Right now I’m exploring the option of getting a math bachelors than continue math in grad school. I’m wondering what the best schools for this that isn’t MIT, cal tech, Stanford etc. I have:
3.7 gpa (junior)
dual enrolled for all junior classes (4.0 college gpa)
30 ACT (will retake to bring up)
SAT scores haven’t come out yet.
Extra curricular: includes hours of volunteering with disabled children, math tutoring, math and science clubs (x3), VP on math club at my cc, and I compete on a national level playing classical piano.
So schools that would be a possibility for with those stats and would be impressive if I try to go to a more prestigious graduate school would be great! I’m on the West coast (Oregon) and parents and grandparents have set aside about 50k per year for undergrad.
Oh schools where I could get research experience would be a plus!
How advanced are you in math courses?
Stony Brook and Minnesota may be worth a look for schools that are not super selective or over your budget.
Your state flagship might be a good, affordable option.
University of Waterloo, University of Toronto, University of British Columbia
I’ll have gone through a year of calculus (three quarter terms at a cc)
Does this mean that you will take multivariable calculus, linear algebra, differential equations as a high school senior?
If so, then you probably want to school whose math department has a PhD program, because you will likely want to take graduate courses and do graduate-level research as an undergraduate.
No I’ll mean I’ll only get up to that level when I graduate. But yes the rest of those are in the game plan
Do you like a large sports oriented school or a small school at which you will know a large part of the student body? A smaller school would probably have fewer courses offered but more individual attention.
I don’t care about sports, but I do lean towards larger schools. The class size is what gets me if I could find a large school that has small class sizes than that would be the perfect match.
You might want to see if a larger school offers honors sophomore level math courses, which can be much smaller than the regular ones. Junior and senior level math courses are often small.
You can check on-line class schedules at various colleges to see if they show actual class sizes.
If you will be finished with the calculus sequence but not beyond that by the time you finish high school, you will be intermediate in math. You would probably be fine in a math department without a graduate program, as long as the department had a variety of upper-level math courses. But you might want a math department that has a graduate department, just in case. This means that most LACs might not be great choices for you - although you say you lean larger anyway. Also, you may not yet know the answer to this but do you have an interest in the applications of math - like applied math, statistics, operations research, financial engineering, etc.? If so, then you may be interested in going to a university that has those options.
You don’t need to go to any specific kind of undergrad to look impressive for graduate school - most good, solid undergrad universities will do.
The University of Oregon has a math department with a graduate program and allows you to concentrate in pure math, applied math, or secondary teaching. You can also design your own track. There are a lot of upper-division math classes including ones in statistics and applied math. Oregon State allows you to choose one of three tracks: applied and computational math; secondary education; and statistics. (You don’t have to choose a track.) Oregon State also has majors in finance and industrial engineering, so you can take classes in those departments as well to round out your math major. They also have a minor in actuarial science. There are also lots of upper-level classes here.
Other than that - do you have any specific preferences? Urban, rural, suburban? Do you want to stay West Coast or explore the country a bit? Do you want a school with D1 athletics or does that not matter? Go Greek? Do you want to be a big fish in a small pond or to attend college alongside people who have stats quite similar to yours? There are lots of great schools where you can study math - most strong universities have good to great math departments where you can take math classes and excel and go to graduate school. Some are better than others, of course. But getting to know some of these things you want will help people make suggestions.
“but I do lean towards larger schools. The class size is what gets me if I could find a large school that has small class sizes than that would be the perfect match”
After you get past the intro level calc courses, class sizes decrease dramatically. For example, my son’s linear algebra course at Michigan had only 15 students in it.
At your CC a lot of the instructors probably have a PhD, and from good schools. That’s due to the glut of PhDs, but that’s a story for a different time. What matters here is that you, 3x a week, see people that have gone thru the whole grad school process and have a good idea of what you’d need to do in order to be a good candidate. Talk to them.
All of my teachers have Masters degrees. I’ve discussed with them most of them got their Masters and started teaching at my CC loved it and never let. That’s great, but I do not know if teaching is for me. Maybe someday but I would also like to see what it would be like to actually work in the industry.
@juillet I think I would lean towards applied math or theoretical math. I don’t see myself in statistics or finance I would love to be able to apply my research towards STEM. As far as location, going all the way to the east coast is not as preferable as being on the west coast. It’s hard to imagine going that far away from my family, that being said there are great schools in the midwest and east coast and I’m not ruling anything out because of location just yet. I love that college town feel and love when the campus or surrounding area feels lively. Sports aren’t my thing so I don’t care about that. Greek life or partying is definitely not my thing. I would like if the school has clubs and intramurals, activities that I would be able to get involved in the community without getting drunk or high.
I don’t want to go to a school where I would be at a disadvantage. So I worry if I go to a school where my stats are on the low end I’ll be struggling through classes, but I do want to feel challenged and I want to learn a lot.
I would really appreciate a school where it feels like a collaborative rather than cut throat environment. Good counseling services and connections to the industry and employment is important. I would love the ability to research and intern as an undergrad. Being from Portland, I tend to like schools with a quirky vibe.
These schools are ranked highly in math, and your GPA would put you among the top students. Out-of-state tuitions costs aren’t too high, definitely under 50k:
-Colorado State University
-Temple University (You should get some merit)
-University of Florida
-University of Illinois - Urbana - Champaign
-University of Wisconsin
Have you looked at Lewis and Clark (though it may be too close to home)? My D went there for math (with two minors) and loved it. She got to do two summers of math research. She had the same amount of math you will have coming out of HS. She now does modeling and simulation of new technologies for the DoD.
I would consider it. I know some people who got some major scholarships from there from my program. And thank you @newjerseygirl98 I will research those.
Minnesota has a very good math program. And they have multiple tracks, so you cand find the level of rigor that fit ls your ability.