Will you be accompanied by a parent during this time (assuming you are still a minor in the summer)? Universities usually have structured programs for high school students in the summer and do not just let under-age students hang out.
You’ve had some serious health issues. I’m glad to hear you are feeling better and don’t need a medical team.
Have you given much thought to what you want out of a college experience? Especially a residential college experience? In the event you end up at a very large Uni such as UCB, are you aware that you will likely be in large lecture style classes as a freshman? Some classes there can have as many as 1000 students. Per class. If that’s acceptable to you, you’ll be fine.
It is hard to have access to professors as a freshman at some colleges. A really big college can be great for some kids and not for others. For some, it’s hard to make friends at a big school, whereas for others the opposite might be true. And the same ideas apply to small schools, but it is certainly easier to form relationships with profs at smaller colleges, at least in the US.
There are colleges that have concentrations rather than Gen Ed requirements. That means you will likely have some very broad parameters for the course you must take to fulfill a certain requirement. For instance, my daughter’s college had concentrations she had to meet for a lab science. I can’t remember exactly, but in that semester, there was a sports science course, a physics course, a few others, and a geology course with field trips to fulfill the lab requirements. She chose that one and had a great time learning about geology.
Given your history of mental health issues, you might want to consider the support services available at whatever college you apply to. It might be important for you to have quick access to home. What do your parents think? Are they happy for you to be far away? Or would they rather you be closer to home? I’d put a lot of thought into the environment you will thrive best in and the personal needs you have to consider when you create your application list. Maybe it’s worth suffering a few boring classes if it means you get other things you want out of a college.
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Why not try for UMN? I think that having the faculty recommendation from your mentor could be very helpful to provide context to the admissions committee. Also, since you have studied with your mentor before online and are planning to study there in person, your familiarity with the campus and the university may make your transition to college smoother than it would otherwise be.
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UMN Pure Math would be a logical choice, but I’m not sure a 2.9 will be sufficient.
What AP’s have you gotten A’s in?
The UK may be a good choice: beside Oxbridge (check out dates for the STEP), pick 4 among Imperial, Durham, St Andrews, UEdinburgh, Glasgow, Strathclyde.
In Canada, UToronto, Waterloo - if you manage to get straight A’s in 11th and 12th grade.
(Test yourself with their math tests, see if you could participate in the competition).
In the US, what about Hampshire and NCF?
Perhaps see if you could apply to Kalamazoo with the goal of transferring to UMichigan sophomore year. It’d be a reach with a 2.9 though.
What’s your parents’ budget for college?
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You have a red flag… test scores do not match GPA. Schools tend to weigh GPA higher than test scores. Still apply to Berkeley, but also some very realistic options on your list. There are lesser-ranked colleges with excellent math programs. Do your research. You will find your match.
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I was wondering about this also for two reasons. One is that a very strong 11th and 12th grade will get you in even if earlier years were bad. The other reason is that an honors bachelor’s degree in Canada includes somewhat more classes in your major or related to your major, and relatively fewer required courses that are not related to your major. One daughter graduated last May with an honours bachelor’s degree from a Canadian university, and was taking many classes that in the US would more likely have been graduate level classes. Nearly all of her last three years were either major related classes, or involved research (in the lab until the pandemic shut the labs down). However, even in Canadian universities there will be some “general education” requirements.
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It’s been a while, so I’d like to mention that I’m doing a variety of things to try and improve my application.
For one, I’m currently getting all As my second semester, and I plan to continue this trend for the rest of the year and for my senior year.
I plan to test out of all of my senior year classes, along with all of the mathematics and physics classes at the nearby community college, so that my senior year will consist of taking only advanced undergraduate classes. With permission, I might even be able to take some graduate classes instead!
The school is willing to pay my tuition for college as long as I’m dual enrolling. At least, this has always been true in the past, but in the past students only attended the nearby community college. I wonder if they’ll be willing to pay for me to attend the University of Michigan.
I have considered going to the University of Chicago instead of UC Berkeley, because they have very good professors in langlands program research (Galois representations, Lie representations, automorphic forms, etc.).
I am doing a survey of my school district, and relating it to a test of my own invention I am trying to norm, along with a maze. If I get to proctor it to every school in the district, I’ll have really, really good norms and 3 papers worth of publishable research, one of which will be a really good paper.
I am also applying to PROMYS and the Ross Program, because I can solve most of the problem sets. In the remaining time, I will be at the University of Minnesota.
I’m thinking of participating in the AIME, and since I do well on everything but geometry, I hope to bring my geometry up to speed to make the USAMO.
I’m also learning to program algorithms in Haskell, Python and C++, and plan to use them for math purposes, especially Haskell.
I’m thinking of joining some programming competitions. The aforementioned friend of mine won a national programming competition using Haskell, and I’m studying under her. I hope to do something similar.
I’m also applying to a grant called The Spirit of Ramanujan, and I hope I get it.
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Are you planning on taking the STA or ACT? PSATs are not accepted as part of college applications. That is just a test for the National Merit Scholarship. some of my kids did great on the PSATs, and not so hot on the SATs/ACTs.
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I’m taking the SAT my senior year. I’ve been practicing to get a perfect score, and will continue doing so until I can get it consistently on practice tests.
Also, what does the emoji mean? I’m not very good at social cues.
The eye-rolling emoji? Quite literally means that someone is rolling their eyes at you, or that you said something worthy of an eye roll. Best of luck in your future endeavors in interpreting ‘social cues’! :))))
This is very good and very important.
Be very careful about this. It is important in math and physics to understand the prerequisites very well. Jumping ahead is very often a bad idea. Maintaining the straight A’s in the classes that you are taking is going to help you a lot, and is going to be much more difficult if you jump ahead.
I did take plenty of graduate level courses in mathematics. However, I only did this after first getting a bachelor’s degree in mathematics. The experience that I gained in all of those undergraduate courses really did help a lot.
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@Gumbymom Where do you get the data on admit rate by GPA range per school that you quote above? Thanks.
I get the data from the UCOP website Freshman summary. 2020 is the most recent data posted on the website. Hopefully the 2021 data will be available in the next 2 weeks. The data is overall admit rates based on the Capped weighted UC GPA and not major specific.
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I wish you the best of luck. It’s great that you’re getting all As this semester and plan on continuing to complete all of your class assignments.
What is it that you would like to get out of college? Do you want an in-person experience or do you prefer an online one? You might also want to consider colleges with an open curriculum. If a college has an open curriculum, there are no distribution requirements, so you only take the classes you’re interested in, along with those that are required for your major.
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