I have to chime in on the STEM majors at big State schools…it could be because of where I live (DFW Suburbs) but literally every engineering or STEM major I’ve known (both from my own college circle, family, friends and now children of friends) have gone to either TAMU, UT, UTD or Texas Tech and have absolutely flourished. I don’t of any dropouts or changed majors. From my own close friends and immediate family, the ones who are my age are now all make VERY high mid 6 figure incomes after getting their undergrads from the above mentioned schools, graduate degrees/executive MBA’s from the same schools and landing at the myriad of telecom giants here in the area…Dallas was known for the powerhouses like Nortel, Ericsson etc a decade and half ago and now Cisco, TMobile etc. The kids of my friends who have continued in their parents footsteps have also landed plenty of research opportunists and internships through the above mentioned schools. For engineering and STEM, I really don’t know anyone who has gone the LAC route. Again, it could be because of where we’re located, but from what I can tell, it’s really not a thing here.
S21 won’t be going into engineering but one my S23 twins will and my gut instinct tells me he’ll land at TAMU, Texas Tech or UTD.
I too live in a town with a lot of academics and researchers. My kid’s elementary school did a survey and 2/3 of the parents had a phd! I can validate that the non-Bio STEM people overwhelmingly send their kids to state flagships. Here are some deets:
Tenured or tenure track profs are from elite schools and it appears pedigree matters. If you think your kid wants to be a professor someday I'd recommend nudging them towards an Ivy or elite LAC.
Because of government grants go mostly to big state schools and because research labs are profit centers, there is a ton of research at big flagships. Small schools can't maintain that those big labs.
Engineering programs are often very rigorous and wash a lot of students out. There is so much that has to be learned in a short amount of time, so that is what it is. I think that is why you rarely see an engineering school within a LAC. LACs take a totally different approach to college education.
Most STEM researchers are from big state flagships and there are very few from top LACs, but there are also a lot more students at big state schools. How many people graduate from Bowdoin with a physics degree every year?
@AlwaysMoving Not many! I think there are usually about 10 total per grade but they are all mixed up together in classes after freshman year so 40 kids total at any given time. Many do not do physics as a career after undergrad. Seems like about half pursue a graduate engineering degree or a PhD or complete the 3/2 engineering program with Dartmouth.
Th other half get jobs at places like Bain (consulting) or work for a place like Fidelity (finance) or take jobs as software engineers right out of undergrad. They also have a program with education classes that sets students up to be high school physics teachers.
Is Bowdoin specifically the place for someone for hard-core physics? No. But these kids get a very wide education including the social sciences and humanities and they know that going in. A degree from an LAC in Physics keeps the door open to lots of different careers. I do think Bowdoin has a lot of the physics kids get accepted to REUs over the summers and they get additional research opportunities that way.
S19’s other major (math) has more like 35 kids per grade. The largest major at Bowdoin is Government with about 60 kids per grade. It’s a small school!
Close. In 2019 Bowdoin graduated 23 physics majors, 54 math majors (a few more math+), and 108 government/legal studies. I’d love to meet the 1 Art History/Archeology major (Indiana Jones?)
Off of Bowdoin’s website, 30 physics majors declared in 2019. Kids don’t declare until February of sophomore year so I assumed that 30 juniors and seniors. Lots of assuming in my calculation. Thanks for finding the exact number
I saw 96 declared math majors. Not sure where you got your numbers but you likely searched more than I did for graduates in 2019. I just looked for total in the major.
I was really curious and love this type of data, and was glad I didn’t need to search too long because it’s easy for me to end up down the rabbit hole…
Forgive me if it’s been posted, I didn’t see scrolling back quickly-
compassprep released their speculation on the leaked NMSF data today. Search compassprep. .com for National Merit Semifinalist Cutoffs Class of 2021. The lower cutoffs were expected, but the went pretty low in some states- down 1 to 4 index points.
Official results should be 2-3 weeks. Hope this is good news for some of your kids!
I’m weighing in late on the STEM discussion, but my kid is probably headed toward a math or applied math major. He loves most things about LACs, but may end up at a larger research University. Our biggest concern is finding enough courses for him. Larger schools just offer more options. By junior year, he can be taking graduate level courses. And if a phD is in his future, he is competing for entry into graduate programs with others who have had those options.
@Zinnia203 – you raise a good point. My D18 was considering LACs and bigger schools and knew she was on STEM path. She looked at course catalogs online for her areas of interest to make sure she wouldn’t run out of options. At LACs some classes are not offered every semester too. There were a few LACs she took off her list b/c they didn’t have depth of classes she was looking for in sciences – skewed more humanities and social sciences.
She’s combing bio and math and is also grad school bound. Bio is a top 3 major at her college, I think, prolly b/c of a lot of pre-med students. She’s at no risk of running out of things to take, esp. since by senior year a lot of her bio class work will be independent research with a prof and an accompanying honors thesis.
Add the selection scores together and then multiply by 2. So if it was:
37 Reading, 33 Writing, 36 Math, it would be 1062 = 212.
(The 37 and 33 would equate to a 7010=700 Verbal and the 36 Math in the example would equate to a 36210 = 720 Math). The Verbal score has more influence than the Math.
@3kids2dogs , I saw a smile on my child’s face yesterday morning when we saw this on the other CC thread regarding the 2021 NMS. This was not a forced or put on smile, it was genuine happiness that I have not seen on her face for a few months. That said, I am hoping that this is the real deal, because, it is not really real until you hear it from the school and have a piece of paper that says she is the semifinalist with her name on it.
FWIW, cutting and pasting a response from an older thread:
"
“Physics bachelor’s receiving their degrees from departments that
grant graduate-level physics degrees are more likely to pursue
graduate study in physics.” http://www.aip.org/statistics/trends/reports/bach2010.pdf
“•Physics bachelors from large departments are more likely to attend graduate or professional school with the intention of earning a degree in any field than physics bachelors from smaller departments (Figure 1).
•Graduates of large departments rate their physics and math preparation for a career more highly than graduates of smaller departments”
“http://www.aip.org/statistics/trends/highlite/bachplus5c/bachplus5c.htm”
@Momof0ne, so great that these results made your D smile! Any silver lining for these kids during a very tough time is a gift! Sad our D won’t have a score for NMS. Fall teachers’ strike in Chicago meant no PSAT, then of course the district-wide April sitting – and every one since! – cancelled. There must be hundreds of kids in the city who are in the same boat.
That’s awesome @Momof0ne No NMF here either. She did get to take the test though; I feel bad for kids who didn’t. Based on the link shared, I think she’ll get “commended” which, if nothing else, is something to put on the “honors” section of the common app - a section she’s struggling to fill, so I’ll consider it a win.
@kbm770 thank you very much. It is not really fair that the kids in Chicago did not get a chance to take the test. I hope NMSC will give them an alternate option to participate in the competition.
@3kids2dogs thank you and congratulations to you and your daughter.
