Utah?
If you are truly looking for a LAC safety, he could EA to somewhere like Lawrence University (WI). Maybe not a 100% safety, so I would still apply to Missouri. But at least he would have a likely admission by December 15th.
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St Olaf is a good LAC for math (they were among the founders of the Math semester in Budapest).
Purdue or UMinnesota for large universities with strengthin STEM, either in a college town or in a metropolis, as he prefers.
Adding both as safeties and treating Mizzou as a financial super safety would probably work best since he doesn’t want to attend --and, legitimately, his odds of finding students who “live&breathe math” is higher at these three than at Mizzou, although of course there will be solid course offerings there.
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Has he looked at Whitman? 50-60% acceptance rate, so not a true safety, but with his stats, I would think he’d be an easy admit unless they yield protect.
I’m not a math curriculum expert, but from their website, it looks like they’d have enough classes above differential equations/linear algebra (assuming your son would take one or both next year) to take two courses a semester.
It looks like most of Whitman’s upper level math courses are in applied areas like statistics, theoretical computer science, or operations research.
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My D22 feels the same - we’ve visited both Brown and Chicago, and she finds them appealing for different reasons. She loves the quirky, offbeat, nerds-who-celebrate-nerdiness vibe of UChicago students but equally loves the open curriculum and laid-back atmosphere of Brown.
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I wouldn’t normally say this, but being 99% sure which HS this student attends (and even knowing the teachers in this school’s math dept and counseling/placement quality at that school), his grades, test scores and competition qualifiers, and given his desired major, he’s a fail safe at a ton of better positioned publics and doesn’t need Mizzou if he doesn’t want to bother with it. I’m not even sure how much a completely out there essay would derail this one…because math major.
B1G schools among the top 20 publics in the country for math: Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Purdue, Indiana, Penn State, Maryland, Rutgers, Ohio State, Michigan.
Non-Asian Midwest-reared kids with this sort of math CV who want to study math…that’s pretty rare. There’s 8 Midwest schools on that B1G public list. I’d pick the two that offer the best overall fit for the OP’s son (outside of Michigan) and consider safeties covered. Knowing the familiarity WashU has with what I think the HS is, I even think WashU is a safety. They place abt 10-20 kids there per year. That takes a lot of the downside uncertainty out of this IMO.
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Thanks. 13 to Wash U last year. I think the least prestigious school any of the 29 NMSFs are attending is Michigan. That said I do know of 4.0/36 students who have “only” gotten into Michigan. 
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Yup. And now I’m 100% sure. We’re from Chicago also and I’m a WashU alumn who somehow ended up back in MO…moving to “that district” one east of yours.
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I’m from Chicago too (originally North Shore, but most recently Loopish). Welcome back. Obviously your district is awesome, ours just tends to attract more math contest kids for some reason.
You may want have your son check with his college advisor before considering schools like WashU or even Michigan to be safeties. In particular he may want to find out how many of the acceptances are ED.
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I think maybe a base list like this, and then S22 can pick another safety and decide if he is super interested in any of the other reaches and matches when he is done with his summer math program.
Brown
University of Chicago
Pomona
Harvey Mudd
Haverford
Swarthmore
Carleton
University of Michigan
UC Berkeley
Macalester
University of Wisconsin
Washington University
Possible Safeties:
University of Illinois
St Olaf
University of Utah
University of Minnesota
Purdue
University of Missouri
Possible reaches and matches:
Harvard
Yale
Amherst
Carnegie Mellon
Reed
University of Rochester
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Try to plan for in-person visits to some of the schools on your list, if you can swing it; that may help bring some clarity to your son. If not, there are always the “admitted student” visits in the Spring.
Otherwise, I would put this aside for a while. As one parent to another, you are starting to overthink the matter.
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I’m totally over thinking it.
Now I’m trying to figure out when Wash U updates the available tours.
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He’s very unofficially seen Haverford and Swarthmore without parents, and University of Chicago with us. We are planning to visit Brown, but I have a feeling they won’t be having tours when we wanted to go.
I am going to send you a PM.
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One other question: are there any college COVID-19 policy concerns?
For example, if the student is particularly medically vulnerable to COVID-19, a college with high vaccination rates in both the college and surrounding community and active policies to limit outbreaks may be favored over other colleges.
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Ignoring safeties for now, does he need more reaches and matches? These are his preferred schools, somewhat in order. Any schools that he should really apply to for pure math?
Brown
University of Chicago
Pomona
Harvey Mudd
Haverford
Swarthmore
University of Michigan
Carleton
List probably needs more refinement with polar opposites Brown and HMC/Swat still on. Maybe look at U wisconsin, U washington, U illinois.
Don’t ignore safeties for long, there has to be at least one affordable one that he would be happy to attend.
Reaches are easy to identify, while matches and safeties can take relatively more time, thought, and research……put in that effort, because statistically speaking he will most likely be attending one of those schools.
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I think he is applying to UIUC and Wisconsin as his safeties. We’ll look into Washington, but from reading other posts I get the sense that it isn’t a safety at all.
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