<p>Probably means that a large math department (and large departments in related areas like physics, computer science, statistics, and economics) are desirable for her.</p>
<p>She may also want to look at math faculty rosters (to determine what research interests they have) and math graduate course listings at each school to determine what specialties the faculty at each school are into, so that she can choose schools with good breadth of specialties in advanced math that match her interests. This goes for reach and match schools as well as safety schools.</p>
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<p>Many state schools are among the top schools for math. Indeed, it is entirely possible that the best fits for the student in question are state schools (even perhaps the safeties). Given the desire for breadth in math and related subjects, the large size of state schools could very well be advantageous for the student in question.</p>
<p>My kids are informing me, like ucbalumnus, that state universities have the math department level that will allow for growth, and also have a larger peer group. She loved being around grad student teachers and mentors in a summer program. It can be a positive that there are grad students not only professors.</p>
<p>Looking at the math programs and honors math programs at Minnesota and Stony Brook—d said this is definitely enough math! The offerings are extensive, and look challenging and broad. However, 50,000 students at Minnesota (Twin Cities) is too big. Stony Brook, predominantly New York students, also too big. She said these looked like good graduate programs, but she wants a smaller school for undergrad.</p>
<p>Ideal would be mid-size 5,000 undergrads. She would rather go to a top tier or second tier LAC than our in-state (c 15,000 students) or these two above. I met someone from Williams (which I know has a strong math dept.) who said the math students had lots of tutorials with one or two students in them for advanced students. I wonder if this kind of setting with little tutorials would be as good as graduate classes?</p>
<p>The problem is that the selection of math courses at a small LAC (including Williams and its tutorials) is likely to be too limiting for her if she is already taking graduate level courses in high school. A check of course catalogs and faculty rosters, comparing the large and small schools, will show this. (Williams is also too selective to be a safety anyway.)</p>
<p>The desire for a small school overall is counter to the need for a large enough and good math department to provide the academic offerings in math for her. The few schools that combine non-hugeness with a decent graduate level math reputation are too selective to be safeties for anyone (MIT, Caltech, Stanford, the smaller Ivy League schools, Rice), although their offerings may still be smaller than those at the giant universities due to smaller department size.</p>
<p>However, one possible way to go to a small school but have access to a better math department at larger one is to attend one with a cross-registration agreement with such a larger school. But make sure that the cross registration and attending courses at the other school is relatively convenient.</p>
<p>Stemom, in all honesty, the only LAC that might have math offerings suitable for her needs is Cal Tech (only has about 1900 undergrads + grads), assuming your daughter truly is taking grad classes. The upper division classes at universities, particularly in less popular majors like math tend to have very very few students in them. For example, my friend’s roommate is an applied math major at UC Davis (a school that’s previously been mentioned here for having a good math department) and she told me most of her major classes have under 7 people in them. Since the roommate “only” went up to linear algebra in high school, your daughter’s classes would likely be even smaller.</p>
<p>Some safeties might be Case Western, RPI, but I’m not even sure they offer enough math to keep your daughter content. Your daughter might have to attend either a larger state flagship, or hope to get into a medium sized “lottery” school (MIT, Cal Tech, Princeton, Rice, etc). Btw, CMU isn’t nearly as selective for math as it is for computer science.</p>
<p>Some small schools with cross-registration with larger schools:</p>
<p>Barnard: Columbia
Wellesley: MIT, Brandeis
5 colleges: University of Minnesota - Twin Cities
Amherst, Hampshire, Smith, Mount Holyoke: University of Massachusetts - Amherst
Bryn Mawr, Haverford, Swarthmore: University of Pennsylvania
20 colleges: Georgia Tech</p>
<p>Some other cross registration agreements should be findable by web searching for “cross registration <name of=”" large="" university="" with="" math="" department="">".</name></p>
<p>However, if she wants to go this route, she needs to check very carefully what restrictions there are on cross registration (both at the home college and the one she will take courses at), as well as check for differences in the colleges’ academic calendars and commuting distance to the other college. For example, there may be limits on the number of courses or credits that can be cross registered in one semester, or total over one’s entire undergraduate years. Misaligned calendars may mean starting classes at the other college early (may not match up with dorm move-in dates), or taking final exams early or late (the latter may not match up with dorm move-out dates).</p>
<p>Not all of the small schools will be safeties, of course.</p>
<p>It is still likely much more convenient to go to a big school where extensive math offerings are available “natively” without dealing with cross registration.</p>
<p>One more issue to consider: At many schools which allow cross registration, students from another school are given last priority during registration periods.</p>
<p>Don’t try to do the cross registration thing at Brandeis or any of the Atlanta schools. Brandeis is too far away from MIT to make it a viable option, unless your daughter plans her schedule very very very carefully and barely participates in on campus life, thereby defeating the purpose of attending a smaller school. </p>
<p>The only Atlanta area school good in the physical sciences/math, at the level your daughter requires, is Georgia Tech. Emory fits your daughter’s size desire, but our physics/math/ and computer science offerings are quite limited, meaning that after your daughter knocks out her gen eds, she’d likely spend almost all of her time at Tech, particularly since it’s hard to imagine that she wouldn’t do research with Georgia Tech professors. Again, this sort of defeats the purpose of going to a medium sized school.</p>
<p>Remember, it’s much easier to make a big school feel small, than a small school feel big.</p>
<p>We considered the cross-registration idea with several of those mentioned. May try the Northampton group(would Smith be a safety?) Pomona plus Claremont McKennaI hear it is truly walking distance. (not safety of course). Have rejected Swarthmore as too small and Penn as too far away. Can’t imagine her at Penn or Columbia in a large urban setting. She did the cross-registration thing between high school and local university for three years. The experience has worn thin. It’s inefficient, the exams are at different times, the social fit is awkward. How would you do problem sets with students in a different school than where you live? She needs a peer group in her area of interest.
