My rising sophomore son is interested in starting to look at/visit colleges. He wants to be either a math/CS double major or a math major with a CS minor. A bit about him:
qualified to take the USAJMO this year (and AIME starting in 8th grade)
many lower math awards
36 math ACT/33 composite as a freshman
will take Discrete Math this summer, BC calculus next year, MV Calculus/Linear Algebra/AP Stats as a junior, and probably Diff Eq/upper-level prob and stats as a senior.
probably average honors student in other subjects -- good grades, but no awards or such
Our income/savings is too high to get need aid (other than ~$10k at HPY, which isn’t enough), and we’re not willing to pay more than $35k/year for college – and ideally lower than that.
So through research, he and I have made a list of some colleges that seem possible to get down below $35k with merit scholarships that also have good math/CS programs. But we’re definitely looking for more, so if you have other ideas, please post them. (Especially New England/Mid-Atlantic ones, since we’ll be there on vacation this summer.)
Cal Poly SLO
Santa Clara U
USC
Michigan
Minnesota
Purdue
Rose-Hulman
Northeastern
Stevens Inst.
Stony Brook
Rice
Texas A&M
No real preference yet from him on big v. small, Midwest v. coasts, etc.
Right, I realize that. But the privates I listed offer merit scholarships in the ~$30k range for students with approximately my son’s stats (or likely future stats – I would guess he can get his ACT up to 35 in the next two years). Not automatic scholarships, mind, but not unreasonable as a match or a reach (depending on the school).
belmom:
3.93 UW right now. Probably end up in a 3.85-3.95 range if I had to guess. His projected schedule for the rest of high school has 9 AP courses plus four or five dual-enrollment math classes beyond AP Calc.
You might find some tables I made for small liberal arts colleges showing percent getting merit aid and average size of grant. http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/19801988/#Comment_19801988
Other tables in the thread are focused on various metrics of strength/size of dept in the hard sciences (incl math and cs). It might give you some ideas if your S’s interests end up going in the direction of small liberal arts colleges.
If not, the source of the data on merit scholarships is from collegedata.com . Search for a school and then click on ‘money matters’ and you’ll see the info there.
Are there any potential safeties (both assured admission to the college and the math and CS majors, and assured affordability) in your preliminary list?
There are lots of situations described in these forums where a student is really disappointed because s/he was only admitted to his/her safety, which s/he did not choose carefully enough to actually like.
Given how advanced he will be in math (essentially ready for college junior level math by the time he graduates from high school), the selection of college should include an evaluation of the math department’s offerings to see that it has enough junior/senior level math courses to keep him interested, and preferable graduate level courses and research opportunities. Small schools including LACs can be all over the place here, from bare minimum junior/senior level math courses, to much more extensive offerings including what would be graduate level courses at big universities.
A couple in-state schools. (I’m being vague about our state because the USAJMO is a public list with only a few per state.) And Alabama, Oklahoma, etc. if he ends up scoring well on the PSAT and becomes a NMF.
These colleges appear in a Princeton Review sampling, “Great Schools for Mathematics Majors,” and in some cases offer significant merit scholarships (unscreened):
Agnes Scott
Bowdoin
Bryant
Bryn Mawr
Caltech
Carleton
Holy Cross
College of Idaho
Grinnell
Hamilton
Hampton
Harvard
Harvey Mudd
Haverford
Macalester
MIT
Randolph
Reed
Rice
St. Lawrence
St. Olaf
SUNY-Albany
U.S. Coast Guard Academy
UChicago
URochester
Wabash
I agree with @ucbalumnus that you should review respective math curricula for suitably advanced math courses. For further breadth and depth, a Budapest semester may be encouraged at some schools.
You might consider Canadian schools - University of Waterloo, University of Toronto, University of British Columbia and McGill. The first 3 are ranked in the top 50 (at least) globally for both math and CS. McGill is ranked in the top 100. You could also consider UK schools. They should all be within or close to your budget.
Cooper Union (NYC) is a very strong STEM school that awards half-tuition scholarships to all entering students.
According to College Scorecard, the average annual cost for families making $110K+/year is $17,829.
If you qualify for no additional aid at all, the total cost (with NYC’s high expenses) may be over $40K. That’s over budget, but may be worth some additional “self help” (student loans + work study).
Anyone interested in selective private schools should be sure to run the online net price calculators before reaching that conclusion. A family earning $230K/year with $100K cash savings could qualify for over $10K in n-b aid from Harvard (which would still leave a very large EFC, of course.) About 60 other colleges claim to cover 100% of demonstrated need (although they don’t all use the same formulas to calculate it).