math major w well rounded interests

[loud wind]

Location/Region:
From Bay Area CA, any region in the US - preferably not too far (outside of US/CA)

Major: Math with a lot of possible minors - physics, CS, humanities, music

GPA/Test Scores: 4.0/4.6ish rn, 1590 sat

Curriculum:
I want to have enough math classes, which probably won't be an issue. Going to have calc 3, linear, diffeq already.

Size:
Hopefully not too large but it isn't a dealbreaker. Willing to go arbitrarily small as long as it isn't in the middle of nowhere.

Costs:
Most likely no restrictions here, although I wouldn't mind some scholarships

Schools You're Currently Looking At:
in state: All UCs (already have a guarantee from top 9% of class), stanford, harvey, usc
midwest: uchicago, northwestern
east coast: mit, brown, yale

Thinking about: jhu, cmu, caltech, cornell, nyu, harvard, princeton, columbia, penn, dartmouth, duke, harvard, scu (pretty much the rest of the t20s 😭)

Additional: I need more safety ideas! I'm not a huge fan of UCs and I don't want them to be my only fallback options. I also want opinions on which of the "thinking about" colleges to apply to.
I also would love to take a school that has a decent enough humanities program as well as a good math program (say, over a slightly better math program with worse humanities classes)
And I also do not know where on earth to find out which safeties are good for math cause scu in particular I was thinking of but apparently its not that good ??

Lastly what is your opinion on OOS publics? A lot of them seem to have good math programs but lower acceptance rates, high cost, large size make me kinda not wanna apply

Basically my biggest issue is im too indecisive so I kinda have to fall back on "empirical" measures like ranking which arent even that empirical

[barren roost]

most likely no restrictions here
are your parents paying tuition? just bc cost doesn't impact you directly doesn't mean it doesn't matter, I wouldn't rule it out as a factor when applying

[loud wind]

yeah i meant like i can apply anywhere

[barren roost]

Out of state public schools are expensive if you're on financial aid but cheaper than private if you're on financial aid

So depending on your situation they are worth considering

Also you're in CA so you have access to WUE schools

[loud wind]

wue?

[barren roost]

Western undergraduate exchange

[loud wind]

is that like a transfer program

[barren roost]

You get 1.5x in state tuition at most western US public schools

Western meaning anything west of or including the Dakotas

[loud wind]

so like university of washington comes to mind

gotcha

[barren roost]

Looking at your list rn it seems like you don't have enough hard target type schools, there's a lot of great schools that are less selective than say uchicago but still have great reputations and programs

[barren roost]

Sadly that's one of the schools that doesn't participate

[loud wind]

o

lol

[loud wind]

recommendations?

[barren roost]

Idk, there's a lot of them

Most schools have good math programs

It really depends on where you want to live etc.

[loud wind]

ah well thats where i become way too indecisive to like actually have a preference 😭

[barren roost]

Lol fair

[loud wind]

also the thinking about list im applying to probably less than half of that

so its really more im applying to the first three lines of that

[barren roost]

There's a bunch of schools in this category without application fees

Might be a good start

Some of them are liberal arts colleges idk if you'd be into that

[loud wind]

yeah im looking at a list most of them r lacs

idk as a stem major might not be the best 🤷

[barren roost]

Applying to just t10s is a bit rough bc you might get rejected from all of them when you could have gotten into a slightly less competitive school

I didn't get into any t10s but I got into washu and middlebury for instance

[loud wind]

yea im trying to not do that

[barren roost]

Eh, math programs tend to be considered a liberal arts discipline

[loud wind]

oh so there will still be a bunch of math classes i can take and like not run out of

[barren roost]

It's engineering and other professional/occupational programs that lacs don't support

[barren roost]

You can always look up a schools course listings if you are worried

But that shouldn't be an issue most places math is a popular field

[loud wind]

yeah id rather leave my options open career/curriculum wise but it certainly isnt a dealbreaker

[barren roost]

Engineering is hard to switch into anyways bc often they follow a four year schedule for the major

[loud wind]

yea

[spice sundial]

pen

[barren roost]

If you want to take a lot of non stem classes one thing I'd consider is looking for programs without a bunch of stem gen ends

A math program in a stem/enr department will allow for a lot less humanities electives whereas a math program at a LAC or within an arts and sciences department at a uni will allow more flexibility

[loud wind]

ah yeah

so places like cornell, harvey, usc, ucla wouldnt be considered hard targets?

