His current list:
Brown
University of Chicago
Pomona
Harvey Mudd
Haverford
Swarthmore
University of Michigan
Carleton
Macalester
Amherst
Illinois
Wisconsin
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âknowingâ about a school- you can go through the course catalogue and see a university which is light on upper level math courses, or see a university where a math major couldnât possibly run out of upper level courses to take. Thatâs research- not hearsay.
You can go through a sample âcourse of studyâ for various majors and see which ones have umpteen requirements of classes which are of no interest, or see which ones look fascinating and will get your kid excited about disciplines heâs never been exposed to before (the crossover between math and philosophy? The crossover between math and all sorts of natural phenomenon?) Thatâs research, not hearsay.
This holds for all the schools on your sonâs list- him doing research, not relying on âChicago is too nerdyâ or " Wesleyan is too boho" or âBrown is for hippiesâ.
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If he does not want to take large amounts of course work outside of math, he may want to reconsider his list in the context of general education requirements. Chicago and Harvey Mudd in particular have relatively high volumes of general education requirements.
While the concern about MIT and Caltech not paying enough attention to undergraduates is probably overblown (especially since upper level math everywhere tends to be taught in small faculty-led classes), note that an actual concern about them for this student could be that they also have substantial general education requirements.
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My math guy did not apply to Chicago for that exact reason - didnât want to do two years of a core curriculum. If your son has an applied math focus, the Brown applied math strength/open curriculum is a hard combo to beat.
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No, that would make too much sense. He is interested in pure math, but he really likes the open curriculum.
How do you know your son is interested in pure math, as opposed to applied math?
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One of my daughterâs close friendâs is applying to Princeton, NYU and Yale. Looks like they are pretty good choices for Pure Math (real analysis kind of stuff). Mine is more of applied math girl. Sheâs glued to the major as well as a good college experience. Lets all hope our kids get into something what they love. Good luck to your son!!!
advitha
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Well sinceI have no idea what any of it means, from what he tells me. He is all math. He did MathILy for 3 summers and Canada/USA Mathcamp for one summer. He does math for fun.
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There are some kids who have been exposed to enough math to know what they are more inclined towards.
Why not trust the poster and her sonâs mentor? Her son has attended enough top math camps, competitions, undergraduate level math lectures, etc. to be able to form a good idea of what he finds interesting.
I say that as a parent of a similar math kid. And chances are OPâs son knows a few kids in at least a few of the universities both on his list and those he crossed out. And not only that, he also has had the opportunity to discuss all that with at least a few math professors.
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People often have different ideas of what pure math is (relative to applied math). For example, I wouldnât call real analysis âpure mathâ. A typical HS student really hasnât encountered much âpureâ math, other than Euclidean geometry.
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Apparently not. 
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I would guess that half the applied math majors in the country thought they were going to major in a more theoretical math discipline when they were in HS. Maybe more than half. Sometimes itâs because they get to college and realize it ainât what they thought it was. Sometimes they get to college and fall in love with an applied field- biostatistics, epidemiology, linguistics, econometrics, etc. and realize that math is their route in. And since most kids donât have exposure to these subjects in HS, itâs natural that their focus will shift in college.
I donât think this is a bad thing.
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Sorry, if Iâm just seeing this. Iâm assuming Amherst made the list because of its proximity to UMass? Even with that in mind, I would take a serious look at Wesleyan as another LAC possibility. It has its own doctoral program with courses cross-listed alongside the undergraduate classes. And, a major research focus is Topology:
https://catalog.wesleyan.edu/courses/math/
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He is clearly not a typical HS studentâknowing several canada/usa mathcamp people, they have tons of exposure to fields of math that I never knew existed. Thereâs no program I trust more to help Math Kids ⢠figure out what they truly love. Even in the first post, his strong background is clear.
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OPâs son is obviously not a typical HS student. Heâs certainly an outstanding student in math. However, having participated in math competitions and preparation camps doesnât necessarily mean the student had much exposure to pure math. In math competitions, the only pure math I can think of, besides geometry, is the number theory. AoPS has just added a course on group theory, which isnât part of any HS-level competition that Iâm aware of.
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USA/Canada Mathcamp is not a competition preparatory camp.
Canada/USA Mathcamp is an intensive 5-week-long summer program for mathematically talented high school students, designed to expose these students to the beauty of advanced mathematical ideas and to new ways of thinking.
More than just a summer camp, Mathcamp is a vibrant community, made up of a wide variety of people who share a common love of learning and passion for mathematics. At Mathcamp, students can explore undergraduate and even graduate-level topics while building problem-solving skills that will help them in any field they choose to study.
2021 schedule
https://www.mathcamp.org/current_program/classes/
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If thatâs the case, then you might want to add Williams to the list. My son went to the math camp that they host and said that their program was âtoo pureâ for him.
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Just curious @1NJParent . . what would make you think you know more more about this kidâs interests and aptitudes than the professor who knows him well and is advising him?
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Have you got things mixed up? I never questioned the kidâs interests or aptitudes. In fact, I only started to post in this thread when he showed misconceptions about schools like MIT or Caltech. The quote from the OP you cited was in response to another poster on such misconceptions and it has nothing to do with âpure mathâ.
The issue of pure math vs applied math came about because yet another poster mentioned a schoolâs applied math program. Thatâs when I noticed another potential misconception. Iâve known many other mathematically talented HS students who had such misceptions about âpure mathâ vs applied math. They equate applied math with non-theoretical, less rigorous math (such as the so-called âengineering mathâ applied to other disciplines). Thatâs not what applied math is. Applied math is a much broader category. Exclusion of it on the basis of a potential misconception is the reason why I asked OP about it.
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No.
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