Talked to professors about selecting schoolsthey described grad students from small LAC as bright but underprepared in math.
I don’t know anything about the Tech schools, their culture. I only know about MIT, and while it seems stimulating and interesting, I wonder if it would be…nurturing.
She’s younghad the opportunity to take a couple of advanced courses, and do one summer research project, but not prepared all around at a graduate level. I wonder what it would be like to be at a very large university? Would the math department peer group form a closely-knit sub-group?
Maybe the safety school, in addition to our in-state, needs to be a big school for math, and hope to get into first choice lottery schoolwhich is probably the best fit.</p>
<p>Remember, it’.s much easier to make a big school feel small, than a small school feel big.
—This should be seriously considered.</p>
<p>Alsoin reading about Minnesotawhat is the difference between math department in a college of arts and sciences and math department within a school of engineering? Is the latter applied math? Would this distinction carry over to Georgia Tech, Case Western, etcdo they have pure math degrees that lead to math grad school? Despite years of accelerated courses, its too early to tell if math itself will be the interest in the end, or if other interests may develop. She does know she prefers quantitative subjects.</p>
<p>ucbalumnus–that post you sent me to is very apropos. Thank you. It just goes against my personal bias that small LAC is a great education and great environment…yes, I see that she is about two years ahead in math, so there is a ceiling at a small LAC.</p>
<p>I would think some of the smaller universities with good engineering programs would be the reasonable compromise in terms of academic offerings and size. Case Western, U. Rochester, CMU, JHU come to mind, though I don’t have specifics on their math departments.</p>
<p>If you mean that, in the same university, there is a math major in both divisions, you would have to check each version to see what the degree requirements and course offerings are.</p>
<p>For Minnesota specifically, math is in the College of Science and Engineering; the math degree requirements include some physics and CS courses (which should not be a problem for her if she likes other quantitative subjects as well as math), but a math major can choose math electives to emphasize pure or applied topics (or both).</p>
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<p>The strongest school for math in that group is probably Harvey Mudd, but small size may still be limiting.</p>
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<p>It looks like your daughter is three to five years ahead in math. The usual benefit of a small LAC is a more nurturing environment and small lower division courses – but at the expense of more limited upper division offerings and no or little graduate level offerings.</p>
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<p>Usually, advanced undergraduates tend to form closely-knit sub-groups in their majors; so do graduate students.</p>
<p>These schools seem more of a fit, at least in size. The engineering component would mean stronger math than an LAC. I looked at CMU–interesting blend of math, physics, cs. Not quite as much pure math.
Would any of these be safety? Are they targets, or matches with a compromise, that are at least below the selectivity range of ivies etc.? Better fit than LAC?</p>
<p>For fit of the math department, your daughter should go to each school’s web site and look at the faculty roster (faculty members’ home pages typically list research interests) and course listings in the math department.</p>
<p>Bumping for more suggestions. (Thread kind of went off-topic.)
I just got a 2340 on the SAT, which is apparently better than the 33 on the ACT. </p>
<p>So Ohio State is definitely a safety even if my essays/ECs aren’t especially riveting?</p>
<p>“Essay and ECs are less important than grades, rigor, class rank and scores.”</p>
<p>That’s presumably true for most colleges, but a lot of colleges will reject you if you have good grades but bad ECs because a lot of the applicants have good grades and good ECs.</p>
<p>OSU has a freshman class of >6000 students. If they rejected in-state students like you, they could never ever fill that class. Make sure you apply by Dec 1 for full scholarship consideration. The earlier you apply, the earlier you will hear back. </p>
<p>You will surely go into the automatic pile. I doubt anybody will even read your essays or look at your ECs. I think that you will automatically be a shoo-in for the Honors Program too. If that’s surely where you want to go, that’s where you will go.</p>