Help add colleges to my list!

College Search & Selection
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Hello! I’m a current high school junior who’s trying compile a list of colleges to apply to next year. I’m largely considering liberal arts colleges because I really like the emphasis on the learning over the practical application and the smaller, more intimate classes. I live in the Midwest and would like to stay not too far from home, and I’d also like to live in or decently close to a city. I’ll definitely be applying financial aid, as a middle class applicant. I’m interested in nerdy or quirky schools with less cutthroat, more collaborative type students.

In terms of my “stats”, I have a 36 ACT and currently a 4.4 weighted GPA / 3.9 unweighted GPA. I’m an Asian applicant, which will probably hurt me. After peering at my resume holistically I realized how confused I must’ve seemed over the past few years in terms of which STEM field I like: I’ve tried Robotics to Neuroscience, each for a bit until I got disinterested or didn’t like it in general and quit. Then I realized that I liked theoretics and analysis a lot more than application. However, I’ve been highly involved with music in my community and volunteer with a middle school orchestra that I was actually a part of since fifth grade. Now, I’m thinking of being a mathematics major and a music minor.

I’ve put down Swarthmore as a possible college. Are there any else that I could possibly like? Thanks!

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By general characteristics only tangential to the survey title itself, you might like a few of the LACs included here, a list on which Swarthmore also appears:

https://www.princetonreview.com/college-rankings?rankings=students-study-most

Or here (post #10):

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1961862-finding-top-pure-math-colleges-p1.html

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@merc81 Thank you!

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As a potential theoretical mathematician, I’d recommend you consider those LACs that offer or encourage the opportunity of a semester in Budapest @swowy12 (easily researched).

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@swowy12 Some LACs to consider in the “Midwest”

Macalester, Carleton, Oberlin (good for music, not sure about their maths majors though), Grinnell, Haverford (in PA so kind of xD)

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@wolfmoon88 Thank you for responding!

I’m definitely going to put Oberlin on my list (I forgot about mentioning that in the original post lol). Oberlin apparently is pretty good at mathematics, from what I’ve read around. I’m probably going to stray more towards the Eastern coast, so maybe just “Midwest” was a bit limiting. Do you know the differences between Haverford and Swarthmore? I’ve read up some posts, but most from were from the early 2010s so I’m not sure if the data is still relevant…

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@swowy12 Haverford has a unique student-run honour code system which is something that is different from Swarthmore.

Link here: https://www.haverford.edu/academics/honor-code

I don’t know that much about Swarthmore unfortunately because I didn’t consider applying there, sorry :confused: I do know that they are both in Philadelphia and you can take classes at both institutions (along with Bryn Mawr College) I believe the biggest difference is the Honour Code mentioned above.

Have you considered moving out of states? maybe to like the UK with Oxford/Cambridge?

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What level of math will you have completed prior to college @swowy12?

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@merc81 are you current applicant or future applicant?

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@wolfmoon88 Haha it’s fine! I’m grateful for your responses.

I have contemplated going to the UK for college, which would be excellent and a great experience, but I haven’t looked too far into it. I’m not sure I’ll even make it in as an international student or have the finances to pay for it, but it’d sure be fun!

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@merc81 I’m currently taking AP Calculus BC as a junior and will likely math courses at the state university next year for senior year.

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@swowy12 That’s cool :slight_smile: I am biased (I chose not to apply to US colleges and only applied to the UK) but I do think that in terms of your interests in maths, some courses in the UK would fit you very well. For example, Mathematics & Philosophy in Oxford, Warwick and St Andrews. (I’ll link some of the courses below :))

You can do the interview on Skype for Oxford, although you do need to take an admissions test (MAT) which costs money I do think it is worth it to send an application just for the heck of it (From an Oxford international student reject from this year xD). After all, for UK applications you pay one fee for 5 university choices and you only have to write one subject specific personal statement.

In terms of pure tuition fees, many UK universities have lower tuition fees for international students compared to domestic fees. Of course, this is not counting student loans or financial aid which I assume you are applying for! There are some UK universities that allow you to take out US loans, St Andrews being one example. (https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/students/money/internationalstudents/loansforusstudents/) But I do understand that it is a great financial commitment.

I do not know much about music opportunities in other universities but for Oxford, there are inter-residential college orchestras which are pretty cool.

