@say I feel pretty good about the admission. He’s an athletic recruit, and getting pretty good feedback from some Ivy and Ivy equivalent coaches. I’m pretty sure at this point he is #1 on at least one coach’s list. He’s just a junior so doesn’t have his testing done yet. If he can do the same on a real ACT as the practice one he should be ok. If he can’t, then I guess he moves to plan B.
How good is he actually at math? Hard to say. He is taking all the math available to him, but he hasn’t really been challenged yet. I am guessing most math PhD’s hadn’t won any national math awards by the time they were 16, although I’m sure some did.
Maybe I’m wrong, and you need to be some kind of prodigy to get a math PhD. But I’m guessing that isn’t the case.
Being an athletic recruit is a very different thing. Then you can be admitted with far less than perfect scores though the standard remains high in most sports. What is his sport? FB,BB, and ice hockey give you the most leeway. As for his math, winning awards does matter for regular admits to HYPS. Perfect or nearly perfect math scores are a dime a dozen at the top schools as are 35-36 ACT scores. If by taking all the math available to him you mean in his HS that is also standard for top applicants. By far his best chance for admission to get a likely letter from an Ivy. MIT/Cal Tech care far less about sports and for Stanford he would need to be national caliber. But please don’t be misled. Many many kids are on the preliminary lists but end up not getting likely letters. Only with a likely letter can you be assured of admission to an ivy as a recruit. There are many threads about this on CC. I went through the recruiting process with three children and for the most part the coaches if directly asked will tell you the truth.
Well aware that it isn’t a done deal until a likely letter is in hand. And he probably isn’t an outstanding enough student to get in the front door, so athletics is his ticket in. He’s not a tip top recruit for Ivy and Stanford, but probably would have been in the top half of their recruiting classes last year, not counting anything he accomplishes next year as a junior. Probably would be a top recruit for NESCAC.
S is a wrestler. He has talked to a few coaches and knows what their test expectations are. Not helmet sport numbers, but not crew numbers either. Somewhere in-between, depending on the school. Also dependent on where he stands on their list. It isn’t officially banded like football but it seems like some coaches treat it that way, i.e. a top stud needs a 26-27 ACT, but a lower level guy needs a 34, with most in-between.
Agree that coaches have been helpful and it seems like they are being very upfront with him. The best advice I have gotten on this board was to ask specific and candid questions of the coaches.
The process for his class won’t really heat up until spring. But assuming he can get the scores he needs and he doesn’t get hurt, my guess is he is probably is near but not at the top of the list for guys his size (with the academic qualifications). But I’m also guessing that the few guys above him will be the same for all the coaches. So where he goes will be partially dependent on where they go.
@dadof4kids I felt I had already said my piece here, but am compelled to add a bit more to the discussion, to clear up what appears to be some confusion/misinformation you’re seeing. Take the following for what you feel it’s worth, from someone who actually works in the field:
One's undergraduate institution matters little in getting a math PhD, even when applying to the very best programs. My colleagues (i.e. research mathematicians at elite private universities, liberal arts colleges, state flagships) got their undergraduate degrees at all kinds of institutions -- from top private U's to state flagships to tiny liberal arts colleges nobody has heard of.
You can safely ignore US News rankings of graduate programs in deciding on an undergraduate program.
Setting aside the folly of attempting to rank math graduate programs linearly, undergraduate education and graduate education in math are very different things. There are a number of departments with top graduate programs that do not serve their undergraduates well; there are many departments with good-but-not-outstanding graduate programs (e.g. Dartmouth, U Iowa), or without graduate programs at all (e.g. Williams, St. Olaf), that have excellent undergraduate programs. Feel free to click through my own previous comments for specific suggestions.
Incidentally, my own department sends a handful of students to graduate school every year, some to top 10 programs. Not one of them took a graduate course as an undergraduate. I don't mean this to advocate for any particular school, only to emphasize the fact that it's more about the individual than the list of courses s/he has taken. In my experience, students who have the ability and inclination to succeed at the highest levels always do so; those who don't are not especially helped by sitting in on more advanced courses.
One does have to be reasonably intelligent to do math research, but far more important are personal qualities like tenacity and the ability to handle frustration, none of which can be measured by a standardized test (at least not one that I'm aware of). Some mathematicians find math contests to be a fun diversion (I don't especially), but you absolutely don't need to be an IMO medalist in order to get a PhD and have a successful career. I was not a prodigy of any kind, and didn't even especially like math as a kid, even though I always had a knack for it. I didn't decide I wanted to be a mathematician until my senior year of college, but have sustained an active research career since then.
