College tour ideas for Great Lakes area + Math/Engineering

College Search & Selection
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Starting plan some college tours with my son (sophomore) to coincide with a spring trip to Toronto.

The purpose of this trip is to get him

  • to think about the type school: big, small, research, LAC
  • look at some schools where he might be interested in playing soccer (DIII level/engineers & math majors on team)
  • look at some of the options for his 2nd sport in college

Ideas for schools to add? Do you go here or have a kid who goes to these schools? What’s the character of the math and/or engineering programs?

University of Toronto ** 2nd sport
University of Waterloo ** 2nd sport
Rochester Institute of Technology * soccer
University of Rochester
Case Western Reserve * soccer
Oberlin College * soccer
Carnegie Mellon * soccer
U of Chicago? (fly into Toronto & out of Chicago?)

Note: the schools are purposely diverse both in size and types of curriculum reqs. Common theme is strong in math & engineering and one of his sports is an option, i.e. DIII soccer team at his level and with guys that are majoring in hard sciences.

S is a sophomore. Right now 4.0 UW. He hasn’t taken the PSAT or PLAN yet. On SSAT, he got a score that was in the 95-97 percentile. I don’t recall the raw #s. He’s quite focused on math, but is a ‘normal’ good math student. He’ll finish 2nd year Calc and 2nd year Statistics next year and then either linear algebra or multivariate calculus as a senior. He got a 90 something on AME10 as freshman and will try again this year after taking a Art of Problem Solving prep course. ECs are mainly his 2 sports.

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Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago has DIII soccer. My daughter attends. She was a top student in high school and has an academic scholarship. She likes the program and enjoys the city as well. The academics are strong. She has had an internship each summer as well as one during this semester. She’s a junior and her AP credit will allow her to graduate in four years with a bachelors and a masters in engineering. Her roommate is an engineering student and an athlete and is doing well.

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Chicago is a pretty good haul from Toronto, especially if you are also going the other way (to Rochester). Not sure where you are from or what your timeline is, but I’d take Chicago out. There are many other options in NY/PA/OH that would be closer. D3-ish science in that area I’d add Wooster, Denison, Allegheny. Slightly bigger options to consider: Colgate, Pitt.

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@Booajo I was only thinking Chicago if we flew into Toronto and out of Chicago. But I guess Cleveland to Chicago is also a haul. Maybe better to fly into to Toronto and out of Pittsburgh. Then we could hit Carnegie Mellon and Univ of Pittsburgh. Thanks for the other names too. I’d heard about them, but didn’t know they were in the area.

@Parentof2014grad Thanks, I put Illinois Institute of Tech on the research list in case we end up leaving out of Chicago.

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Also be aware that UChicago is at the very top for pure math, but they don’t offer engineering there.

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@ThankYouforHelp Ah, good to know. I hadn’t researched U Chicago yet. I’ve been there for work, but don’t really know the school. My son hasn’t expressed interest in engineering, but there are bunch of engineers in our family so it seems plausible he’ll take his quantitative interests in that direction esp after we take some engineering tours at schools.

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Looks like he is more than just a “normal good math student”, as he will be two years ahead in math by high school graduation (though it looks he was three years ahead in 10th grade but the high school slow-paces math, even for really good-in-math students).

What it probably means that if he wants to major in math, he will probably want to find graduate level math course offerings and enough research activity that he can do graduate level research as an undergraduate at the school he attends. Math department faculty rosters and course catalogs on college web sites can help.

Good offerings in applied areas (e.g. statistics, economics, computer science, operations research) may be desirable to add a little variety, or if he wants to prepare for other post-graduation options besides PhD study in math.

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My son is at Case, a sophomore majoring in engineering. A nice thing about Case is once student is in, student can select any major that he or she wants, i.e., there is no additional competition for space in an engineering major. I can’t speak to the math program, but the engineering program is solid. At the same time, the University has a good proportion of female students (which in my view makes for a better environment). Case is Division III, but that’s all I know because sadly my son has little interest in sports. Overall, Case has been challenging academically but satisfyingly so.

