<p>Midmo – S has also found that the CS department has been very flexible about placement whereas math departments are a little more sequence-oriented. (At UChicago, they are both in the same school.) S is a theoretical CS guy, so where his interests lie straddle both CS and math. He’s majoring in math to support the CS, too, though he is also very fond of pure math (geometry, not so much).</p>
<p>Will agree with mathmom that there are some schools (for S, Mudd and MIT in particular) where S felt he would be able to settle into a life of happy social geekdom and live in his comfort zone. With Chicago, he felt like he’d be challenged to break out of that zone, and it was a pivotal point in his decision. OTOH, he is working at MIT this summer and has absolutely loved it.</p>
<p>If your son is very advanced in math (well beyond Calc BC by the time he graduates), a university that will allow him to take graduate level courses is essential. (All schools on your list, except probably HM, will give him that opportunity)</p>
<p>S’s chum at Harvey Mudd reported that there were not enough pure math courses, but that he supplemented with theoretical comp sci courses. He’s headed to a grad program in comp sci.
S decided against HMC, Caltech and MIT for the same reasons Countingdown’s son chose Chicago, but without the Chicago Core.</p>
<p>HMC has merit awards for top kids. Their graduation requirements include 1/3 of credits in non-math/science/engineering areas. Kids don’t enter with advanced standing–maybe skip ahead in a course or 2 at most; very little AP credit accepted. HMC itself is small but it feels midsized because of the adjacent consortium colleges (5K students).</p>
<p>Re post 24:
S did not make use of his advanced standing eligibility, but was able to take grad courses, as do Chicago students. These are not just upper level courses: there were real grad students in the courses.</p>
<p>I agree with marite, I know that at princeton several of the math majors started in 300 level (Junior) classes, and proceeded to take most of the grad classes required for a PhD from princeton. Depending on the kid it can be very important to have grad classes offered and accessible. This isn;t just true for math, but is true for most of the sciences as well. I took 5 graduate biology classes there, which definitely prepared me better for graduate school and I would have run out of classes to take if I couldn’t have taken the grad classes</p>
<p>Sorry, can’t comment about safety choices without knowing stats. I can’t even comment on whether the initial list is realistic without knowing the stats. It doesn’t matter if he’s a math/science nerd…if his standardized test scores and gpa are not at a certain level for the schools listed.</p>
<p>Also consider U Minnesota-Twin Cities as another financial safety. OOS tuition is capped at $4,000 above the in-state rate, they do give merit money to top OOS candidates, and the math department is quite strong, ranked #17 (just behind Wisconsin and just ahead of UIUC) in the US News rankings of math grad programs.</p>
<p>OP, math nerds come in many levels - he may be way above his peers in HS and love the math there, but he and you need to find out if he’s equally attracted to math at the level you’ll find in the colleges you’re listing, or are there math-related fields he would enjoy more. In HS, for example, did he hang out a lot on the AoPS [Art</a> of Problem Solving](<a href=“http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/]Art”>http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/) site, did he take the AMCs and do well and go on to AIME and beyond; did he get on an ARML team, look at PROMYS, and go over the problems in Putnam, etc. The math kids at the top tier colleges probably have done many of these.</p>
<p>What I’m getting at is that it’s quite possible a math nerd in a school full of diverse kids may think he wants to do math, but may actually fancy engineering more than math in college, because s/he didn’t have that option in HS and likes it better when exposed to it. So I would suggest you don’t rule out engineering schools unless you are certain that he wishes to do pure math/science.</p>
<p>As an example, my S was quite precocious in math - 800 math SAT by 7th grade, and did a lot of math contests and projects, but ultimately comp sci attracted him more and he went to Carnegie Mellon which he absolutely enjoys. Towards the latter part of his freshman year, acquired an interest in engineering and signed up for a dual major. Of course he does a lot of math, but a major in math has never been on his radar after he went to college.</p>