My DD23 (rising junior) is starting to make a college list, and I’d love some input from the fabulous CC community.
GPA: UW 4.0 (most rigorous), strong public school in our state. sophomore year: 2APs including Calc BC, junior year: 4APs + multivariable Calc (at local state flagship U). No standardized test yet.
EC: Food justice. Volunteers heavily and on a board at an established local non-profit, has a sizable role within this organization amongst adults. Founded a food justice club at school to connect the school to the aforementioned non-profit. Editor-in-chief for the school newspaper, writes about social justice and food. Varsity athlete (also does year-round club), but not at a recruiting level. NHS, etc.
Major: Undecided but maybe something like applied math/data science/economics: she wants to use math to solve social issues. Food justice minor or a strong food initiative on campus is a huge plus.
Non academic preferences:
Diversity. She grew up as one of the only non-white kids at her school (she’s part asian).
Access to good food would be a huge plus- great cafeteria food or local food scene, or even just an easy access to the kitchen. she is a total foodie, and eating at fun places with friends is her favorite activity.
Not a huge partier, prefers to hang out in smaller groups, but likes to meet people also. Personally, I’d really like some LAC recommendations for her. She prefers a smaller class size. She loved the idea of a tutorial at Williams when we visited for my older child. OTOH she is easy going and very resourceful, I can see her advocating herself and doing well at bigger places.
Thank you for reading if you are still here! Geographically, we are at PNW but have a family on the east coast. We are full pay.
I would recommend a couple of Canadian schools - Waterloo and University of Toronto - until I saw her preference for smaller class sizes.
Data science is a really hot major right now. It could even be hotter than computer science. She may do better applying for applied math.
She might look into women’s colleges. They tend to be more social justice oriented. Several, including Scripps, Barnard and Wellesley, would have excellent opportunities for math due to the ability to take courses at very strong STEM schools.
In terms of good food on campus, Bowdoin (reach) and St Olaf (~safety/low match if she shows interest) both come to mind, with respectively Portland and the Twin Cities as good places to explore restaurants.
College of Charleston would be a safety, with an excellent Data Science major and a city nearby.
Along with the usual names Caltech, MIT, Stanford, Princeton, UC Berkeley, UCLA, Michigan, you might want to consider UC Irvine, though class sizes for the big state schools might be an issue. I highly suggest you and your daughter listen to the audiobook narrated by applied mathematician Edward O. Thorp himself “A Man For All Markets”, which is such an applied math/data sciences inspirational story.
Oh, and Jim Simons was very actively involved and donated a ton of $$ to Stony Brook University’s Applied Math program. I advise you and your daughter read the biography about Mr. Simons - “The Man Who Solved The Market”. Quite a character.
She’ll have plenty of small classes at the private schools I recommended, but if she is limited strictly to LACs then Pomona, Harvey Mudd, Amherst would be fine.
While Brown is not a LAC it is reputed to feel like one. The open curriculum allows for a liberal arts approach.
Across most of the surveys the applied math department ranks in the top 5. I have attached a few…
Providence is a foodies paradise. With Johnson and Whales in town the city attracts a lot of new and eclectic culinary talent. Micro breweries, tapas, vegan food court, Peruvian cuisine, Turkish, Portuguese, gourmet donuts, food truck park, to name a few. Their is also a traditional Italian area known as Federal Hill that has some great spots for food. You also have a lot of traditional New England seafood.
Brown is an extremely diverse place, socially accepting of any and all backgrounds, and the students tend to be very politically engaged in social justice causes.
Yes, completely agree about Cornell! It’s a super reach but we will visit for sure. We have never been there surprisingly (she has two older siblings so we have seen quite a few schools already)
Claremont schools are a great idea. We visited Pomona (and C McKeena) few years ago with her older sister, for some reason DD23 was lukewarm about the location, maybe because her sister wasn’t so into it…but we plan to go back this winter at some point and look at Pitzer, Scripps and Harvey Mudd.
We did visit Amherst before but had a TERRIBLE tour guide, yikes…so I think she ruled it out. We might go again, especially if we go see the other consortium schools there.
It’s 45mn South of the Twin Cities which have lots and lots of restaurants (Dinkytown is interesting in that respect). There’s a shuttle and students go for the weekend.
At most LACs (most colleges actually), students spend the week on campus and the food there is supposed to be excellent, homemade, and very varied.
If she’s adventurous, she will have an opportunity to taste Lutefisk around christmastime, it’s fish in lye (?!), basically fish jello but “lye” gives it the extra twang
It’s located in Northfield, a small college town (Carleton is across the river) - you can just walk there from the college, not sure what restaurants are there but I’m sure others will chime in.
Regarding classroom experience, this survey-based result may be of interest:
This article discusses some aspects of data science at a liberal arts college:
If your daughter might be interested in general reading at this time, she could search for Weapons of Math Destruction (O’Neil), which considers data science in a social context.