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@ucbalumnus I meant he is not like one of these math whizzes that qualified for IMO and finished a undergrad degree as a HS student and published research. Yes, I think a school that offers grad level courses would be good. Btw, we’ll look into UBC too. That’s in our area.

I also want to figure out which are schools where you need to apply to the major as a freshman. A friend’s daughter ran into this problem at McGill (I think it was McGill). At my alma mater, you could just declare engineering (or math or whatever) as your major. Maybe there was a GPA req, but that was it. I was ME and bio.

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He sounds like a great kid! One consideration that may evolve is the role of his sports, and soccer specifically, Depending on whether he is finished growing or not, and where he is competing, recruiting could pick up late 10th and early 11th grade, with tournaments, contact with coaches, and camps. If you are going in the spring of 10th grade to visit schools, it would make sense to contact at least a couple coaches in advance to schedule meetings to learn more about the program and recruiting. One way to assess whether a soccer program might be a good fit, athletically, is to read the bios of the current roster of players to see what their high school soccer accomplishments were – state vs. local recognition, championships etc. and assess whether your student is likely to achieve at that level.

My kids are not STEM, so I don’t know if the academic opportunities would measure up, but Rose Hulman in Indiana is a smaller engineering school with a strong soccer team.

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@ThankYouforHelp @liska21 Actually Chicago does have an undergraduate engineering program now, called molecular engineering (my D applied to it) – they already had a graduate molecular engineering program and they just extended it to undergraduate last year. Great research opportunities with Argonne Natl Lab. Good if your son is interesting in chemE, but for other types of engineering (mech, civil, electric.) then better look elsewhere.

Another good option is RPI, in upstate New York. Medium size. Has a D3 soccer team, though the big sport at the school is hockey (D1). My D goes there. Great engineering programs - very well respected in the industry. Solid math program too. Very nerdy student body.

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Ann Arbor is about 3.5 hours from Waterloo. and about 45 min from Detroit if you are taking a circle tour, I’d add Michigan and Cornell to your list as well.

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Maybe add Cornell? It’s an hour and a half from Rochester.

U of Toronto, Waterloo and UBC all require application directly to engineering as a freshman. I would suggest following Bill Anderson’s blog https://profbillanderson.■■■■■■■■■■■■■ He’s head of admissions for Waterloo engineering. The information he posts is a great resource.

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@Midwestmomofboys I’ve been looking at rosters to find DIII schools where a) where many of the guys major in a hard science or engineering, b) are 3 letter guys (3 varsity sports in HS) rather that USSDA/US National team players, and c) ECs such as honor society/latin club/science olympiad listed. a) is the criteria that weeds out a lot of schools. So far Carnegie Mellon, RIT, RPI, Case Western, and Washington Univ have teams that sound like my son. Part of the purpose of the trip is to help him decide about soccer in college and how he wants to (or not) factor that in his college decisions. By summer before his junior year he needs to start contacting coaches and doing some more targeted id camps. However, he won’t know if he’ll try to get recruited until after spring semester of 10 grade. If he has the grades and test scores, he wants to apply ED to his dream school—which happens to be impossible to get into and where he couldn’t get recruited for soccer. Applying ED at one school rules out getting recruited elsewhere I think. But those decisions are still awhile away. Right, now it’s just an opportunity for him to visit two or three of those schools listed above while we are in the area and a few other schools so he can see a diversity of schools (big, medium, LAC).

@bouders Hmm, good to know re engineering at U of T, Waterloo and UBC. Well, they are also excellent for math, so we’ll at least visit U of T and UBC. We’ll be in Toronto anyhow and UBC is nearby. But I’ll check out Bill Anderson’s blog. It’d be good for S to at least make sure that applying for engineering is an option (by doing the right pre-reqs).

@TooOld4School @bouders I thought about Michigan and Cornell but our in-state flagship is Univ of Wash. I’m not sure they offer anything substantially different and would be more expensive. All big research universities, all have strong math and engineering programs, all have DI soccer (so out) and Cornell doesn’t have a club team I think. U of T and U of Waterloo are similar too, but they are places where S could get coaching in his other sport if that became a priority for him. However, if we go east instead towards Cleveland then I’d still swing by Cornell since it’d be on the way.

