Son is feeling stuck looking for colleges. He loves math and music. He has taken BC Calculus, Discrete math and will take Linear Algebra his senior year (A’s in all of them). He goes to a gifted magnet school which is large, very competitive and he wants a different college experience (hence LAC). He has ceiling scores on gateway tests and a 3.95 unweighted GPA. He has lots of activities, yada yada. He wants to meet bright kids who actually read and think, not more competitive kids who are there to build resumes for the next big thing. Have you found anything that might work? We are in KY, but he is willing to travel…
Harvey Mudd (a LAC with heavy STEM emphasis) and Caltech (a small research university with heavy STEM emphasis) are the more obvious small schools where a potential math major on the +2 math track is more likely to find good math offerings (including graduate level math offerings). However, both are reach for everyone type of schools, and have a “drink from a fire hose” reputation of academic intensity and heavy core / general education requirements.
Since he will enter college junior/senior level math courses soon after entering college, his math courses are likely to be small, even at big universities.
Pure math courses (e.g. geometry/topology, logic) are likely to be populated by less pre-professional students, while some types of applied math courses (e.g. those relating to finance) may attract more pre-professional students. You and he may want to check course catalogs and schedules of various schools’ math departments to see what is offered and how often. When looking at and comparing offerings, be aware that some schools include statistics and/or computer science under the math department, but others have these as separate departments.
As the parent, have you made the financial plans for college funding, and run net price calculators on various colleges (KY public schools, several non-KY public schools of interest, private schools of interest)?
The size of the school has nothing to do with the quality or rigor of the program. My son is a Econ and Math double major at a small highly selective school in Maine and its arguably more difficult because you cant hide in a class of 15-20. There is no such thing as not doing your homework and professors teach every class. Since you are from Kentucky the Northeast might be a nice experience.
Every Math major in college has taken the same courses he did in high school. If he majors in Math he will have to take all those classes again.
The benefit of a smaller school is that its easier to do independent study under a professor. The smaller schools generate more Phds per capita than larger schools, so there are very serious students at smaller schools.
Thanks, that was very helpful. He is pointing out that I did not fairly represent why he wants a smaller campus. He wants a chance to get to know people outside of his major and do theater and social clubs. He fears boredom because a professor at Oberlin told him that the “math might not be sufficient” for his interests - although I don’t know why she lept to that conclusion. He wants a good LAC experience across a lot of interests and his baritone operatic voice wants a shot at singing that schools with large music/theater departments can’t really provide. Does that change anything you would say?
2inSchool2 - so your son is happy with the “interest level” of his classes? He isn’t interested in rigor as much as lively discussion about the topic (as opposed to the heavily preprofessional orientation of how do I get an A in your class). Is there a short list of colleges you may find similar to your son’s so I can get an idea of what you are describing? Thanks.
My younger daughter majored in math and economics at a small LAC. I think she found the interest level of both sets of classes to be sufficient and she preferred the classes to the one math class she took at our state flagship during her senior year of high school.
“Every Math major in college has taken the same courses he did in high school” is flat out not true. Many people end up majoring in math who went to high schools that did not have Linear Algebra as an option.
As far as course rigor- I went to a small college and minored in math, majored in chemistry. In a small department, even if every course is taken there are other options. For example a prof taught Quantum Theory, just for me, in his office, three times a week.
And I loved having friends in theatre, music, poly sci, etc.
If you are concerned that he might run out of math classes, take a look at the LACs that are part of a consortium. One example is the Claremont College (Mudd would likely have upper level math classes that would challenge him and there is cross-registration from the other 4 Claremonts). Another is the Quaker Consortium in Philadelphia (Bryn Mawr, Haverford, Swarthmore, and Penn) which could work since he could take higher level math classes at Penn if he ran out of classes he liked at the LACs.
http://catalog.oberlin.edu/content.php?filter%5B27%5D=MATH&filter%5B29%5D=&filter%5Bcourse_type%5D=-1&filter%5Bkeyword%5D=&filter%5B32%5D=1&filter%5Bcpage%5D=1&cur_cat_oid=36&expand=&navoid=951&search_database=Filter#acalog_template_course_filter lists Oberlin’s math courses. It looks like there are only 8 junior/senior level regular (not special topics, honors project, research) math courses, including both pure and applied topics. The math major there requires 6 junior/senior level courses (some statistics, CS, physics, chemistry, and/or economics courses may be used, according to http://catalog.oberlin.edu/preview_program.php?catoid=36&poid=4685&returnto=975 ).
