Hi! Im a junior looking for possible colleges. I have a weighted GPA of 4.45 and an Unweighted of 3.89. MY ACT is 34 with a 36 in math and science and a 31 in Reading and English. I have an SAT of 1530. Math 800 and EBRW of 730. Over the summer I volunteer at Ohio Guidestone to teach mentally challenged kids how to use technology. I am in NHS but don’t have many service hours. I took 6 AP classes my junior and none before. In total I am going to take 11 AP tests (likely scores listed below).
Calc BC: 5
Psych: 5
APES: 5
Physics C: 5 (both)
Macro/Micro: 5 (both)
CSP: 5
Comparative Gov: 5
US gov: 4
Stats: 5
My freshman year I took only academic classes and I’m worried that will ruin my chances. Sophomore I took all honors. This year I took almost all AP and am self studying for 2 (APES and Psych). I also took 1 college english course for CCP. I want to major in Electrical Engineering, but if you think im good enough for a top tier school then Mathematics would be my major.
Consider Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and Case Western Reserve for starters as both are within driving distance.
Do you prefer large or smaller schools? Do you want to stay near Ohio or go anywhere or ? Urban, college town, etc? Any extracurriculars you want to keep doing that you can’t find everywhere? Do you want Greek life, Div 1 sports? Have your parents talked about the budget? Are you looking for merit aid or schools that meet full financial need or is any price no problem?
Why only msjor in math at a “top school”? A very strong math msjor from other schools can still get into a good grad school or get similar career opportunities.
What is your financial situation? Do you have a preference in college size? Are you male or female?
You may want to consider highly selective colleges included in a Princeton Review sampling, “Great Schools for Mathematics Majors”:
Harvey Mudd
MIT
UChicago
Caltech
Haverford
Harvard
Hamilton
Bowdoin
Reed
Rice
Carleton
Grinnell
Macalester
You left out Oberlin
Oberlin? It doesn’t appear in the source referenced.
If you are self-studying APES & Psych b/c you just love those subjects, fine. If you are doing it b/c you plan to go to a state university where you will be able to shorten your time at college b/c of the credits- eh, ok,. But if you are doing it to impress colleges- don’t. You didn’t “ruin” your chances by taking all academic classes in grade 9, and you won’t help your chances by having more APs.
Thank intparent for responding! The answer to your question is fairly simple. I’ve always wanted to be one of the great mathematicians whom everyone knows, but I noticed that every single well respected mathematician in current times has gone to ivy league, Stanford, mit etc. Give or take a few exceptions.
If association with a great mathematical tradition is important for you, I’d suggest you arrange to study for a term in Budapest as an undergraduate, @Oymyakon. Spending a summer in an REU would be comparably valuable. These options would be entirely feasible from a range of U.S. colleges.
If you really, really want to do math, go try the STEP paper on the Cambridge (.co.uk) site and the Math Aptitude Test (MAT) on the Oxford site. For 3 years you would study all math all the time- and I am pretty sure that they have produced some of the ‘well-respected’ mathematicians that you admire.
The Princeton Review lists often have some strange picks or glaring omissions, so it’s not too surprising. Oberlin has fared very well in math PhD production over the last 20 years.
Liberal Arts Colleges - Top 20
95 Harvey Mudd
71 St. Olaf
63 Williams
58 Carleton
52 Swarthmore
51 Pomona
50 Oberlin / Reed
34 Grinnell
29 Haverford
28 Amherst
27 Furman / Whitman
26 Wheaton (IL)
25 Bryn Mawr / Wellesley
23 U Puget Sound / Wesleyan
21 Davidson / Lafayette
Private Universities - Top 10
270 Harvard
224 MIT
194 University of Chicago
163 Princeton
144 Caltech
132 Cornell
125 BYU
113 Stanford
103 Rice
96 Yale
Public Universities - Top 10
298 UC Berkeley
148 Michigan
122 UCLA
115 UT Austin
114 UCSD
96 Florida
95 UIUC
90 Wisconsin
88 NC State / Virginia Tech
Your freshman year certainly won’t ruin your chances. You’ll get better-targeted suggestions here if you describe your general financial situation. What’s your budget? Are you eligible for enough financial aid to bring full-need-met schools within that budget, or will you need school with merit aid and/or a lower sticker price?