@insanedreamer Yes, RPI is on the list of schools I thought would be good to visit. But we’d only do that if we went east (Toronto, Rochester, Ithaca, Albany) instead of Toronto, Rochester, Cleveland, Pittsburgh. Nothing is set yet except that we fly into Toronto.

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On soccer side of things, University of Chicago is ranked #1 right now (though there is a lot of movement in the rankings through the end of regular season and post-season play) and Oberlin is in the top 25 in some rankings so those programs are likely to be very competitive for recruiting over the next couple of years.

My soccer kid, who is playing D3, had a few college visits spring of sophomore year to check out schools and meet with coaches to find out more about the recruiting process. Our experience was, for a D3 recruit, the college time line is accelerated by about 6 months as compared to other students. By spring of 11th grade, it is very helpful if the student has a short list of schools where they are likely to be recruited and where they have had enough experience on campus to know they would be happy to attend.

A long way of saying, most D3 coaches are used to scheduling meetings with prospects, and will meet with you for 15-30 minutes to talk about their program, recruiting, expectations for academics and soccer etc. Although my kid was very nervous as a spring of 10th grade student to walk into a coach meeting, it was a good experience and helped him sort out his priorities over the next year.

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I would really recommend visiting Waterloo if your son is interested math or engineering and you’re going to be in the area. The campus and culture is very different from that of U of T. Waterloo is a very math and engineering focused school. It has humanities etc but they are a very minor part of the school. It’s also unique because of its co-op program. As a result, Waterloo prepares students to find jobs after graduation whereas U of T prepares students for grad school. Visiting Waterloo only adds one hour to the drive between Toronto and Rochester.

D16 is at Waterloo in math and S14 is at U of T.

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I’m a (pure/general) math major at Case Western Reserve University, if you have any questions about that.

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@Midwestmomofboys Thanks for the info re your son’s experience esp with the recruiting process spring of 10th grade. Our son is in a program (statewide team) that preps players for the college recruiting process and he’s done an id camp with info sessions, but the thought of meeting with a coach during a visit is very scary to him particularly if he’s checking out the school to see if he might be interested.

@bouders Can you tell me about you D’s experience with math at Waterloo? What’s the program been like? Are they equally strong in pure and applied math? Are professors interested in undergrads? At my alma mater (famous for math), the profs didn’t seem remotely interested in undergrads which is why I ended up in engineering which was very focused on undergrads. I then went into applied math (though not in a math dept) in grad school.

Also what has been your S’s impression of U of T? The reputation is that grading is brutal and you are treated like a #. Of course, UW students say similar at least about being a #. I suspect that S would find a big school exciting rather than intimidating. UBC is huge and he liked that.

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@liska21 I also graduated from U of T as did my dh (both in science), so I’ll give you an amalgam of our experiences.

College: At U of T, students select one of 7 colleges to join. This selection is on the application. Students list their preferred colleges in order - 1-7. The college you join is your residence for first year, so it is a big part of your first year experience. Residence is guaranteed for first year, but not for subsequent years. Each college has completely different criteria as to whether or not you can get into residence after first year. I’d research this carefully. The cost of living in Toronto is high and I think that residence at U of T is a very good value. All of us went to Trinity. And all of us really like(d) it. S14 has whinged about how if he went to Victoria, he’d be getting scholarships because of his gpa, but because he goes to Trinity, he doesn’t.

Grading: Yup. It’s brutal. Course averages run about 70-75 (average gpa just under 3.0) which represents a drop of 15-20% over the high school averages of incoming students.

Class sizes: First year class sizes in the sciences or philosophy can be up to 1200 students. S14 didn’t take math, but I did, and my first year class was about 50 students. My first year Russian class had about 12 students.

Interaction with professors: DH and I didn’t interact with our professors much, if at all - all of my science classes were relatively large lectures. After first year, they were about 200 students. Both dh and I were fine with sitting, taking notes, and going home and studying. But we were both top students.