I hope this helps somewhat :stuck_out_tongue: (although it is more of a promotion about studying in the UK than anything else)

Oxford:

https://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/courses-listing/mathematics-and-philosophy?wssl=1

Warwick:

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/courses/gv15/

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@swowy12 No problem, I am happy to respond :slight_smile:

I might be biased (I chose not to apply to American Universities) but I think that in terms of your interest for maths, there are many courses in the UK that might fit you. E.g. Maths and Philosophy in Oxford, Warwick and St Andrews. All very theoretical and analytical, definitely one of the more difficult curriculums for mathematics in the world. s

In terms of applying to Oxford and your chances of getting in, the college admissions process, in my opinion, is a crapshoot anyways xD it doesn’t hurt to send an application (Although you do need to pay to take an admissions test called the MAT) You can interview on Skype so you don’t even need to fly to the UK! (Cambridge is different because you need to fly over but Oxford is ok) Besides for UK applications, you only need to pay one fee for 5 universities and only need to write one subject specific personal statement. Don’t worry about not getting in before even trying! (Coming from a failed Oxford applicant this year xD)

I know it is a great financial investment to study abroad for university and I recognise this. But in terms of pure tuition fees, most UK universities have lower fees for international students than many US private universities and even in-state students for some state universities. I know this doesn’t factor in financial aid and student loans (which you are definitely applying for) but some UK universities do offer US student loans and scholarships geared towards the US. - St Andrews is one of these unis: https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/students/money/internationalstudents/loansforusstudents/

In terms of musical opportunities, I cannot speak for other universities but Oxford has residential college and inter-college orchestras which offer many opportunities to express yourself musically.

I hope this helps :slight_smile: just adding more university choices to your list! and things to consider :slight_smile:

Links for possible universities of interest:

https://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/courses-listing/mathematics-and-philosophy?wssl=1
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/study/ug/courses/mathematics-department/mathematics-bsc/
https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/subjects/mathematics/mathematics-ma/
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/courses/gv15/
http://www.ed.ac.uk/studying/undergraduate/degrees/index.php?action=view&code=VG51

For more information about studying in the UK:

UCAS: https://www.ucas.com/

Which University: http://university.which.co.uk/

Across the Pond: http://www.studyacrossthepond.com/

The Student Room: https://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■.co.uk/

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OK, sounds as if you may have completed multi-variable calculus and the gateway, proof-based course linear algebra prior to your four-year experience. So look for ~12+ courses beyond this level in the curricula of your LACs of choice @swowy12.

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Your situation sounds somewhat similar to my son’s, who is applying to schools this year. We are from the midwest, and he is focusing on LACs, in the midwest, east coast, and west coast.

The “top” LACs in the midwest are Carleton and Grinnell. In the next tier are Oberlin and Macalester. Then comes St. Olaf, Kalamazoo, and a bunch in Ohio.

Swarthmore and Haverford are also top LACs, and there are a bunch more in Penn., in all the tiers.
Massachusetts also has a bunch, as does New York and Maine (well, three very good ones).

My suggestion: Find some ranking of LACs – the USNews one is fine. Don’t focus so much on the exact ranking of schools, but consider them more in tiers – e.g., top 10, top 30, top 75. Find a few from each group that look interesting, and research them further. (Some you’ll be able to eliminate right off based on considerations like location.) As you go through them, likely other considerations/preferences will become important – or maybe you already have them – and you can decide which ones to research further and/or include on your list. (You will likely need to include some other schools, like some more sure safeties – both in terms of chances of acceptance and affordability. Maybe public/state schools in your state – or nearby states, if they have reciprocity agreements.)

Also, you’ll need to get a handle on finances. For that, you’ll need to use the NPCs (Net Price Calculators) that each school has. That will give you an estimate of the financial aid (generally need-based only) you’ll get from schools, and you’ll have to determine what’s affordable. “Middle class” can be a fairly broad label, and also schools give different amounts of aid for different income/asset levels. These NPCs aren’t exact, but they should give a reasonable estimate, especially if your financial-related circumstances are not unusual.

You’ll also need to understand the difference between need-based aid and merit aid. The top schools generally only give need-based aid (and often “meet need” – but by their determination of “need”). Lower level schools give merit aid (and generally don’t “meet need”). You may determine that you are likely to get sufficient aid from top schools, or not.

