Chance Me: Prospective Math Major for Princeton REA

Chance Me / Match Me!
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Demographics: Asian Male, upper middle class, low population Midwest state, larger public school (2000+ students), no hooks unless geographic counts

Intended Major(s): Mathematics or Applied Mathematics

GPA, Rank, and Test Scores

  • Unweighted HS GPA: 4.00/4.00
  • Weighted HS GPA: 4.42/5.00
  • Class Rank: N/A
  • ACT/SAT Scores: 35 (35s all sections, 10 writing)/1580 (800 math 780 reading and writing)

Coursework

  • AP: Human Geo (5), World History (5), Physics 1 (4), Chem (5), Comp Sci A (5), Physics C: Mechanics (self-study) (5), Calc BC (self-study) (5)
  • IB: Music SL (5), History SL (6), Spanish SL, English HL, Math Analysis & Approaches HL, Physics HL
  • Local University: Introduction to Abstract Math (A), Modern Algebra (A)
  • Senior Year: IB English HL II, IB Math Analysis & Approaches II, IB Physics HL II, IB Spanish SL, IB TOK II, APUSH, AP Stats, Orchestra, US Gov

Awards

  • 2x AIME Qualifier (top 5% national math contest)
  • 2nd Place State Math Competition (out of ~600 students)
  • National Speech and Debate Association Academic All American (top 2% of members nationally)
  • National Merit Semifinalist (score I got is guaranteed in my state)
  • National Community Service Ambassador Award (100+ hours of service)

Extracurriculars

  • College Math Research: working on applied math research with a professor at a local university over this summer, likely will continue research past summer, hopefully a paper can get published.

  • Math Honors Society: community outreach leader, help out with practices/training, math bowl team member (1st place state), help with fundraisers, 1st place individually at a smaller state math competition (out of ~300 students).

  • Middle School Mathcounts Coach: coached 4th place state team, assisted in supervising and running practices, created and wrote study resources, gave lectures on concepts and problems.

  • President and Founder of Physics Club: created and secured funding for competitive opportunities, led practices and AP/IB Physics exam review sessions, expanded interest in physics outside the classroom, highest school F=MA exam score.

  • Co-President of Science Bowl: 2x State Science Bowl Semifinalists, help run practices, organize/train teams for competitions, created practice resources.

  • Co-President of Debate: lead practices/work with coach, State Policy Debate Champion, NSDA Nationals Qualification in Policy debate, mentor novices in a national program, help run our school’s nationally recognized debate tournament.

  • President and Co-Founder of Debate Organization: run a statewide debate organization, manage/post debate YouTube videos, manage website and debate blog, created a summer debate camp for middle school students.

  • Orchestra: play for the top school ensemble/chamber group, orchestra leadership team, violin mentor for a kids program, 2x District Ensemble Contest Superior Rating, letter award for extraordinary achievement in ensemble.

  • Spanish Honors Society: volunteer teaching Spanish at a local elementary school, volunteer at the Intercultural Senior Center, help organize/run fundraisers and cultural events.

  • President of Quiz Bowl: run practices, team captain.

Schools:

EA: Princeton and UMich
RD: Harvard, MIT, Columbia, Stanford, CMU, Georgia Tech, NYU, Yale, Cornell, UT Austin, UChicago, UC Berkeley etc. (these are all my extreme reaches, I have safeties and other schools but not including them here)

For this thread I’m mainly interested in my chances to Princeton for their REA cycle. I’m really interested in Princeton and it is definitely my first choice. If anyone has any other school recs (safety, match, target recs etc.) I’d also appreciate that!

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Tagging @neela1 and @hebegebe

To avoid this thread going off track, please confirm if you are a full pay applicant and whether cost is a factor.

We can’t help much without knowing which safeties and targets you already have on your list.

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@akskfjef1356,

If you were to ask me about your chances for ED at Cornell, I would say that made perfect sense. IMO a Cornell ED admit is more likely than not.

But EA at the HYPSM level is just much tougher. To be clear, it’s absolutely possible that you could get admitted to Princeton EA. You do have a couple of things helping you. First, if your state sends very few applicants to Princeton, you have geographic diversity helping you. And with affirmative action gone, that may increase the percentage of Asian admits.

But the competition for Princeton math is very tough. There are going to be many applicants to Princeton EA that have made USAMO or higher, or actually have gotten that math paper published by the time, or have spent multiple summers at PROMYS, Ross, or Mathcamp Canada/USA.

What will help your case is getting that paper published OR having it recognized in a major science/math fair, such as ISEF or Regeneron STS.

Would you be willing to share these anyway? Far too often we have seen students have mostly reaches and safeties and not enough in between.

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You seem to have all the academic qualifications and extracurricular activities required for admission to Princeton.

The last component of holistic review, which will likely be critical in your case, is the personal factors. It will be critical in your case because as an unhooked applicant (I would think), Princeton will likely get down to a large pool of people who may or may not be quite as impressive as you in academics and ECs, but who are all good enough in those areas for admission. And Princeton will then likely cut that down to their actual admit list by determining which fraction of you get a high enough assessment on personal factors. Princeton will get some information about that in your activity descriptions, and even more so in essays and recommendations.

And here is what Princeton says on their “Helpful Tips” page:

You should read it all carefully, probably more than once as you are finalizing your application, but here is the critical takeaway:

We look for students who make a difference in their schools and communities, so tell us about your leadership activities, interests, special skills and other extracurricular involvements. Tell us if you’ve had a job or a responsibility in your home. Most Princeton students were academic standouts in high school. Most of them also invested their energy and talents in significant ways outside the classroom. We want to know what you care about, what commitments you have made and what you’ve done to act on those commitments.

