<p>Dear current NU math majors and/or anyone related to math department somehow</p>
<p>What comments (positive/negative) can you make about the Northwestern math department? (including student-professor relationships, the quality of instruction, research opportunities, general strong and weak parts of the department etc.) I am most interested in pure mathematics. Northwestern sent me the application for ISP which I didn't fill in. ISP seemed to me for students who want to become scientists. I didn't see it necessary for a math major to take all those hard science courses. What do you think? Did I make a mistake? If I still have time (???) to apply to ISP, should I seriously consider it? Thank you for all of your future answers!</p>
<p>Sorry to be vague, as I am only a relative of someone who is a Math major there (nearing completion of degree). I gather the Math professors are very good, consistent with other top universities, and while the department at NU does not appear to me to be large, it is high quality. But from what we have been told, our student has found all NU professors to be uniformly topnotch. If you are a Math major then you have to take distro courses in Weinberg, so you will encounter a broad array of professors. Ours found an interesting minor to add this way.
I believe if someone is of similar temperament (to a Math major) and is in McCormick Engineering, then they have to take fewer of such distros. So, in Weinberg, a Math major has to devote time to his/her major (for sure!) and ALSO has an array of other requirements. I guess in the end, you will have a solid education. Sorry, I don’t have specific knowledge about ISP.</p>
<p>S is in ISP and Engineering. ISP program is very rigorous, and once you fulfill the ISP requirements, all you have to do is to take a couple of more Math classes to get an additional major in Math. Since ISP classes are very small (15 students or so), you get individual attention - both good and bad!</p>
<p>ISP is tough, make no mistakes about it. To give an idea, the freshman class size starts off with about 30 students, and at the beginning of sophomore year, it drops down to 15 students. Having said that, if you are passionate about the sciences, you should be able to handle it. Grading follows the normal curve.</p>
<p>@NorthwesternDad - S was just invited into ISP. I’m sure he knows much more about it than I do, but if you are in ISP do you have many pre-med students in your cohort, and do you still take the usual organic chemistry class or do you spend most of your class/lab time with the ISP cohort? S has great grades and test sores, but he comes from a “meh” public school and is concerned he might start out behind most ISP classmates (for example his HS offered no Honors or AP Physics, and no Organic Chemistry).</p>
<p>S is a sophomore and he knows of 4 pre-med students in his batch. One of them is from the seven year med program. S did organic chemistry in the 1st quarter of his freshman year (due to his AP score) and this class is of a higher standard than that offered to non-ISP students. And this class is one of the requirements of ISP. Typically, the ISP students follow a defined course structure, but then they also take classes pertaining to the other major with non-ISP students. As long as your S has great scores and is admitted to the ISP program, I do not foresee any issue. However, please be aware that medical schools admission is based on GPA in the science courses, and if your S finds the going tough in ISP ( not that I expect that to be the case), he may be better off sticking to his pre-med major only. Just my 2 cents.</p>
<p>S is definitely not interested in pre-med – he wants to be a research scientist of some as-yet-undefined sort (right now he is leaning toward chemistry). Do you know if ISP students have more/less access than other science students to working with professors on research projects? Does ISP mean anything special to grad schools or employers?</p>
<p>ISP students have far greater access to research than other disciplines simply because of the rigor and depth of the program. The professors are all well aware of the caliber of the students and opportunities to do research are plenty. Most, if not all, ISP students go on to graduate schools.</p>
<p>My son was also accepted to ISP and wants to study chemistry. Do you know what the average GPA is and how that affects grad school admissions? I’m wondering if the program is well known enough that someone who has an average GPA (3.0?) in the program can still get into a top grad school.</p>
<p>The GPA is cumulative of ISP and the other major(s). ISP has been part of NU for a very long time and all the top graduate schools are aware of the rigor of this program.</p>
<p>It’s hard to beat ISP if you want to become a scientist; think of it like MIT/CalTech (or maybe even more) sitting on NU campus. </p>
<p>The success rate for external scholarships is incredible; several years ago (2009 if I am not mistaken), 3 ISP-chemistry majors won Goldwater awards. The maximum number of winners is capped at 4 for any school and many elite schools may have just one or two or even no winner in any given year. It’s considered quite an achievement to have 3 winners from the same school, let alone the same department! That year, NU had 4 winners.</p>
<p>ISP goes well beyond the materials typically taught in colleges and is more quantitatively-oriented.</p>