I’d post this in the individual schools’ forums, but I figured there were too many schools involved for it to be relevant.
I was admitted to:
Princeton
Stanford
UChicago
Caltech
Yale
Cornell
Carnegie Mellon
Williams
but I’m not sure which one to attend. All of them are affordable without any loans, and I am indifferent about things like location or size. I will be majoring in math and possibly double majoring/minoring in economics or computer science, and I plan to go to graduate school after getting my undergraduate degree.
I’m leaning toward one of the top four schools in my list (and I’ll be attending all four’s admitted students weekends), but I wanted to make sure this wasn’t a mistake. Do any of these schools stand out above the rest?
In addition, I was waitlisted at:
MIT
Harvey Mudd
Pomona
Penn
WUSTL
Which of these are on par with the best of the top list? I’ll certainly join the waitlist for MIT and probably for Harvey Mudd, but are there any others worth considering?
My personal favorite on your list is Yale, but it seems to me that Yale is more oriented around the arts, so I don’t think it would be the best for you in this situation.
Tech schools are great for quantitative sciences like math, so maybe Caltech? This is honestly a very difficult decision to make, and I clearly don’t know anything about these since I wasn’t qualified to apply for schools of this rigor. Best of luck making your decision!
You may want to look at the following in the catalogs and schedules of the schools:
Which subareas of math are emphasized in junior/senior and graduate level courses and in faculty interests (research groups and areas available).
If you are very advanced in math going in, consider the availability of graduate level courses and graduate level research opportunities for undergraduates more strongly, so that you do not hit a ceiling at the school.
Whether intermediate microeconomics and econometrics courses with a heavy math flavor (prerequisites listing math more advanced than single variable calculus) are offered, and whether additional mathematical economics courses are offered.
Whether a full set of junior/senior level CS courses is offered on a regular basis.
Princeton has a great math department, an undergraduate focus, and is different enough from my home environment. I feel I would be getting the best value from Princeton. Those are my personal reasons.
I just got back from the Stanford Admit Weekend, and I think I’m leaning toward either Princeton or Stanford, but I want to make sure I’m not making a mistake by ruling the others out.
I thought Princeton, Chicago, Williams are all up there in math.
Between Stanford and Princeton for just math, I would pick Princeton, for engineering I would pick Stanford .
These schools are all excellent in mathematics, so you might want to ask yourself: which subarea of math do you want to go in for? I’ve always got the feeling that UChicago, Princeton and Yale are more focused on theoretical math, while Cal and Stanford are more engineering/CS - oriented. Personally I’d pick Princeton if I were in your position. But if you want a school that is way less stressful while still being great in the maths, I’d recommend Williams (their Math & Physics Department are reputable) and maybe Pomona (awesome Math department).