Calling all nerds!

Need help. DS is a hard worker (valedictorian with great stats). He’s considered a “nerd “ quirky and unique) but not antisocial and awkward. He has friends and they love him. He’s super sweet. Looking for a college with a math degree (applied or other) that has other hardworking students that like to engage in stimulating conversations and take their work seriously but also know how to have fun. But not the “frat boy, beer drinking type of fun”. More like the “nerf war, water balloon, quidditch team” type of fun. A place where they embrace their quirkiness. He doesn’t want to go to a closed-minded preppy school where they’ll judge him for his clothes or exclude him because he doesn’t dress well or drink. He doesn’t care about rural vs urban nor conservative vs liberal. He’s a liberal kid from the south so he can handle both ideas. (But prefers open minded people.) Looking for a friendly, inclusive place where they can appreciate a sweet nerdy type guy. Some “nerdy” schools sound like they all have closed doors and they never leave the dorm, like CMU (correct me if I’m wrong about that one). He doesn’t want that. He is a perfect fit for Rice but it’s hard to get in there and so we need some other ideas. Any advice? (And any places we should clearly avoid because they would hate him?)

You described my daughter. She’s having an amazing time and found her tribe at Purdue.

Budget limitations?

Cost constraints and state of residency?

What math courses will he have completed by the time he graduates from high school?

Does he have a particular goal in math? E.g. PhD / pure math / research in math (or related fields like statistics, economics, operations research), work in finance, data science, computing, operations research or other applied areas, teaching high school math, … ?

Don’t want to impose budget restraints yet. Will figure that part out later. We are from Texas.

He is not yet sure how he wants to apply math but does not want to teach. He knows he will likely have to get a Masters degree along the way.

Up north University of Rochester may be worth a look.

And he will have completed Calculus BC at graduation (that’s as far as our school goes)

Swarthmore sounds like it could be a good fit. Large public flagships will have superb math and related departments and are big enough that a kid can find their people through residential learning communities etc. For ex., Collins at IU and Chadbourne at Wisconsin, are both home to the “nerdy quirky” kids.

RPI? WPI, Lots of nerds at both. Though from your description I think he can find like minded people at many schools, esp in the math dept.

DS is athletic and also heavy into STEM. From what we have seen the math crowd is very accepting. DS has done many math competitions and many of that crowd fits the nerd bill but it seems everyone speaks math and is not judgmental at all. I think your son will probably be just fine no matter where he goes.

That’s good to hear. I was assuming he would find his people simply because of his major. I just want to make sure he can find a place where he himself won’t be shunned for being geeky. He is actually quite a happy, nice, social guy. He even said that if everyone is going to a football game, he will gladly tag along (even though he doesn’t care about football)

William and Mary comes to mind, and Rhodes in TN (note these are in completely different tiers, acceptance-wise). My son has similar social vibes as yours and we ruled out schools that had a heavy Greek scene.

As the parent, you want to do the financial planning now to know what you can afford to contribute, and let the student know before making the list. Colleges have net price calculators on their web sites to get financial aid estimates.

You do not want to be the parent who tells the student in late fall to come up with an entirely new list because the existing list is too expensive, or (worse) tell the student next spring that all of the admission offers are too expensive.

Since you are in Texas, valedictorian should make him auto-admit to Texas public universities. But check to see whether math is an additionally selective major (some auto-admit students do not get into their desired majors).

UT Austin sounds almost too obvious to mention. Stanford would be great for a master’s if he can get in after getting his bachelor’s in Texas (a couple of years of work in between is optional).

I think that you should think very seriously about whether you can afford to spend $300,000 or a bit more over four years before your son gets his heart set on somewhere that you cannot afford.

My bachelor’s is in math. My masters is in a closely related field (Operations Research). In my experience math majors are very accepting of “quirky”.

Thanks everyone

UT and TAMU are definitely on his list because he’s auto admit plus likely in their honors program too. But they’re two of the largest schools in the country. We aren’t weeding them out but they’re just so large!! (I went to one of them, so I know what they feel like. You can often feel very anonymous) I think he would appreciate classes smaller than 750 students (they seriously get that big) and closer relationships with profs. Even a school that’s 30,000 would be better than 55,000.

@mathymom4 - Not sure about Math majors - but want to throw out some amazing small schools that my nerdy, outgoing daughter fell in love with: Carleton, Grinnell, Vassar - she is on the creative side for a major (would love to play Quiddich too!), but during these tours - all the guides were Stem focused and made her want to branch out into more science classes too. Grinnell would be very generous with merit money and a huge % of kids go on to PhD studies. Agree that William and Mary would be worth a closer look too.

I was wondering about these schools in particular…so I’ll look further into them

Collegekid2’s bf is a recent math major at Vassar. Got a cool internship @DHS summer after 2nd year & they sent him to work with MI5 in England for the summer after 3rd year. Now doing a PhD in math at Cornell.