hey everyone! i am not a stellar student. i am currently a junior and my cumulative uw gpa is 3.5 and my SAT score is 1900. while i do have many ec’s in an out of school (none of them being math related), i am afraid i would not be accepted as a math major into any university, especially given my grades in math my freshman and sophomore years of high school (low 70s) and my sat score. i truly enjoy math and would love to pursue it at the university level. currently in my honors precalculus class, i have above a 100. do you think i would have a chance at being accepted to a well-renowned university (acceptance rate of around 40-50%) as a math major given my stats? (i also recently took the new psat based on the redesigned sat and got a 1380/1520. do u think i would have a better chance at the new sat?)
@catcrazy0630 Keep in mind that in some schools, you are admitted to the entire university, and changing majors is not too difficult.
Also, note that even though stellar grades throughout is optimal, an improvement in grades is also good and shows potential. So if you keep at it, you might be accepted by some of these good universities.
Lastly, as a math/CS major, mathematics is a lot different and more open than what is usually taught in the standard algebra/geo/pre-calculus sequence. If you have experience with proofs, that greatly helps.
Yes, if your high school geometry course had proofs, that will give you an idea of what more advanced math in college will be like (but harder and in more areas of math).
You might not be accepted into a top-30 school, but plenty of schools would be happy to accept you as a math major.
@MITer94 I may consider applying undecided and transferring to math if that would improve my chances. Thanks for the advice! The main reason why my grades improved was because I switched schools before my junior year. I switched from a highly competitive public school in the Bay Area to a private school with a more advanced curriculum (currently taking 5 APs) and achieved an unweighted GPA of 3.67 my first trimester (2 B’s in AP Physics and AP English Lang. and 5 A’s). I made this move primarily because the reason everyone else at my first high school was getting by–despite the abundance of unhelpful and disinterested teachers–was because their parents poured money to tutoring centers while I was attempting to get by with no outside help. I became completely demotivated because no matter how much effort I put into my schoolwork and studying, I did not see any results…I was getting the same grades. (Sorry, I’m basically ranting now.)
I guess my final question is do colleges look into the fact that I switched schools and see it as something negative? Is my reason for getting bad grades in freshman and sophomore year basically an excuse and would colleges just assume I’m lazy if I mentioned the reason in my application? Again, thanks so much for the encouragement and advice! 
@ucbalumnus In my freshman geometry class, I loathed proofs with all of my being, but enjoyed everything else in math. Now, I enjoy any and all proofs (to the point that I spend my spare time deriving many of the formulas we are taught in precalculus…not sure if those count as proofs), but I am not so enthusiastic about graphs 
thanks for the insight!
@simba9 I realize that but do you think that this would create problems for me when I am looking to get hired or will it not matter too much that I did not graduate from a top 30 school? Also, do you think schools like UMichigan, UIUC, Rutgers, UKentucky, UCSD (probably a reach), CWRU, Ohio State University, and UTAustin are plausible for me?
thanks! 
@catcrazy0630 Considering that there are tons of possible reasons one would want to switch schools, I’d say it probably isn’t a negative (or positive) thing. But I’m not 100% sure (I went to the same HS all four years).
I did too, and I am a math major. The infamous “two-column proofs” taught in geometry are almost never used in academia, and they usually only restrict proofs to geometry (e.g. proving two triangles congruent).
I’m guessing Rutgers and Kentucky are possibilities. The others, probably not.
There’s enough of a demand for math majors that you don’t need to graduate from a tip-top college to find a job, unless you’re looking to teach math at an Ivy or someplace like that.
Hey guys! So i retook the SAT and got a 2040. Still not THAT great but does it make a difference? (also found out my cumulative uw gpa is 3.6 rn)
I had a 1600/2400 SAT score and got into a Tier-1 Research University in Math. It’s definitely still possible.
The AMS Group I [url=<a href=“http://www.ams.org/profession/data/annual-survey/group_i%5Duniversities%5B/url”>http://www.ams.org/profession/data/annual-survey/group_i]universities[/url] aren’t necessarily the most selective schools at the undergraduate level, and they’re not necessarily the best schools for an undergraduate math major. (For example, some students would be more successful at liberal arts colleges, and most of those don’t even have Ph.D. programs.)
Are you interested in any particular careers?
@cameraphone well i mean that’s a perfect score…mine is pretty average
@halcyonheather my main goal is to get into medical school but i want to be able to incorporate math and science together in my research as an undergrad math pre-med.
@halcyonheather and also if i literally fail in my dream of becoming a doctor/researcher, my last resort will probably be accounting/cpa
I think they meant 1600 out of 2400, which is pretty close to the national average.
@catcrazy0630, I mean 1600 out of 2400, so nowhere near perfect.
@cameraphone Oh. Sorry! I hope I didn’t come off as rude. :-S
That’s really good! If you don’t mind me asking, could you tell me the name of the university as I would like to consider applying there as well?
@halcyonheather Got it. I jumped to the conclusion that they had gotten a 1600 which is the perfect score for the new SAT. X_X
Becoming a CPA would require a lot of accounting classes that aren’t part of a math degree.