Although it is a competitive career path, and involves a measure of employment uncertainty you don’t find in other fields, professional mathematics is just a career like any other. It’s certainly a viable option at this point, whatever college your son chooses, and his path will become more clear over the years as he learns more.
dadof4 you really will need to wait and see what your son’s test score results and junior year grades. From what you said above it sounds like you don’t believe he is likely to gain admission to a top school without the recruit hook. Certainly the professor above knows far more about math careers but there is plenty of time for that and a math career can be pursued from any top school. I have one kid getting a PhD from HPYS and I can tell you this is no easy process to be admitted. Right now based on what you have told us it seems certain the most likely path of admission to a top school is be a wrestling recruit. While its not one of the major sports being recruited is a massive advantage in gaining admission though I don’t believe the NESCAC does men’s wrestling. If he is close to the required level getting on the list will vastly outweigh any extra AP grade or 100 SAT points.
To the OP, from a monetary perspective, a PhD is usually not a good investment. You do it because you really want it. Too bad that nowadays too many people are doing a PhD because they do not have a good opportunity set after their bachelor and master education, and not because they really want it.
In terms of job outlook, most PhDs aim for a tenure track faculty position. For this track, a useful way to research for it is to identify a typical state flagship research university; e.g., Ohio State University, University of Delaware, etc. Then google their faculty salary. Many of these flagship universities have salary data online. Then go on to the universities’ websites and identify one or two recently hired assistant professors in each field and look up their salary info. Then you will know roughly the pay scale across different fields such as math, physics, economics, finance, you name it. At my state flagship university, the base salary for math, econ, and finance assistant professor are about 80k, 95k, and 170k, respectively.
The starting salary for a tenure track faculty is relevant only if such a position is obtained. Across different fields, the chances of landing such a position are very different. To gauge a rough picture, one possible way is to look at how many adjunct professors that each department is using. In general, if you see a high percentage of faculty are adjunct in a department, it is very likely that the chance of landing a tenure track position in that field is low, and vice versa.
prof2dad you are so right and the real problem is that so many of the tenured track positions go to the people from the top programs. One has to think long and hard about getting a PhD from the typical state school unless they have a business type job in mind since getting a tenure track position will be quite a challenge. Most people have no idea just how bad the job market is in most academic fields. However their are many options for math PhD’s in non-academic areas.
At any rate dadof4 I think you really need to study the options available for wrestling. It’s not a sport I followed but I know that the D3 options are very limited as many schools like MIT dropped their varsity programs to save money. The only elite LAC that still has a program I think is Wesleyan but there might be a few others. So that means D1 might be the only options for a top school. Since the HS system has state championships it should be pretty straight forward to see where you stand. All the top recruits at the Ivies will be state champs of some kind(public or private)or very close so the standard is very high. Bedsides the Ivies Lehigh is another big wrestling school though there the wrestling standard is even higher though the academic standards would be less than the ivies. It’s very easy to look through the roster bios at HPY and see that virtually every athlete was a state champ/finalist.
I will also say that as an Electrical Engineering PhD I consider myself pretty good at math, certainly at the undergraduate level, and my PhD thesis was very math-heavy. But man, those graduate level mathematics courses got the best of me. They are nothing like undergraduate classes, where a bit of physical intuition goes a long way (calculus, diff-eq, even linear algebra). I would say that at least 95% of smart kids who are “good at math” are not cut out for mathematics at the PhD level. Whole different thing. Just something to keep in mind. There are lots of other professions that use a lot of math at a more “practical” level.
You are correct about the relative small number of options at the top end. Williams actually finished 10th a couple years ago at nationals, Williams and Wesleyan are probably the top 2 options for LAC’s. Chicago and JHU also are D3, although not LAC’s. There are several other solid but not tippy top D3 options (St Olaf, Trinity, Case Western, Washington & Lee, etc.), although I am not sure how much influence their coaches have. Some I know have very little, others I am not sure.
There are probably only 10-15 schools that are in my opinion good athletic and academic fits. So not a huge universe. The good news is that there aren’t really that many guys chasing the spots. Wrestling isn’t fencing or crew, there are not a lot of kids who have the combination of academic ability and interest to attend an elite school. Plus most parents have not been focused on their kid’s AP schedule, GPA’s, etc. They have just been happy to have a way to get college of any kind paid for. To be honest, most wrestling people I talk to seem perplexed that S is considering Ivy or D3 when he is good enough to get D2 or D1 money.
In some ways that makes it easier (less decisions) but also harder (less options). He’s already been in contact with most of the coaches of programs he is considering. A few have shown quite a bit of interest back, although it is still early.
You are correct in that the direct one on one competition of the sport makes it easier to know where you stand, although, the high school championships aren’t that great of an indicator unless you are from a few select states. There are simply just too many of them, especially with most states having multiple classes. I’m friends with a few guys who wrestled at a top D2 program and they were pretty much all state champs somewhere. They tease the one guy in the group who wasn’t (although he has a pretty good comeback that he won a national championship in college).