So it is not a great fit for a student who will probably be taking junior/senior level math courses in his second semester.
ucbalumnus - thanks for demonstrating how to be more selective in this hunt! I am not a math person, but I put son on the task of looking into the math departments in a similar fashion. Hopefully he will know what to look for. Thanks the other posters as well…these are both good insights!
Neither is generally true. Math majors may start college anywhere from normal math level (completed precalculus in 12th grade, taking calculus 1 in the first semester of college) to highly advanced level (completed sophomore or even junior level math courses at a local college while in high school, ready for more advanced math courses in the first semester of college). Math departments are likely to allow appropriate subject credit and placement by exam (sometimes their own exams, rather than just AP exams) so that students need not uselessly repeat what they already know.
I would add the Five College Consortium, which includes UMass Amherst which is geographically very close to Amherst College. The consortium also includes Smith, Mt Holyoke and Hampshire.
Do not discount large public flagship U’s. He may get more of the math and sciences that interest him at those than at small schools. He may be able to advance further in math for example by being able to take grad level courses as an undergrad. Honors programs would give him smaller classes and anonymity to be himself instead of competing to be someone. I would worry that while small may seem good it will not allow him to interact with enough other students excited about the same academics as he is nor take as much advanced material.
Really? A Harvey Mudd or Caltech wouldn’t allow him to take advances classes or interact with students excited about the same subjects? Not true at all…
Even at Caltech there are theater and social clubs. Years ago I got to see Richard Feynman in a student production of The Lady’s Not for Burning. There’s music too: http://music.caltech.edu/
IME Math majors started in different places and did not have to repeat what they learned in high school.
My kid who went to Carnegie Mellon - certainly didn’t have to take Linear Equations and Calculus again. He was a CS major - but he took Discrete Math, and some sort of 3D Calculus IRC.
Mudd and Williams are the LACs most likely to offer the kind of math your son will need.
My D is a Math major at Skidmore, which is not an academic peer of Mudd or Williams but has fantastic arts/theatre/music programs and location. They have several dual engineering programs if he decides to go that way and research opportunities for the top students in STEM. D worked with three upperclassmen this past year, her freshman year, and was chosen for a 10-week chem research project fronting their math/cs portion of the research, which she presented at Bucknell. She also went in with IB credits for Calculus 3, Linear Algebra and a few other advanced (high school) math classes.
Any school has a great variety of students. Having minor may help to meet different types and not be stuck with only one type of people / students. There are rarely people who strictly there to “build resumes for the next big thing.” Students generally looking to grow personally and meet a great variety of people and not always be in the most comfortable situation, but try something new and see how they feel about it. I would not be so stuck with particular school as much as to have a plan of how to accomplish it at ANY place that you feel matches the student personality. People approach it differently. What worked very well for my D. was having Music minor and being in Sorority. The first one was planned, the last one was not at all. Both were extremely positive experiences with great opportunities to meet different people with wide range of interests and further develop the leadership skills and general “human” skills. She also tried a sport at the club level. Unfortunately, it did not work out, too much of a commitment, she had to drop it after freshman year. There are other ways, like trips abroad. D’s trip open up her eyes, she finally realized that she has her limitations, it was great self-learning experience for somebody who tend to think that the sky is the limit…well, maybe the limit is a bit below than the sky…
Look for opportunities to learn outside of academics, they are absolutely everywhere as well as different types of students. You will find “your crowd” if you try hard and the route to this finding may surprise you.
You should map out what courses he anticipates taking and make sure that the school has sufficient offerings. A smal school might not. Also be careful to look at how often the courses he needs are offered. If it’s every other year, that could present scheduling problems.
“Every Math major in college has taken the same courses he did in high school.” Come on, this isn’t true at all, my kid didn’t have the opportunity to take Linear algebra in high school, and while she isn’t a math major she could well have decided to be.
“If he majors in Math he will have to take all those classes again.”
I would run, not walk, away from any college that has a blanket policy of just stuffing him back into coursework he’s already completed. A course at a top college is probably going to be more rigorous than what he likely had access to in high school, so this is worth considering, but it should be his decision based upon whether he feels he’s adequately mastered the material.
Everybody jumped right on the math, but what about the music? Is he thinking of a double major? Music, almost anyway, is a tough major because in addition to the academic side there are a lot of performance pieces. The plus side is that it will get him involved with people outside that cliquey little STEM world (and into the cliquey little music world!). And depending on what he wants to do with math, is it the end of the world if he finishes the major early or at a slower pace? Gives him more time to explore other options, add a second major, be in all kinds of theatre.