Looking for a college/university with a strong Math department for a student who will major in Math. The student wants the department to have a broad range of Math research interests, so he can determine his future specialization. Of course, the rest of the school needs to be good, in case the student decides to double major or change the course altogether. Finance is the most likely double major; the student has no interest in CS or Engineering. Will probable go to graduate school.
Student stats:
SAT 1570 single-sitting, likely NMSF; SAT Math II 800.
Weighted GPA 4.0 with the highest rigor.
EC solid, but not outstanding.
Unhooked.
The family is not eligible for financial aid anywhere, but prefers not to pay more that $45K per year. If there is a choice between a school with a better Math department vs a cheaper school, the family will pay for a better school within the stated limit.
Geographic preference is mid-Atlantic. City schools within 2-hour flight radius will be considered (e.g. Chicago, Atlanta, Cleveland). Other factors - the kid is introverted but capable of finding like-minded friends, and doesn’t care for sports outside of a weight room. Kid’s sibling graduated from a mid-size public and the kid believes that school size to be optimal.
Given the parameters above, we are limited to public schools and privates that will provide merit aid that will bring the COA within the stated limit. To wit:
UMCP
RPI
Case Western
UVA
GA Tech
VA Tech
UNC-CH?
GWU?
CMU?
Pitt?
Any other ideas?
We are cognizant of acceptance rates at Public Ivies; the purpose of this post is to solicit opinions on schools on the list and find other schools within stated parameters that will provide excellent Math education. TIA.
Just FYI re. double majors at Georgia Tech–Tech requires an additional 36 hours of course work to award a second undergraduate degree. They don’t really offer a double major. Excellent math department, though.
RPI has a strong math program, and they give lots of merit money, if they want you.
Did you mean weighted or unweighted 4.0 GPA?
I think UMD College Park freshman profile indicates an average of over 4.0 weighted GPA.
Georgia Tech and RPI were my son’s final 2 choices. We went with RPI because they gave my son a significant scholarship, and GT didn’t. (GT doesn’t seem to give much to many OOS students, unless you have really really high stats).
ETA - both GT and RPI are easy flights and getting to colleges from airports is easy too.
I have two math majors. One is now getting his PhD (he went to Cornell and now Yale). His brother is at Rutgers. Don’t knock the public options. Rutgers has one of the best math departments around, with a reasonable price and plenty of possibilities to do research for a motivated student. Also, lots of great departments should he change his mind. The school is big but doesn’t always feel that way when settled into a department on one portion of campus,
CMU isn’t as generous with FA as a lot of other schools, and their math department has become extremely competitive (though excellent). Case Western is definitely worth considering. We met with some great professors there who were pleasant and gave the kids lots of good advice. I don’t know enough about the other schools for math.
When picking a math program, it is helpful if the student has an idea of which branch of math they would like to pursue. Some schools are better in the pure math area (i.e. topology or group theory), while others are stronger in the applied math realm (i.e, operations research or computational math). A lot depends upon the faculty interests.
As an RPI math major, I certainly give my alma mater an up vote, but for mathematical finance, CMU is among the best along with MIT and UChicago.
One of the relatives has a S at University of Michigan or Michigan State, can’t remember now, but he’s a gifted math student and is in a special honors or advanced program. Both schools have large math programs.
Thanks all! The kid leans toward pure math now. Once we, with your help, compile our list, his next step would be to go to the departmental websites and find out the faculty’s research interests. I expect that a math department of size would have a good balance of pure and applied math research.
It would be nice to find any “hidden gems”. Does anyone have any experience with GWU’s math department? How about Philly schools - Temple and Drexel?
Is this student in state or our of state for UVA? If out of state…tuition/room and board is now over $60,000 for OOS. It is possible to double major at UVA…their undergrad business school (Mcintyre) doesn’t start until the third year and the student applies during their second year. Admission is very competitive. My S18 is double majoring in the Comm School (McIntyre) and Statistics.
That list including Chicago means the upper Midwest is on the radar. That means excellent universities such as Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota should be considered. He should check into schools that offer both pure math and applied math so there will be a range of subjects. btw- schools look at unweighted gpa’s.
Son majored in math at UW- Honors degree (added CS)- wanted theory. Theory based Honors calculus sequence and many other advanced courses including grad level classes taken. Madison may not be as big as Chicago but the campus is large and plenty of math majors there. Likewise other Midwest flagship schools will have plenty of NMSF caliber students. Kid’s credentials were similar (some better test scores, lesser grades because he didn’t always do the work) and he was not the top math student. UW gets students from the east coast. Others likewise will have top programs. Probably better than most east coast flagships or LAC’s.
He should not be too concerned about faculty research interests at this point. A large department will have professors and courses in all of the various fields and it is much too soon to specialize. Students in the math major do get known by professors and there are opportunities. UW had a monthly undergrad meetings- free pizza incentive- when son was there.
He should be looking at math department websites. Schools may give job options for a math degree. Looking at various professors links gives the flavor of the department as well- some have a great sense of humor.
It is very important to look at the overall university as well.
Just to make sure - did you run an NPC at Princeton and Harvard to make sure you didn’t qualify for any aid? Sometimes people are surprised.