As you can see, they are flat out telling you being an academic standout and significant extracurriculars are usually not enough. So that last sentence about letting them know what you care about, the commitments you have made, and what you have done to act on those commitments, is how Princeton sees that third, critical, component of holistic review.

And most otherwise highly qualified applicants will not meet their personal factor standards, and will not get admitted.

I note most holistic review colleges have a page like that. Interestingly, while almost all of them have that same basic structure–explaining that academics and ECs are not enough, they also evaluate the person–their emphasis, specific valued traits, and so on are not all the same. So, Harvard is different from Princeton, Yale is different from both, and again in each case you should really be studying that statement and thinking about it when applying.

Which brings me to a second observation–that is a LOT of reaches. It is very, very hard to give each application the individualized care it deserves if you apply to that many. And because the probabilities of admission to peer schools are usually conditionally dependent to some degree, applying to more than a few probably isn’t adding anything material to your odds of being admitted to at least one you would prefer anyway.

So personally, I would think seriously about cutting that list way back. There are lots of ways of doing it–region, setting, type of school, and so on. For that matter, you could look at their versions of that Princeton page, and pick ones that sound more like they are talking about you. I think that approach is actually more likely to get you a good result than just shotgunning all those schools without that level of individualized thoughtfulness and care.

And that leads me to a final observation: I think a lot of the most interesting work you can do on list selection will not involve these schools, but the “safeties and other schools”. There are just so many great places to study Math, with so many different pros and cons.

Like, have you considered liberal arts colleges instead of research universities? Some of those would just be more reaches, but there are liberal arts colleges that would be targets and likelies, and a lot of those have per capita placement records in things like PhD programs that rival (or beat) your reaches.

And then there are a lot of excellent research universities (and LACs) that offer named merit scholarships and such to try to woo people with great academic qualifications. These could be great options even without such a scholarship, but it certainly doesn’t hurt your resume or your bank account to get one.

It is hard to give specific recommendations when your reach list is so big and diverse, and your other schools are unnamed. But my point is generally people who take a thoughtful, open-minded approach to this exploration process often end up pretty excited about some schools that are likelies or targets. And that again helps them focus on just a relative few reaches. All of which together actually maximizes their chances of a really good outcome for them.

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You are clearly qualified to attend Princeton and do well. However, so are the large majority of other applicants. I think that it is worth an application but it is definitely a reach.

I also think that the recent Supreme Court ruling, plus geographic diversity, might both help you. However, it is hard to know by how much and Princeton is still a reach.

I was a math major quite a while ago. For my master’s (at Stanford) the other students in the program had come from a very, very wide range of universities. There are not a lot of secrets in mathematics that MIT or Princeton are going to teach an undergraduate student that you could not also learn at any of the universities on your list. However, Princeton is very good for mathematics and I have wondered for a while why I did not apply there.

The University of Wisconsin is also very good for mathematics and is IMHO worth an application.

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You have the qualifications, but Princeton is always a toss up.

My S22 is a math major, he was a 4 time AIME qualifier, I forget how many time USAMO, also from the Midwest. Here was his list:

Brown
University of Chicago
Pomona
Harvey Mudd
Haverford
Swarthmore
University of Michigan
Carleton
Macalester
Amherst
University of Wisconsin
University of Illinois

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Great student. Great list. You can get in anywhere. But you also could go 0 for.

What are your targets and safeties?

It’s not you. It’s the schools that have so many like you that can’t take everyone.

If you were in Texas UT would be a safety.

But you’re not.

Best of luck.

You say you have targets and safeties and while it’s likely you won’t need them, one never knows.

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This topic may be of interest: For Students Seeking a College Strong in Mathematics.

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Since you’re NMSF, you can go Tulsa for free. Including room and board.

In big schools, you could go to great publics like Alabama and Arizona dirt cheap, FSU, U of SC, Miami Ohio, Kansas and more for reasonable as subs to UM/Texas and UF and Purdue for a great price.

Private wise to match your privates but a tad lower, a U Miami, Rochester type school could work.

And maybe LACs like Lafayette, Trinity, Union.

Again great student but you just never know.

You should answer the budget question as asked earlier but you’ll have great options with a big budget or otherwise, down to fre at Tulsa, a very good school.

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Everyone who is looking at Princeton for math should also be considering NYU’s Courant Insititute, a true math powerhouse that many people don’t know about.

If Princeton is properly classified as a high reach, and Cornell is a slightly lower reach, then NYU would be a high match.

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Whats your estimated class rank? Even if your HS doesn’t report rank, they will be able to figure it out.

If you’re valedictorian, that makes things a lot brighter for you. If however your HS has 30 valedictorians each year, that will make it more difficult. But your scores and EC are top notch.

Don’t fall in love with any one particular college. You’ll do well anywhere.

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Chance for Princeton REA and you propose Tulsa?

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To be fair, OP did ask for recommendations for safeties and match/targets.

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OP hasn’t come back after his original post. Let’s see if he ever does.
I did advise him to mention his cost constraints right away to avoid this conversation going off track.

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Or their “safeties” are not really safeties


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Given OP’s profile and the kinds of schools – reaches though they may be – OP is interested in, The University of Tulsa seems unlikely to be the kind of “safety” school OP is seeking, scholarships notwithstanding.

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I’m sure OP is capable of sorting thru which schools make sense for their final list.

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OP - don’t know your home state (low population mid west) but I’m sure your flagship is a great safety / match. Whether a KUwith its top Honors program or an Iowa or Minnesota, etc. not sure if the Dakotas are ‘Midwest’ and you are there but they have reciprocals.

Anyway, your state flagship is likely a great safety candidate.

Best of luck.

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I think you have a good chance of admission! Good luck.

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Just an FYI
these are considered the states in the Midwest:

The U.S. Census Bureau’s definition consists of 12 states in the north central United States: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.