<p>Obviously I'm aware of the controversy. The fallout from their foolish comments dominated our email list for a good 2 or 3 days.</p>
<p>RE the number of scholarships and "only" offering 11: Canada only has a population of about 32 million, whereas the United States has 300 million! So if Canada gets 11, we ought to get about 100 scholarships each year (but actually get 32).</p>
<ol>
<li>I heard you can triple major (and that's it also humanely possible). Is this true?</li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li>I've never heard of anyone doing it. If it is allowed I could see how you could possibly do something like BEM, a humanities major, and something in science. But that doesn't sound like a fun time!</li>
</ol>
<p>Well, I was on the phone with a junior there and he said he has a friend who's doubling in Cs/Ay and another who's tripling in... engineering.... and two other things....</p>
<p>Mathwiz, any of these combinations are probably possible if you're smart enough (while simultaneously being dumb enough?), and are willing to put in far, far more than the amount of work that you would probably expect.</p>
<p>Oh, and it'll almost always require the person to be able to pass out of a lot of core. Though, I guess this goes along with being smart enough.</p>
<p>Two years ago a guy graduated with a masters in chemistry, a B.S. in Applied and Computational Mathematics, and a B.S. in Economics. </p>
<p>Last year the guy who graduated with a double major in Physics and Electrical Engineering had also fulfilled the requirements for the economics major. I'm told the registrar made him pick two of the three to have on his diploma.</p>
<p>Noldo:</p>
<p>Pretty much everything's walkable if you don't mind, but what you should really do it get a longboard. Yeah, like a skateboard but longer and better.</p>
<p>Or if you're korinfox, you can get four longboards...</p>
<p>"I'm told the registrar made him pick two of the three to have on his diploma."</p>
<p>Yeah, that sounds about right. Not possible to have three.</p>
<p>20) How many people actually do pass out of core? How difficult are the placement tests?</p>
<p>20) All of core? None would be my guess. According to CLUE, about one or two frosh pass out of freshman core physics, around fifteen pass out of freshman core math, and a low single digit number of frosh pass out of core chem. A lot more people pass out of just one or two terms of a subject. I imagine very, very, very few people manage to pass out of sophmore core math and physics classes.</p>
<p>The people who generally pass out entirely of freshman core chem or phys are very very strong in that area (ie: international olympiad medalists). More people seem to place out of freshman math, but doing so is not recommended unless your fundamental understanding of (proof based) calculus and linear algebra is very strong.</p>
<p>A large percentage of the class passes out of Ph 1a (15%, maybe?) If you've had a good calculus-based classical mechanics class before, it should be pretty easy. I don't know anyone who passed out of all of Ph 1, but I'm sure there are a few. </p>
<p>A decent number, mostly people intending to major in math, pass out of Ma 1 (you cannot pass out of Ma 1a alone.) Some pass out of all of core math. I know a good number of people who took linear algebra and multivariable calculus in high school, but whose classes were not rigorous enough to allow them to pass out of Ma 1. Experience in doing proofs helps a lot. Alternatively, a decent percentage of the class has to take "remedial" calculus first term, instead of proof-based calculus. Most people who've had a calculus class of about AP BC level or above recently can pass out of this readily and take proof-based Ma 1a instead. </p>
<p>Only a handful of people pass out of Ch 1 every year. Usually these people have extremely strong chemistry backgrounds (IChO, etc.) and have taken organic chemistry and possibly more advanced chemistry classes while in high school.</p>
<p>
[quote]
pass out of Ma 1 (you cannot pass out of Ma 1a alone.)
[/quote]
I heard that they changed this last year - maybe someone else can confirm this for me.</p>
<p>They let people pass out of Ma 1ab but not c. I'm fairly sure no one has gotten out of Ma 1a on its own though.</p>
<p>21) Do undergrads typically do research year-long, or is it just in the summer? How do grad students treat undergrad SURFers?</p>
<p>22) How hard is it to make sports teams (soccer, basketball, tennis)?
23) How many pure math majors come in each year?
24) Is the workload really as hard as everyone says? How difficult/time-consuming is a math major's workload compared to other majors?</p>
<p>22) Show up and you're on the team.
24) No, it's harder.</p>
<p>24) Depends. Some people "get it" in math and then math is challenging but very rewarding and probably about the same amount of work as other majors are for other people. If it doesn't click for you, then math is unbearably hard and not worth doing anyway -- your talents lie in other, less uselessly fields ;-)</p>
<p>21) It's uncommon for undergrads to do research for the entire year, but it's not unheard of. Two of my friends are doing senior theses (which are rarely required for graduation), so that counts. Other than that, I haven't heard of any specific cases of year-long research. More common than doing year-long projects is to fit in some units of research when your schedule allows it.</p>
<p>How grad students treat SURFers varies a lot. From my interaction with others, and from my own experience, grad students tend to be reasonably friendly and helpful. Occasionally this is not true, but this can only be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.</p>
<p>21) If you want to do research during the school year and have the time to, I can't imagine it's particularly difficult (particularly if you've already done a SURF with whichever group you want to work with.) Frosh and s'more years can often be pretty packed with classes, so most people don't do research during classes until junior and senior year. I do know a decent number of s'mores and third term frosh who are doing research though. Most seniors seem to spend more time on research than classes.</p>
<p>22) If you're interested, you can be on the team. I know people tried to get me to join teams in sports that I had never played before.</p>
<p>23) For incoming frosh, math and physics are the most popular majors, in about equal proportions. A lot of people who intend to become math majors decide that it's not really something that they want to do with their lives. Thankfully, it's really easy to switch majors here.</p>
<p>24) It's hard, and it takes a lot of time. But it can also be fun and extremely rewarding. I wouldn't have it any other way.</p>