable calculus and linear algebra? If that’s true, you’ve already finished half the major in math at Wellesley (and about half of it anywhere, honestly) , but I still count 14 other advanced math classes that were offered this year that you could take (Statistics & Probability, Number Theory, Combinatorics & Graph Theory, Elements of Analysis, Lebesque Theory, Abstract Algebra, Topology, Foundations of Mathematics, Cryptology, Differential Equations, Euclidian & Non-Euclidean Geometry, Advnaced Number Theory, Complex Analysis, Stochastic Processes). Four of those are special topics classes that will rotate ever so often, so you would probably have a different set of special topics in a year or so to take.
So there are plenty of mathematics courses at Wellesley for you to take, and you could still cross-register for a course or two at MIT if you wanted to experience a graduate course in math. There are also courses in physics, computer science, and economics that you might be able to count for credit towards the major and/or take just to increase your mathematical knowledge - there’s at least one cross-listed class I don’t see here. Liberal arts colleges are sometimes more flexible about what can count as credit as long as you can convince someone.
But yes, UCSD has a wider array of mathematics courses in both pure and applied math, and graduate-level courses being that it’s a graduate institution. SO the question is what you really want out of a college. Do you want to go to a large university where you can concentrate primarily on taking upper-division and graduate-level mathematics classes? Then UCSD is your choice. Do you want a small LAC where there are more than enough math classes for you to take; you can’t focus on taking graduate-level courses, but you could also focus outward on building a broad base of liberal arts education? Then Wellesley is for you.
Also…of course liberal arts colleges are for math. Math is an original liberal art.
@juillet
Thanks for the long post!
About my math background: I’ve learned linear algebra, stats & prob, number theory, graph theory, and I’m ok with abstract algebra as well… But as I said before, what concerns me is not the classes offered, but loads of research opportunities and faculty resources that are not available in Wellesley.
I don’t quite get your idea on other courses and credit? Anyway I have absolutely no interest in Economics whatsoever…
I think you get where the problem lies. I kind of believe that LAC is of small use for me now because the original purpose of a LAC is to teach students how to learn… which I think I’ve pushed myself and done quite well in my high school.
Of course I checked Wellesley math alumnae’s page. If I’m dedicated to do math then I want to do it well (go for a phd etc), and it seems that UCSD alumni have better options with regard to their later choices.
Hopefully I’m not being offensive or sounding arrogant here… Thanks!
Well, here’s the thing about elite small LACs: they can attract the same kind of great faculty that top research universities can attract. There was a job this year in my field at Amherst that got more than 200 applications. Elite LACs offer a low teaching load (four classes a year) that’s comparable with research universities; they also support their faculty in research - giving them start-up monies and laboratory space to do research. Every single job ad at a small elite LAC emphasizes having the desire and ability to mentor undergraduates in research. Yes, the scale and the pace of the researcher is slower, but there are definitely research opportunities at Wellesley with professors. Mathematicians generally need less expensive equipment than other fields, too.
Yes, LACs are designed to teach people how to learn, but so are the undergraduate curricula at large research universities. The undergraduate program at any school is largely about breadth, not depth. You’re not going to become a mathematician or even to study math - you are going to get a broad-based liberal arts education (at BOTH schools) with a concentration in mathematics.
My goal is not to convince you to go to Wellesley! I just don’t want you to make a decision on the basis of inaccurate information, especially if you want to go to Wellesley but feel like you have to go to UCSD. Quite frankly, given how advanced in math you are Wellesley might not be a good fit and UCSD might be the better choice for you. There’d be basically very few classes in the major that you could still take, and MIT is too far to take lots of math classes at.
What I meant by credit: the way Columbia’s math department works, you can use for major elective credit any class that requires at least two semesters of calculus. That includes a lot of classes in economics, physics/astronomy, engineering, operations research, applied math, financial engineering and even a philosophy class IIRC. I was saying that sometimes LACs are flexible in what they count for their majors; even if a class is not currently listed as satisfying a major requirement, if you can make the argument sometimes exceptions can be made. But it depends on the individual LAC.