<p>Are there any merit scholarships specifically for potential math majors? Or schools known for giving money to potential math majors?</p>
<p>Thank you.</p>
<p>There are schools that give merit money to kids who do well on the AMC and AIME. Has he taken them? If not, he's probably not eligible for many of the math scholarships out there, since scores on them are frequently the basis for awarding such scholarships. </p>
<p>If we are talking about someone who scored a 6 or better on the AIME as a junior, then he'll have some good options and should talk to his math coach.
There are some schools that do give scholarships for kids with scores below that level. I can't remember the website, but there is one with the qualifying
scores needed.</p>
<p>Of course, there may be other schools that give merit money for math majors under some bequest or something or the student's overall record may merit merit money at a particular school.</p>
<p>Interesting that you assume the student is male....</p>
<p>Can you point us to schools that specifically provide merit scholarships to students with high AIME or AMC scores? I do not know of any.</p>
<p>Hmmm... I agree, Confusedmom. Jonri may not be correct about that. I've coached a math team for 7 years with many high AIME scores. I am not aware of any colleges that give automatic scholarships based on AIME scores. In 2001-2002 there were scholarships of $1000 from Akamai for high AIME scores in each state. And the top couple of people on the USAMO win some scholarship money. But none of that is from any particular college.</p>
<p>Many colleges are interested in recruiting talented math kids. And success in competitions is one way to demonstrate that. But so is research, and taking advanced courses (like graduate level, or at least post-calculus undergrad, math courses in high school). The top 30 or so math kids in the country are actively courted by a number of colleges. These are the kids who can get into places like Harvard or MIT based on their math ability alone, who might have an uneven record overall. This might also mean money at Duke, U. Chicago, Caltech. </p>
<p>The top 30 or so math kids in a given state are going to be actively recruited by that state's flagship, which could mean money. Also look at U. Michigan and Texas A&M which recruit strong out of state math kids.</p>
<p>If a student is simply one of the top 3-4 math kids in a normal public high school, but not one of the top math kids in the state or in the country, than the general approach for merit scholarships would be the same as for a student interested in any other major - namely, look at schools a full tier below what you could normally expect to get into based on overall record. (if the student IS female, that probably helps)</p>
<p>If the student may qualify for need-based aid, colleges with particularly good undergrad math programs include Williams and Harvey Mudd in addition to the "usual suspects".</p>
<p>Thank you Texas137.</p>
<p>We are only looking for merit sources right now.</p>
<p>We have heard that Duke, Chicago, Caltech are known for providing merit money to potential math students, although there are no specifc math related scholarships there. And that Washiington University has very nice, specific full tuition math scholarships (Arthur Holly Compton Fellowships in the Physical Sciences and Mathematics) and that Harvey Mudd has some smaller merit scholarships for young mathematicians (the RIF scholarship, for instance).</p>
<p>Any others that someone knows of?</p>
<p>Another possible source for scholarships are certain Federal agencies, such as the NSA (see <a href="http://www.nsa.gov/careers/students_4.cfm)%5B/url%5D">http://www.nsa.gov/careers/students_4.cfm)</a>, DHS and DOD.</p>
<p>texas137 is right on target. The only math-centric scholaships that I know of were the ones funded by Akamai. To get a math related merit scholarship from a front-line university, you must at the absolute very top. My son scored a 13 on the AIME and attracted very generous (but not full) scholarships from Michigan. Duke was interested as well. </p>
<p>He was also a NMF and received full-ride offers at U of Alabama, U of Arizona and some others.</p>
<p>Confusedmom - it would help if you gave us some idea of the level of your student. The Caltech, U. Chicago, and Duke scholarships, for instance, are VERY hard to get. They are generally looking for things like medals from int'l olympiads or top 5 in Siemen's-Westinghouse. That applies to very few students. For the overwelming majority of applicants, those 3 schools effectively have no merit aid at all. And even for the math "super-stars" (top handful in the country), there are no merit scholarships at the schools they generally want to go to (Ivies, MIT, Stanford).</p>
<p>Okay,
I admit, I'm annoyed. I do NOT assume the student is male. It's just that when referring to either a male or female student, preferred English usage is to use "he."