DS’s experience is different. He’s in humanities, but he also takes computer science and biology courses, in addition to a lot of psychology and philosophy courses. He makes sure to talk to all of his professors at their office hours - whether or not he understands the material well. He can always come up with a question that delves deeper into the subject. His professors seem to love him. He got a position in a lab after second year, which is quite rare. Comparing ds’ schedule with what I remember, it seems like he had more tutorials in first year. Tutorials are all led by graduate students and are 24 students. Tutorials are held each week. DS is in 3rd year now and his classes range from about 60-180 students.

Waterloo: D16 has only been there a few weeks. She chose Waterloo, essentially, because it wasn’t U of T. (roll eyes) She wanted to be different. She also had no interest in grad school. U of T is very academic - when I looked at some of the majors she might have pursued at U of T, the descriptions came right out and said “preparation for graduate studies”. Waterloo on the other hand, has a big emphasis on job preparation. Students can choose a co-op or non co-op program. Again, this is done on the initial application. Unlike U of T which only allows students to select one program in arts and sciences to apply to, Waterloo allows students to select up to 3 programs and will offer an alternative if students are not admitted to one of their choices. U of T will simply reject a student if they’re not admitted to the program they selected.

Class sizes at Waterloo - all of the first year classes seem to capped at about 200 students. D16 also has tutorials for every class. I’ve heard that some tutorials, especially in math or computer science, may be lead by upper year undergraduates.

Interaction with profs. Again, D16 has only been there a few weeks, so I haven’t heard much. I do know that Waterloo has an extra large administration staff who are assigned to support the students. There’s a couple of hundred just for the co-op program. D16’s program is kind of specialized and she has a program co-ordinator for her program, which admits 40 students a year and a co-ordinator (one of the profs) for females in computer science. So, from the little I know, Waterloo seems more invested in the academic and career success of their students than U of T.

Locations: Waterloo is very much a university town. D16’s classes are 20-30 minutes away. She takes the public transit bus to her classes. The fare is free to university students. Her “dorm” is a townhouse with a full kitchen she shares with 3 others. She is having to do her own shopping and takes a bus to the grocery store, about a mile away. She does have a meal plan, but the dining halls are also 20-30 minutes away. D16’s dorm is a bit unusual - most of the dorms are a lot closer to campus. There is a lot of technology industry that has sprung up in Waterloo. It has the highest concentration of startups outside of Silicon Valley. Many of its co-op placements are to Silicon Valley. http://www.wsj.com/articles/why-silicon-valley-recruiters-are-flocking-to-ontario-1462385408

Toronto, on the other hand, is more like NYC. Very high density. Financial center of Canada. Good subway system. Lots of restaurants. Everything is within walking distance. The campus is more compact.S14’s meal plan was all inclusive and his dining hall was a 2 minute walk away, in the same building. Both D16 and S14 flew out to visit cousins in the US this weekend. From U of T, s14 hopped on the subway and transferred to a bus and was at the airport in 30-45 minutes. Cost: $3. From Waterloo, d16 travelled to the same airport. She had to pre-arrange an airport shuttle. She was concerned that it would take over 2 hours, since it was during rush hour, but she arrived in good time, about 1.5 hours. Cost $100.

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@bouders Thanks for all the info! That’s very helpful. I didn’t realize the structure was like Oxford and Cambridge. I think I’ll have S take a tour of UW before we head out to see U of T. I remember being a bit shell-shocked when I toured UC Berkeley as a HS student since I’d never seen such a big campus. S has been on the UW campus a lot but not actually toured and seen classes. We’ll try to visit Waterloo while there too. S is thinking along the graduate school path, but he’s also just a sophomore and the point of this trip is for him to see different options.

Your experience with professors is similar to mine though I was at a university of 15k (undergrad + grad). I had a faculty advisor and reader for my honors thesis (bio) but that was the limit of my interactions with professors outside of lectures. I interacted with graduate students (who led the discussion groups and lab sessions) and with my study groups (other students). Most of my science classes were big (200-400) and labs were smaller. Math (upper level) was more like 40-50 and German (20 ish). Engineering classes were like 100 with weekly discussion sections (problem set discussion) of 25.