S had 2 friends who were 4 time state champs from an average state who recently went through the recruiting process. Both said that coaches didn’t really care, they were more focused on how the wrestlers had performed at national competitions. Fortunately S has been competing at a couple of the big national competitions the last couple of years and doing very well. Neither of those wrestlers went Ivy, although S has been placing higher than they did and they went to schools that are probably athletically superior to all the Ivy’s except Cornell. So that’s another indicator in his favor.
Hopefully it works out, if not he has other options. There is an element of luck and “right place right time” involved. But right now this is what he is trying to pursue.
Williams has a strong math department and is a NESCAC school that I believe still has a wrestling team.
For some of the “core” math courses, like linear algebra & analysis, Williams math department offers 2 versions. Both include proofs. My Eph took both versions (different course content) & realized that he preferred applied, which I don’t think he would have learned if not exposed to both versions.
He only took math courses that interested him. He did not intend to be a math major, but completed enough courses to have math as a second major. While completing his senior thesis, he knew he wanted more experience before applying to graduate school.
Having a strong mathematics proclivity in secondary school does not necessarily map to pursing a math PhD. I had the former, took some upper division math courses, & completed a doctorate in a field other than mathematics. I’m glad I took those advanced math courses. And, I’m glad I did not attempt a math PhD.
My son currently develops algorithms as a computational biologist & is deciding what is the best path for him to complete a PhD. That’s the key-- figuring out one’s path.
@dadof4kids - I wrote above before reading your recent post. Please have your son, if he visits Williams as a potential wrestling recruit, also have the coach arrange for him to speak with professors & students in the math department. The department has an impressive commitment to the students, which I believe is why there are so many math majors.
You are very smart to have already gotten this far in the process so early. Williams, Wesleyan, JHU, and U of C are great non-D1 options. The coach has big pull at all of these except U of C. There the coach has much less power over admissions. I went though the process with four kids and getting an early start and understanding all the options is the key. I had one daughter who did the full recruiting thing with William’s, Amherst, Bowdoin, and Pomona. If your son is a A band student he has very high likelihood of admission. At those schools the standards are very high. Pretty much 1400 SAT and 3.8 unweighed GPA as minimums. But with those scores if he is on the list the chance of admission is very high.
I started asking questions here probably about a year ago. I knew the number of good options was going to be small, and I’m a bit paranoid by nature. S sent emails, along with video, transcript and resume to his target schools right after the college season ended last spring and we did a few unofficial visits last summer after he completed in world team team trials since that got us within a half day drive of several of his target schools.
Is it possible that your son’s involvement with wrestling will fade as he becomes a college student? Running was extremely important to teen son but became much less important with other interests available in college. Be sure the schools that interest him also include the WHOLE him, not just wrestling as a means of paying for college. Every person is multifaceted, perhaps emphasizing other facets will yield a better education. What happens when he is depending on wrestling but would rather spend more of his time on math or exploring other things? Will being heavily involved in a sport detract from other ways he could spend his time? Since a thought is of a math PhD I presume he is an excellent student and wrestling could take away from time he could spend indulging in more academic matters (there are many other than math for math majors).
From the other side of the desk: by way of background, DS was considering a PhD (not in math proper, but he was a very math-heavy CS student, considered a dual major CS & math, but opted instead for an combined MS/BS in CS).
He loves doing research, and has had some success at it. He was having grad school pitched to him by a number of faculty, at his school and others, but the numbers just didn’t make sense. Accepting a job offer doing math as a quant was a compelling option compared to doing the PhD for years and then hoping against hope that he could get on a tenure track.
As his GF put it, he “gets to go to work in a t-shirt and do math all day, what could be better?”
When DS told the faculty pitching to him of his decision, the memorable quote was: “Of course! Another promising student going to [name of company].”
I find this thread very interesting as my son is contemplating pursuing a Math PhD. He is now a college junior. Any other advice that hasn’t been mentioned here that I should pass on?
My math major/added computer science son has found an intellectually stimulating environment working in software development/engineering (job title dependent on company). He tells us he does not need an advanced degree (still in his twenties- ah, the wisdom of youth). Since he self teaches what he needs I guess there is not the need to sit in a classroom to learn the same things. Those companies are lucky they get brilliant minds to work for them. I suspect a lot of cutting edge research is being done in the tech world outside the universities. New tech is still bombarding us every month as consumers- imagine what is in the pipeline. Requires creative thinking and more than just reworking old ideas. It will be interesting to see where kid is ten years (five) from now- and the world we live in as well.
Love the t-shirt comment. In Seattle that same t-shirt goes to restaurants with parents as well. And I thought Tampa was casual.
DS’s company shares a building with an investment bank in NYC. The employees ride the same elevator. The other company’s employees mostly wear suits, although they are a bit more casual in the summer. DS was raised too well to snicker :))
To your bigger point, wis75, these kids are killing it. Engaged, thriving, enjoying their jobs to the max.
DS’s company shares a building with an investment bank in NYC. The employees ride the same elevator. The other company’s employees mostly wear suits, although they are a bit more casual in the summer. DS was raised too well to snicker :))