<p>My oldest son is a sophomore in high school and wants to major in pure math. He is currently taking honors undergrad math classes at a local University. At the rate he's going he will have completed the undergrad offerings and start taking grad level classes by the time he enters college.</p>
<p>How do colleges handle this? He will have already completed the math classes required for his BA. Will he be required to take the equivalent number of credit hours of grad classes instead? How would that impact his MA work?</p>
<p>Probably needs to go to a school that has a good graduate math program so he can take those classes. A couple of our kids’ friends were in the same situation. The one is a junior in college and started finishing grad level math during UG–had started while he was in high school. He mainly takes “independent study” classes and works with a couple of the math profs on special courses for him. The other is still in high school so it just depends on what he ends up doing. Our kids have a 6th grader in their BC Calc class this year that will be in the same spot.</p>
<p>Most colleges will have the residency requirement for BA/BS degrees. Some schools may allow your son to take graduate level classes, some may not.</p>
<p>If by MA work you mean Masters, then it’s normal in math to go straight to a PhD, sometimes picking up a Masters by filing paperwork along the way. Most math PhDs aren’t based so much on hours taken as on passing certain exams and then doing research. People take the coursework they need to learn the material for the exams and for their area of study.</p>
<p>Also note that the standard undergraduate math classes can be offered at a variety of depths and with different focuses. Harvard’s Math 55, for example, is famous for challenging even top math students.</p>
<p>If I were that family, I would talk to an advisor in the math department in each college he was interested in and ask what the appropriate path at that college would look like. I wouldn’t think that any school without a good graduate program would be a good choice.</p>
<p>A program with a senior thesis option would probably be a positive. </p>
<p>I’d also ask about track records of getting kids into REUs and make sure that kids are getting into REUs in areas that the student thinks he is interested in (so, getting kids into REUs focused on combinatorics and graph theory isn’t a positive if he’s more interested in analysis).</p>
<p>Obviously your kid is advanced in math, but how could he “have already completed the math classes required for his BA” by the end of high school? Wouldn’t he have to take more than one college math class per semester to do that? How could he do that and also complete the rest of his high school requirements?</p>
<p>In any event, I think you have several perfectly good options. Obviously, he should be looking at colleges with good math PhD programs, but that’s just the beginning.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>If I were you, I would encourage him to slow down and branch out, either now or when he goes to college. I get that he loves math, but he’s, what? 15? He may well discover that there are other things he loves as much or more. Related fields, like physics, computer science, or economics. Finance. Linguistics. Lots of people who love pure math at 15 wind up loving one of those fields. (None of my kids’ friends who were doing college math in high school is still in math at 24-27.) And even if pure math remains his true love, he will be a more interesting and valuable mathematician for having gone into some depth in other areas.</p></li>
<li><p>Most PhD programs do not actually require a bachelor’s degree. Maybe he should think about applying to PhD programs right out of high school. What I might try to do is talk to colleges about putting together a BA/PhD program, where he would work towards his PhD but over the course of 4-5 years take some gen ed and elective undergraduate courses and get awarded a BA at some point.</p></li>
<li><p>He could think about applying to Oxford or Cambridge out of high school, where he would effectively get a custom math-only curriculum at the graduate level, and probably get awarded a BA/MA within three years.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Steve MA - The univ he’s taking the classes at has been rated top 10 for years and has a great grad and PhD program. My son did a lot of self-study so they’ve moved him ahead until they found a challenging class for him. Because of that, he has “skipped” the early classes that are usually required which I’m sure has happened to the kids you know too. Will he have to complete that same amount of credit hours at the graduate level in order to earn his BA?</p>
<p>4kidsdad - This is my oldest so I’m foggy on the college language. lol What do you mean by the residency requirement for some colleges? As for not allowing him to take grad level courses, I’m assuming that that would rule those colleges out since he’s already taking junior year undergrad courses as a sophomore. If he couldn’t take grad level courses then he wouldn’t be able to continue to study what he’s passionate about there.</p>
<p>CalMich–as far as I know his coursework is counting for his UG work. You and he should probably meet with the math chair at that university and find out what they suggest and how it would work for him at that school if he chose to go there.</p>
<p>Mathinokc - Your advice is very helpful. He has often complained that courses aren’t rigorous enough, but I think he’s finally found a class that fits his ability!</p>
<p>JHS - I understand your questioning. He comprehends math very quickly and easily. He did a lot of studying and research on his own over the past few years. He learned Calc I-Diff Eq in a year which is why he is so far ahead now. He started high school with several credits due to an advanced curriculum at his middle school. He’s also taking his 4th year of foreign language at night and is earning credit because his high school doesn’t offer it during the day. He has enough high school credit to graduate by Dec, but he wants the full high school experience and I prefer him to wait to enter college so he using his extra class time to experience other classes.</p>