Based on considerations like this, my son applied to a bunch of schools that we divided into four categories: reach, high match, match, and low match. We ended up uncertain whether we would get sufficient aid from top schools, so we included a number of schools where we expected/hoped to get good merit aid.

BTW, one consideration my son had was that he did not want a school experience that was too “intense” – in terms of the focus on studying so much. Schools I’d put in that category are: MIT, Swarthmore, UChicago, Reed, Caltech, and Harvey Mudd. You may or may not feel differently about that.

You’ve been discussing the particulars of math courses/departments. If that’s what you plan to major in, that’s a good thing to look at. My son is planning to major in physics, so we looked at the physics departments at schools. But it sounds like you’ve shifted around a little bit recently, and that may still happen further (nothing wrong with that, and it’s quite common), so you may want to consider other factors/offerings.

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Previous posters have suggested some wonderful LACs, but I was struck by how your interests have shifted during your high school years. You may want to add a couple of larger universities with honors colleges or programs that will offer a wider array of options should your interests change again. There are also exploratory programs for first year students. For example USC (California) Dornsife College has an honors thematic option http://dornsife.usc.edu/thematic-option/.

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@csdad2 Thank you for the in depth comment. I’ve been kind of hoping for an intense school to kick my butt into shape for life, as I’ve been largely coasting through high school without much studying (except for the past two years; I’m wholly grateful for the demanding yet rewarding coursework due to my teachers), so I was considering Swarthmore.

Is your son planning to pursue graduate school? I’ve been entertaining the idea of being a professor because I’d love to teach at an undergraduate or postgraduate level, but I’ve been kind of worried by the lack of graduate level courses offered by liberal arts colleges, a factor that’s regarded in graduate school admissions. Do you know whether being in a liberal arts college for undergraduate will undermine my chances for graduate school?

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@jmek15 Duly noted. Thank you for the advice

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My son hasn’t even started undergrad yet, so of course things can change, but he realizes that, especially in a field like physics, grad school/a PhD is a very likely path, and he is very comfortable with that. He doesn’t anticipate going into teaching, but perhaps research.

One of the key factors in my son’s search (at least in my mind) has been finding a school that’s just the right level of “intensity” for him. I understand that he doesn’t want a super-intense school, but I feel that the right context will be very important in helping him maximize his success – a school that is rigorous and challenging, with other high-level students, who are intelligent, motivated, and ambitious – all this, yet not super-intense. It’s a fine line.

Asking about LACs and grad school is a common issue, here and elsewhere. The basic/common answer is no, going to a LAC will not hurt your chances for getting into grad school. Some even say it will help them, that it’s the best preparation for them. You can find lots of threads about it here, lots of posts on other sites related to the college search process, and even scholarly/research articles.

A bit more nuanced answer I’ve come across is that for certain fields, it depends. Math and economics are included in those fields. Grad schools want to make sure you’ve had the right preparation, in terms of how the undergrad courses are taught (e.g., in terms of mathematical rigor). (I haven’t heard the same thing about physics, perhaps because the undergrad coursework is more standard.) This is where your research, and some of the things mentioned in previous replies, can help. You can find lots of threads/posts/data about colleges that lead to grad school, including this one, which is a few years old, but still relevant:

http://www.thecollegesolution.com/the-colleges-where-phds-get-their-start/

They’ve got lots of data there, but don’t look at the column for “All Disciplines”, look at the one for “Math and Statistics”. They show the top 10, and it includes 4 LACs. Pretty impressive. You can use data like this – and often times departments have data like this on their own sites – to help filter your list. (You can easily find data like this that goes out well beyond the top 10.) At some point, you can even consider contacting someone from the departments to get more specific information, like which particular grad schools they’ve had graduates go to. (I feel it’s important to note here that you need to consider some number of low match/safety schools, and some of these considerations will have to be limited for them.)

You might also consider including some medium-sized schools on your list – they’ll have some of the advantages of small and large schools. Some examples would be UChicago, WashU, Case Western, URochester.

BTW, I recommend you take the responses in this thread as just a small part of the information you’ll need to figure things out – for many reasons, they will likely not be totally accurate, complete, relevant, etc. Consider them just starting points for more research you’ll do.

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@swowy12 when your post was repeated because you didn’t know the moderators decided that my post needed reviewing lol