UChicago and WashU have merit possibilities and great Math programs. JHU has extremely limited merit. Rice, Duke and Vandy have some merit and great overall schools with strong math departments
@Dolemite we are quite sure… even though both parents had to take pay cuts in early 2017, we remain a full-pay family >:D<
This is not our first rodeo, but it is the first time when merit aid may be in play. However, we are fully cognizant that an unhooked applicant with weighted 4.0 GPA will likely not be competitive for merit at the level of UChicago or Rice… so I am looking for lesser “brand” schools that offer great math programs.
Son has attended a class at one school and it did absolutely nothing for forming the opinion about the program. It was a calculus class and he’d already learned the material He has written to another math department asking to attend a seminar and received no response. Are there any other tips for reaching out to schools? Would writing to a professor be presumptuous?
You could look at some of the schools that give merit for NMF like BU, NEU, and some of the publics. Did you look at WPI? They have merit and strong math.
My kids used to sit on on math classes every time we visited a campus. Math departments generally don’t mind. They would check the online schedule, choose a class, say hello to the prof, and no problem. We also met with math professors whenever possible, to discuss fit (or just get a feel for the department). A math prof at Case Western (he was great), told my son not to go to one school that had accepted him. He said their math department wasn’t as good as his or Rutgers (his other top options at the time).
UW-Madison usually has students who “passed” the AP calculus exam start with the first semester calc course as they are not prepared for the second semester course- much more is covered in the UW version than the AP one. AP is comparable to a mediocre college class and not to top U versions. btw- regular calculus at UW is problem based while the Honors version not only covers an extra course in its sequence but is theory based. “Calculus” courses vary greatly at the college level.
If “passed” means a score of 3, Wisconsin does not allow subject credit or advanced placement. With a score of 4 or 5, subject credit or advanced placement is allowed.
They had a study that found that those who skipped with 5 scores did better in subsequent courses than those with no AP credit who took the courses at Wisconsin, while those who skipped with 4 scores did about as well or very slightly worse. But they did not include a comparison group of those who repeated AP credit.
William and Mary has a strong math department - I think it is more likely than UVA to give OOS merit for a male. (As a liberal arts college is has more females than males.) OOS is $55K+, so family would need at least $10K to put it in range. Sounds like a good fit for the applicant - students are active, but college life does not revolve around football. Admissions is willing to have students tour and sit in on classes.
I don’t have good insight on GWU - except to visit and ask admissions directly if he would be merit eligible.
Lafayette College in Easton, PA has a great merit scholarship and is known for science and math.
W&M and Lafayette are not ‘city schools,’ but it isn’t hard to get to cities on the weekends.
Pitt offers merit to students they like - apply early so he has an admission in hand by December. I’d apply to Pitt over Temple for math because Pitt has the engineering school.
University of Maryland - Strong in math, and students seem happy. Very easy commute to Washington DC. The OOS cost of attendance is $47.2K, so with NMF scholarship, it would def. be within reach. I think you’d get some merit there.
S1 was a math major – wanted math to support his interests in theoretical CS. In the mid-Atlantic/Midwest, looked at Michigan, Chicago, UMD-CP (our flagship), MIT. Had stats and national awards to support the application. He went to a STEM program in HS and Wisconsin was a popular and excellent school for math. S had considered it for a time.
Like NJCornellMom, my son visited classes (would contact a prof prior) and sat in on honors analysis-type courses because that’s where he was going to be when he started college. NEVER had a problem, and almost every prof chatted with him afterwards. This was ten years ago now, so that landscape may have changed.
Drexel is generous with scholarship $$. UMD is as well – it’s great for math/CS, has a good hiring record with major computer companies (Sergei Brin went to UMD for UG) and if you get a Banneker/Key, it’s a great scholarship. It has gotten much more competitive. UMD is generous with AP credits and placement testing, so many of the top students we know who attended did two majors and graduated in four with ease. There is a good contingent of S’s friends who took the free ride and are now at MIT/Duke/Oxbridge/Harvard/Caltech/Columbia, etc. for grad school. Most of them turned down similar admits for UG.
W&M, UVA and UNC-CH are outstanding schools, but hard to get into from OOS.
And we’re back. The final choice is between UMD-College Park and William and Mary coming down to almost equal COA. These are great options, but the schools are very different. Thoughts?
@Twicer As you say, W&M and UMD-College Park are very different. UMD is a very, very large research university in a suburban area. If you like Big 10 sports you will have that. DC and Baltimore are relatively close by. You will have some major options that W&M doesn’t have.
W&M is far smaller, has more of a liberal arts college feel, is older, and is more on-campus residential in comparison.
My preference would easily be W&M based on sense of community, historical reputation, size, particularly at the same COA. But that is me.
I lived very close to the UMC-College Park campus for a while, and it just didn’t have that sense of place (like UVA, UNC-CH, W&M etc.) that I would want in a college. That would be my biggest ding on Maryland. I know there have been improvements in academics and selectivity, though.
The good thing is these schools are so different, it should make the decision easier.
He has written to another math department asking to attend a seminar and received no response. Are there any other tips for reaching out to schools? Would writing to a professor be presumptuous?