Second, there most definitely are colleges that give merit money based on AIME scores. If a math coach doesn't know about them, well, lets just say I'm glad my kid had a savvier math coach. The link on this site doesn't work, but you will be able to see that there are colleges that give scholarships:
<a href="http://www.math.uncc.edu/%7Ehbreiter/AHSME/NCahsme.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.math.uncc.edu/~hbreiter/AHSME/NCahsme.html</a>
Look under "Students: Why take the exam?"
Rest assured, I'll never answer any question from confusedmom or Texas137 or randomdad again. If I get a not so gentle TOS reminder, I'll say that IMO, all I did was try to help and all of you were extremely rude. For the record, my D received mailings regarding merit scholarships from several colleges based on her AIME score a number of years ago now. The state association of math teachers gives out a list of colleges that offer such scholarships to all the kids who take the AIME in our state.
I mean, seriously, after confusedmom makes a nasty crack, why on earth would I want to give her additional help?</p>
<p>Relax, chill out, take a deep breath. We are all in this together, and Jonri, disagreeing based on one's experience is not the same as being rude or making "nasty cracks". Now can we all just peacefully work together to discuss the topic at hand?</p>
<p><a href="http://www.rose-hulman.edu/Class/ma/HTML/AHSME/scholarships.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.rose-hulman.edu/Class/ma/HTML/AHSME/scholarships.html</a> <-- AHSME scholarships (for highest or top three in Indiana, or for scores over 100 on the AHSME)</p>
<p>Ohio University also has a scholarship of indeterminate value awarded based on mathematics department recommendation. (<a href="http://www-sfa.chubb.ohiou.edu/cgi-win/scholar.exe/DETAILS/3286%5B/url%5D">http://www-sfa.chubb.ohiou.edu/cgi-win/scholar.exe/DETAILS/3286</a>)</p>
<p>Harvey Mudd also has a math merit scholarship (non-renewable, one year only) that is at least $1000 but may be more, which is "awarded each year to an incoming HMC student who demonstrates exceptional mathematical ability, possibly evidenced by strong performance in mathematical competitions." (<a href="http://www.hmc.edu/admin/finaid/grants.html#hmcmerit%5B/url%5D">http://www.hmc.edu/admin/finaid/grants.html#hmcmerit</a>)</p>
<p>There are VERY many more, some rather non-specific (for example, "Here's a list of scholarships awarded by the math department"), some very detailed. The easier way to do this looking would be to have an idea of what kind of schools the student is looking at, what kind of stats the student has (I've seen a few scholarships that are based on the overall package, but high math achievement is part of the criteria), and whether they've participated in any of the national math competitions (and if so, how well).</p>
<p>To directly answer the post: Yes. Yes.</p>
<p>I answered a question. The response I got was "interesting that you assume the student is male." Truth is , I made no such assumption. If you look at my message, I did NOT say your son. I just used "he" rather than typing out "he or she". That's standard English. The OP says "interesting you assume the student is male" -I consider that a nasty crack. It has nothing to do with a different experience. Lets even assume that I did make such an assumption---is the right come back to someone who tried to help "I'm going to saying something gratuitously snide about your post. Now give me more help"? I don't think so. </p>
<p>Other two posters essentially say "I've never heard of this and because I haven't, jonri must be wrong." As another poster has demonstrated, I'm not.</p>
<p>Having said that, I shall refrain from posting again in this thread...</p>
<p>There was an entire thread a few weeks ago (check archives) listing schools that give merit scholarships. One of the posts included a web site that listed dozens of schools and some of their various scholarships. Are you only looking at merit based on Math or does your student have high SAT and GPA as well? (in other words he/she would qualify for general merit scholarships)</p>
<p>In my son's experience, there were a few smallish scholarships offered from math departments, but nothing to sway his choice of schools. I don't like to throw his stats around, but his AIME scores were well above the level mentioned by jonri. (BTW, jonri, the link you mentioned is five years old, and may refer to specific state scholarships, or to the Akamai scholarships, now discontinued.) In fact, son's only rejections were from top math schools - so much for that hook! Math team coaches aren't basketball coaches, and they may have zero recruiting influence on the admissions department.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Jonri may not be correct about that.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Gee, Jonri. This just doesn't look all that offensive to me. Sorry you took it that way.</p>
<p>I'm glad to hear that there are some schools in other states that give scholarships based on AMC scores. My top students tend to go to highly selective colleges, none of which give scholarships for high AMC scores. My middle of the road students tend to go to Texas schools, none of which give scholarships based on AMC scores. Some of the Texas colleges do offer merit aid based on general academic record, with math being particularly favored. (UT-Dallas and A&M both do this, and I have students attending both in the fall).</p>
