<p>The schools S1 (math/CS major) had on his list were:</p>
<p>UChicago (attending)
Mudd
MIT
UMD
Cornell
CMU
Caltech
UMich
Stanford
Harvard (applied at last minute when new FA was announced)</p>
<p>S picked Chicago because he wanted the Core – he knew this was his opportunity to dip his toes in other waters. Other schools he considered: Reed (loved it), Berkeley (math grad students told him don’t come for UG), Swat, Pomona, Williams, Princeton, Carleton. Other good math programs: UCLA, NYU, Grinnell.</p>
<p>If your math major has significantly more work under his belt than BC Calc, do some serious investigation as to whether a school’s program can keep him busy for four years. At one school, S was told that the last time a student had come into their program with the amount of math S did, he wound up transferring to Harvard (obviously, this was a few years ago, since H no longer accepts transfers). While S liked smaller schools, he found that the resources of a research U were essential. Even within that limitation, the ability to move on a faster track was crucial. By way of comparison, Analysis is a junior (or even senior) year course at many schools, and it is generally considered the make-or-break for math majors. At some of the top schools, it is possible for freshmen to place into Analysis or beyond.</p>
<p>If you search on “math major” in the 2010 parents thread, we covered a bunch of this same ground and I posted some links for math major types.</p>