D23 was choosing between State and Carolina, in state, then she was just accepted RD to Duke last weekend. We were expecting about 50% tuition aid from Duke based on submitted CSS, but received no aid offer.
At this point, given cost, Duke is out of the running.
The question is, how to get reconsidered at UNC for the honors program enrollment? I wonder if this is something UNC admissions would consider. The honors program most likely is the deciding factor at this point. With National Merit and a small scholarship, NC State appears to be in the lead. Thoughts?
Is cost an issue ? Clearly it is by the Duke offer but what if you could go for free - but not local? The NMF gives you that chance.
You can ask UNC to reconsider Honors if they have an appeal process.
You should see what Honors gives in regards to offerings. If the student prefers UNC, she might get enough from the regular program vs NCSU Honors . Not all kids like Honors when they dig in but all kids like it for the perceived prestige.
Back to Duke - I think you meant NPC is why you exiected 50% off. CSS is the aid form you filled out.
Run the NPC again. If itās still showing a huge grant, set up a meeting with financial aid. Make sure you understand why the $$ are not what you expect. It could be home equity or any number of things.
The greatest draw within the Honors College at UNC is a wide range of study abroad opportunities, specific to the Honors College students. Weāre going to dig more into the details in the coming weeks, including a follow up with Duke and UNC to ensure she knows more about the opportunities and trade offs. Financially, UNC and State cost difference is immaterial, but the cost of Duke is most definitely an issue unless we find an error somewhere.
Are you locked into the area? Because you could go for near free and even enrichment.
Have you compared the NC State Study Abroad for Honors to what regular students get ? Is it vastly different ?
My daughter (Honors at Charleston) had two summer trips fall through. One from her school to Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore due to low enrollment. Another to Taiwan from CWRU because they said the staff had visa issues. I checked many colleges looking for others and lots of schools cancel these. These are faculty ledā¦not an exchange. But in some ways Iām learning itās a lot of hype vs substance.
You might compare UNC travel offerings to NC State Honors offerings. If she prefers UNC otherwise, then study abroad likely not a deal breaker. You can do it at any major school.
But if the NC State curriculum or benefits make it better, thatās different.
Funny thing, we didnāt even consider the school application process based on National Merit opportunities. Her choices were largely regionally based. Spouse and I wanted MIT or Carnegie Mellon, but she chose to pass on applying to those. She inherited my stubborn gene! Likely MIT and CM would be similarly priced as Duke.
Thanks for the background on the study abroad info, certainly there could be comparative āsubstanceā differences with what is advertised and what is real.
Has the student compared the upper level* offerings in the math departments at each school to see how the compare to her academic interests and post-graduation goals?
*and graduate level, if she is highly advanced in math already, particularly if she is considering going on to PhD study in math
Good point- she is most definitely looking at grad school, and indications are that sheāll want to apply to many programs. Itās a valuable exercise to learn about those options now, as you suggested.
Thanks for your suggestions and knowledge- will share with D. Weāre going to get busy on a follow up with Duke and UNC, gather some more data and hopefully the selection will be clear. I believe that if UNC honors came through, the decision would be a lock. But maybe this will help in stepping back to reconsider all options (in a more time compressed manner!)
If she wants to go on to a PHD in Math, she needs UNC (or Duke), because Math PHD are quite elitists, unlike many other subjects - prestige of the undergraduate university does matter to them (itās only true for very few subjects or majors) + of course how many advanced/graduate level classes have been taken.
She may email the UNC math āundergraduate chair/deanā to ask (specifying sheās waiting for the Honors College decision) whether there are Honors Math classes that freshmen can enroll in; she saw that several freshman seminars in Math have an honors version, which ones would be open in the Fall and how are they different from āregularā math classes;, that her goal is to apply to a Math PHD so she is curious to know whether advanced undergraduates are allowed to enroll in a graduate class and under what conditions; (and, if she has taken math beyond MVC) how placement is done for students who have completed MVC/Linear Algebra/whatever class sheās completed.
She could explain sheās waiting on the decision from the Honors College to decide between UNC and another college and needs as much information as possible about the Math major for students who aim at doing a PHD in Math.
(they donāt need to know Duke is too expensive). This last bit would potentially be subtle pressure.
To compare offerings and majors: https://catalog.unc.edu/undergraduate/programs-study/mathematics-major-bs/#requirementstext
Can I push back a little? Not an expert on the subject. But I looked at the faculty at my sonās school. My daughterās had a lot of adjunct with no listings.
At my sons I saw three with Indiana, Tulsa, and Wisconsin Parkside as undergradā¦the last did PHD at Michigan.
Iād assume other schools are similar. I tried looking at UNCā¦they make it difficult to see educational backgrounds. I went to UVA and Duke, equally hard. Youād think theyād show these. UCLA and Wisconsin too.
Judging by how the schools hide educational credentials, even on personal websites, no CVs, maybe itās not as high level as thought?
I found one easy - Elon.
Meredith, SUNY Potsdam, Binghamton, Indiana, Guilford weāre the ones I easily found.
Perhaps thereās different levels of PHD but it does seem like NC State isnāt an eliminator.
Well, UNCās Math Dept or Dukeās Math Dept >> prestige of NCSUās Math Deptā¦
(In a ranking, Duke is #18 and UNC is #29, relatively similar, with āpeer assessmentā giving them 3.9 and 4.2, again, similar. NCSU is 53.)
So, NCSU is not bad, far from it, roughly at the same level as Virginia Tech, but UNC is a whole lot better.
I would assume they donāt make it easy to see that so many of their hires went to the same 30 schoolsā¦
It also depends on what one wants to do with a PHD in Math - itās very employable, especially the Applied Math subjects but lots of modelization required in all fields so Math PHDs can easily (more easily than most at least) go for a corporate career if they wish. So the situation for Math PHD graduates is different from that of, say, Comp Lit PHD graduates. This would also matter for OPās daughter.
I appreciate your background on the importance of planning for the graduate school path. We will learn more next week after we follow up with Duke and UNC. Will follow up on this thread when the decision is locked in!
I do want to specify that NCSU has an excellent math department and that with the privileges afforded by the Honors college, itād be an excellent choice. In addition, overall, Math graduates do extremely well regardless of where they attend (among the colleges you listed thereād be only positive professional outcomes.)
The issue only matters if she wants to have a Math PHD and do math research (whether pure or applied, but especially Pure math.)
Thanks for posting the decision and its rationale on this thread.
My kids experience as an applied math major is as you describe. He was accepted at Duke so we looked at the math program in some detail and visited campus twice.
The academic credentials are both available (see below) and as you describe clustered around several āeliteā math schoolsā¦
He ultimately chose Brown and the dept was staffed primarily from a small cluster of schools.
As you describe highly marketable with opportunities from management consulting, Wall Street etc. In particular when you can offer examples of writing proficiency and communications skills to dove tail into the often opaque language of quant.
It does (whether justified or not) in our experience seem to be an area of academic study where prestige matters both in professional and academic settings.
I noted the academic credentials are not readily available because in most of the Duke faculty pages, when you click on the Education, Training, & Certification tab, you get PhD only. Example below.
I didnāt check everyone but the first four or five. One had undergrad - Oxford.
As the discussion was about pedigree of the undergrad school, thatās why I made the statement.
But again, in addition to the lesser known undergrad schools populating Elonās faculty, I found at another a U Wisconsin Parkside doing the PhD at Michigan - which we all think is top shelf.
I guess my thought is - and again not an expert - but if one wants a PHD in math, that NC State is not an eliminator.