<p>In addition to coaching a team, my son has been heavily involved in math/science olympiads at a high level. Because of that we are kind of plugged into the community of nationally ranked math kids. I've communicated with parents of a number of these kids, including IMO and IOI medalists. There's a lot less money in this than one might guess. Except for the exceptions I noted (Caltech, Chicago, Duke), which only apply to the very top kids, the same general rule seems to apply to math kids that applies to everyone else - significant merit money is only available at colleges a full tier or more below the ones that a particular kid would normally go to. </p>
<p>It's nice that Rose-Hulman offers $10,000 to the top 3 AMC scorers in Indiana, for instance. But frankly, I doubt that they get many takers (I wouldn't be surprised if they have never had a taker). I just looked up the top 3 Indiana scorers for 2002 in my "Summary of High School Results and Awards". They all had AIME scores of 11 or more (top 0.01% or so of AMC test takers). I know for a fact that one of them is currently at Harvard. The other two are probably at similar schools. My son got lots of mail from colleges when he took the AIME. He also got scholarship offers from some Texas colleges for winning state Mathcounts and for winning a local university-sponsored math tournament. None of these amounted to much money ($500-1000). But more importantly, none of them involved colleges that kids at his level would consider attending.</p>
<p>On the brighter side, math majors in their soph-senior years are usually eligible for undergrad research programs during summers. These are good paying opportunities, in the $3000-4000 range, at leading (and smaller) colleges and universities. You can look at it as a sort of scholarship. Women students are much sought after for math UROPs.</p>
<p>The OP didn't specify what kind of scholarships their child might be eligible for -- no school preferences, no originating states, no grades, no scores, nothing. I did a quick search for schools who offer merit awards to math students and posted what I found -- emphasis on "quick search." Without more specific information, I can't hope to help much more and I may very well miss the target. As you noted, texas137, most students will have to apply a full tier below what they're eligible for in order to receive merit awards. </p>
<p>In any case, doing a search will yield many results. I was answering the first of the OP's two questions with a few pulls from Google; the second question is probably more suited to the forum discussion, but it is also one area in which I have no knowledge and no resource, and so I defer. :)</p>
<p>Confusedmom - ARE you asking on behalf of a daughter? There may be opportunities or resources restricted to girls. It would also help to know the general level of school you are interested in. Also, what state you are in, in case people on the forum are aware of resources specific to your state's schools.</p>
<p>I too would like to know more about exactly what the OP is looking for. There is an echelon of schools that many of the top math contestants go to that includes some schools (e.g., Harvard and MIT) that have a strict no-merit-scholarships policy and other schools (e.g., Caltech) that give out merit scholarship offers to superamazing students. </p>
<p>My alma mater, the University of Minnesota, is a not-too-bad math school that is not in the echelon above. It claims </p>
<p><a href="http://www.itcep.umn.edu/umtymp/college/math_opportunities.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.itcep.umn.edu/umtymp/college/math_opportunities.html</a> </p>
<p>"Each year, the School of Mathematics at the University of Minnesota provides approximately $30,000.00 in scholarship money to junior and senior math majors, as well as to some freshman and sophomores who are taking upper division math classes. No need to apply - just become a math major!" </p>
<p>That sounds all right to me, but won't dissuade me from encouraging my son to apply to schools in the upper echelon if he continues to desire to study math. (His interests may change and he may rather desire to major in computer science.) </p>
<p>Is that the kind of information you are looking for?</p>
<p>tokenadult - do you figure that's $30,000 per student, or $30,000 total, possibly spread out over a lot of students?</p>
<p>My reading of the University of Minnesota statement is that it is $30,000 spread among a number of students who are already receiving general "merit scholarship" awards based on their overal admissions profile. I have been told by my local friends that if my son continues in his current curricular math course he is a cinch to get a full-tuition scholarship at the U of MN, and likely to get a tuition-plus scholarship that would leave him with very little out-of-pocket cost for attending. So math department money would be money in the pocket, or money to fund an undergraduate research project, or something like that.</p>