<p>He has a broad range of interests - physics, Japanese, and history. He doesn’t love computer science. He finished his high scool course in 2 weeks so he did the MIT OCW section for the rest of the semester & still didn’t love it. He’s hoping to find a good school that offers Japanese as well. </p>
<p>Thank you for all of your help!!! You have given me a lot of valuable information to research and how to make the next step. My major was so much more linear than math so this is a whole new experience for me as I help him explore what options are available.</p>
<p>Fortunately, the state flagships in the two states referenced by your screen name should have ample advanced math offerings to keep him interested, and should have plenty of offerings in those other subjects of interest as well.</p>
<p>Yeah, if he is taking classes at Cal or Michigan, you shouldn’t be asking these questions on College Confidential, you should ask for an appointment with the chair of the Math Department, and ask him/her for advice and help in crafting a flight path for your son. I would be very surprised if the department wasn’t happy to help get him situated with a plan, either at their university or at some other one.</p>
<p>So will he actually have college credit for the undergrad math courses? If so, then most likely he will only have to complete whatever other (gen ed, etc.) requirements there are for the math BA. He may have time to take cross-registered undergrad/grad courses or grad courses for grad credit while he progresses through the gen eds. That will either further accelerate his progress or give him a broader base. </p>
<p>Likely he will need to delineate a subfield sooner that some of his fellow students. In fact, if he has any ideas as to subfields right now, I would consider focusing the college search on finding a place with a faculty group working in that area. Mathematics is a huge field with over 3000 recognized subfields.</p>
<p>I agree with JHS. At my school, a math major requires around 8 or 9 courses past differential equations, it would be difficult to do that in 3 years, though not impossible I guess.</p>
<p>I disagree with the advice to look at REUs. At the rate your son is going, there are maybe 4 math REUs that would be appropriate, all of whom seem to mostly accept from the same 5 or 6 schools.</p>
<p>I have a family friend who was in this type of situation. He opted to leave high school after his sophomore year, and enroll in college full time. He did consider attending the local university so that he could continue to live at home, but ended up moving part-way across his state in order to enroll at a university where the math program was better. He graduated from that university in four years, and had his pick of Ph.D. programs.</p>
<p>Do speak with the math department where your son is currently studying. Early college enrollment may be his best option. It also may be possible for him to simultaneously complete a bachelor’s degree while finishing high school. That is something else that has been done before.</p>
<p>Each college and university sets its own policies. Some of the best have been known to admit talented students directly to Ph.D. programs without a full undergrad degree. Your child may be one of the rare cases where something like that is possible.</p>
<p>b@r!um is one of the math experts here at CC. She often posts in the International and Grad Students forums. If you read her threads or PM her when you have enough posts to be able to do that, I’m sure you will find some useful ideas.</p>
<p>It may be that he needs a few upper division courses to fill in the remaining bachelor’s degree requirements, but then go on to graduate level courses. Graduate level courses (particularly “special topics” type of courses) may be places where faculty recruit students into research projects.</p>
<p>Is your son taking college courses for college credit, or college classes for high school credit? Our county has a program where HS students can take college classes for free, but they don’t get college credit for them. To get college credit, you need to pay (a reduced price) for the classes. Does your son definitely want to major in math? Obviously, you need to find a college that has a strong math program, and that offers graduated degrees. I don’t think it will be particularly hard to find a good fit, but you will need to ask questions others aren’t necessarily worried about.</p>
<p>You should definitely check out University of Michigan. The math department here allows all students to take any math class they want, including Freshmen wanting to take grad level classes. In addition there is a very large selection of math classes here to choose from.</p>
<p>Even though the math department isn’t as prestigious as Princeton, Harvard, UChicago, there are very rigorous options for students on par with the best those schools offer.</p>
<p>There’s also a difference between completing all the requirements for a math major and running out of undergrad math classes. In Minnesota, it’s not unheard of for students to take 5+ upper division (or sometimes even graduate) math classes during high school at the University of Minnesota. At MIT it’s fairly easy to get some credit for upper division math classes and students start with more upper division or graduate classes. There are a decent number of students each year at MIT in this situation as well. At least at MIT such students will usually stay for 4 years and just take lots of grad classes. Other top schools work somewhat differently and are perhaps somewhat less flexible but it should be roughly similar.</p>