Agree 100%. I think he would have a better college experience at a D3. It’s hard to sell that to a 16 year old.
It’s my understanding that your list would start with MIT.
The problem is that MIT coaches don’t have much sway with admissions and a 1480-1520 SAT would be pretty borderline there.
3 Likes
I would actually start with Harvard or Princeton rather than MIT. Admission for athletic recruits is nearly guaranteed at the Ivies, whereas it is not at MIT. All three have excellent placement with quant (my info on this is very current).
6 Likes
This was certainly no the case when my son was vetting schools. He didn’t apply to any of them, but one of his coaches came from Harvard. He said that being a recruited athlete gave a little bump in their admissions algorithm, but nothing akin to a sure thing, probably not the same bump as being a legacy was at the time. Of course that was probably sport dependent too.
This has been changing in recent years. I had to take two teaching seminars when I was a PhD student at UCLA, one on general college teaching and one on the teaching of writing-in-the-disciplines courses. Additionally, there was a great deal of supervision in my work as a TA (weekly or monthly TA meetings, professors sitting in on at least one discussion section per term, etc.). In my department, PhD students who received poor teaching reviews were deprioritized for teaching positions the subsequent year.
The job market in academia has gotten so incredibly competitive that it’s not enough to be an excellent researcher; you need to have a strong background in teaching and outreach/service as well (especially demonstrable commitment to fostering diversity). This holds true whether you’re applying for university positions or LAC positions, and of course most people apply for both.
1 Like
But who cares about GPA after first job? Brown will be always Brown on a resume (even with GPA 2.0). University of nowhere will stay as it too with 4.0
1 Like
I as 4th year BS Math student was teaching Calc 2 recitations at GaTech, and lectures were taught by a student in the Master in Statistics program in Math department (who had a BS only at that moment). I and that student were taking the same Statistics classes…
For engineering and healthcare, no one cares about GPA OR the institution after the first job. It’s all meritocratic.
2 Likes
According to the Harvard lawsuit disclosure data, an athletic recruit at Harvard had over a 75% admit rate, and it rose to 83% if reasonably strong academically. Athletic recruit is a much stronger admission bump than legacy.
2 Likes
DS went to Colby. I was really impressed by the opportunities in this realm for students so-interested. LACs have some very cool options but they also require some student initiative in defining the research, which is different from having a well-laid path. They really cater to individual interests and tend to get excellent faculty mentorship. It seems to me, though, that they attract a different type of student than a big research university who might want to join an established team. There’s merit to both approaches.
The Ivies are much more appealing in this case. For starters, while they take sports seriously, it is nothing like the rest of the D1 schools. Academics come first. That Princeton basketball team that did well in the NCAA tournament had well rounded kids who held internships, got elite job in the summers, and completed a thesis beside playing ball. Ivies can open the door to elite finance and consulting jobs if he wants them.
At one point Goldman Sachs had a special recruiter devoted to Ivy varsity athletes. They may still do.
4 Likes
The top ranked universities for mathematics in the USA are, in some order or other, MIT, Stanford, Harvard, and Princeton. In terms of teaching math, they are all excellent (and academically challenging). In terms of athletics, they of course vary quite a bit. Stanford has the plus of having athletic scholarships, which in turn is likely to impact the level of sports. However, Ivy League schools do impress me at how strong some of their teams are considering that they do not give any athletic scholarships. Harvard for example has been very strong in hockey at some points. Someone a daughter sort of knew a bit went to Yale as an exceptional athlete (he had set records). If they are bringing in very competitive athletes, it would seem like the athletic coaches must have some influence over admissions.
Caltech is also excellent for math, and is at a level similar to MIT for sports. Wisconsin also has quite a good math department, so does UC Berkeley. There are many, many other universities that are very good for mathematics.
1 Like
Since you mentioned Utah, they are good at creating opportunities for the very best students. For example in math, they regularly have Churchill scholarship winners (https://attheu.utah.edu/facultystaff/churchill-6/) who go on to top grad schools, and D’s freshman year roommate won a Rhodes scholarship. In these cases the potential winners are identified early (end of freshman year) and fed the opportunities to make them a credible candidate 2.5 years later.
Where the name recognition of more prestigious universities would likely help more is for a student who is good but not quite at that level and wants to get into a top PhD program, or who is looking at jobs in East coast quant firms who wouldn’t see Utah as a target for recruitment.
On the other hand, we know plenty of Utah graduates who weren’t seeking elite jobs, but who got decently well paid positions in business, CS and engineering with firms in SLC and around the Mountain West/West Coast. And outdoorsy students in particular generally had a very enjoyable experience during college, given the unmatched skiing, climbing and hiking opportunities in Utah.
4 Likes
Based on the experience of my D 1550M is the starting point for a discussion at MIT and the coach for her sport was open about wanting 1570 for serious consideration. You get a great bump but it is still only a 50-60% chance of acceptance.
But your S could be a great fit for some of the NESCACs on the east coast or Pomona and Claremont McKenna on the west coast.
2 Likes
That’s my understanding of MIT - the two recruits I knew personally last year (one with a 1550 and the other a 36 ACT) were both rejected.
1 Like
As previously mentioned, Utah has a strong math department. Like their engineering department, it’s probably underrated by USNWR.
A top Utah math student could plot a path into an upper east coast quantitative finance position by going to a feeder graduate school. That might actually put them in an even stronger position.
All that said, Utah won’t likely be at the low levels of D1 in any sport.
3 Likes
that’s great info. He might actually be recruitable there.
The answer to whether it puts them in a stronger position, or not, is complicated.
Many quant companies hire a lot of undergrads for each type of role (software, research, and trading). Some only hire PhDs, or sometimes Masters, out of school for certain roles (typically research). So having only an undergrad degree may preclude research jobs in some subset of companies.
But if you flip that around, the undergrad has a larger set of companies that are willing to hire them right away for various roles. And financially, the undergrad is getting paid well for the five or so years that the PhD is still in school. PhDs do start out quite a bit higher than undergrads, but I expect the undergrad with five years of experience will surpass the starting point of PhDs.
1 Like
There is a middle path…bachelors and masters.
1 Like
MIT, Harvard, Stanford and Princeton only offer PhD programs in mathematics (although Stanford offers a master’s degree to Stanford undergrads).
1 Like