[barren roost]

Harvey = Harvard?

[loud wind]

no

harvey mudd

[barren roost]

What is it

Oh

Idk how selective some of those are

Cornell and USC aren't

[loud wind]

o

[barren roost]

I'd try to add a couple schools with like 20-30% acceptance rates at a min

If you don't have them

Maybe harvey mudd is that

🤷‍♀️

[loud wind]

ah

i mean

ucsb/sd/i/d are all 30-50 acc rates

[barren roost]

Oh nope

It's 10% 😭

[loud wind]

its not

[barren roost]

Oh yeah true

[loud wind]

so wait

would you suggest i pick like a private school with similar acceptance rate over one of the ucs

cause im pretty confident i can get into one of the four ucs i mentioned

[barren roost]

Not necessarily, depends on what you want

Idk much about the UC program (not a c*lifornian)

And was personally targeting private schools due to their financial aid programs when I applied

UC schools seem great and if you want to go to one there doesn't really seem like a reason to apply elsewhere ig

[loud wind]

yeah theres also a time/money commitment with each application

[barren roost]

yeah fs

there are a handful of no essay / no app fee liberal arts schools tho if you're into that

[loud wind]

no essays? 💀

[barren roost]

yeah

grinnell wesleyan etc

I got into and considered going to grinnell at one point it seems cool

they have an open curriculum

[loud wind]

👀

as someone considering going to grad school this raises a bit of an eyebrow

i read a bit more of the thread and it seems like state schools are actually quite good for grad school route

[barren roost]

I don't think you should take the advice of a random person on reddit this seriously ... there are also reddit threads bashing my school and whatnot

you'll hear other people say the opposite

I don't think it really matters one way or another

[loud wind]

oh

[barren roost]

You'll do well anywhere you go

Just think about where you want to go

[loud wind]

so true

[barren roost]

safety schools uiuc, uw madison, umd.

maybe gtech

[shrewd saddle]

i find this a bit suspscious, as small lacs are kinda known to place really well into grad school when you factor in the amount of people that come from small lacs

from https://www.collegetransitions.com/dataverse/top-feeders-phd-programs

you can see that literally when it comes to the adjusted for class size rankings, most of them are actually lacs

(harvey mudd for the win i love that school)

[lapis venture]

I think you should ed2 JHU

[lapis venture]

❤️

[lapis venture]

Which ones would you recommend?

[shrewd saddle]

most of the top LACs, but mainly Reed and HMC

[loud wind]

im alr doing hmc, reed seems like a decent safety target - do they offer graduate math classes?

[shrewd saddle]

i think thats something you should research more about bcos i dunno much about reed

dont get so hung up about graduate math classes, as i said before that comment still is a bit sus considering like 7/10 of the top feeders to math phd programs are lacs

[loud wind]

👍 im worried about grad classes just cause i figure its possible that i run out of classes i wanna take

less so because of phd programs

[shrewd saddle]

then that might be something you wanna research

reed should have graduate math classes, as they are a LAC that specializes in the STEM field (a lot like HMC)

[loud wind]

ohhh

[lapis venture]

doesnt reed have a really dubious campus culture

[shrewd saddle]

yea its not a great place for the culture

altho its STEM is rigorous, people dont have fun there

[loud wind]

oops

[agile vigil]

Comments on your list thus far:

JHU has Emily Riehl. One of my math profs seemd to rlly enjoy NW's math dept. He has funny stories there. Princeton is phenom ofc.

I switched to math because the math dept at Harvard is quite fun. We have many grad courses and cracked professors. Our grad students are also generally sociable. Math undergrads and grad students interact quite often. If you ever "run out of courses," which you only will if you're focusing on a subject like Real Analysis, MIT cross-registration is a thing. We have a solid humanities progeam too. Also, we recently hired a mathematician who does a crap ton of physics (Daniel Freed). Our physics dept is also great. I hear of many fun events/stories from my physics friends.

When looking into math programs, I'd strongly consider the dept culture. Take a read through this interview.
https://www.math.northwestern.edu/about/newsletter/Mike-Hopkins-Full-length-Interview.html
(Hopkins told me this story in his OH once. He skipped multi and jumped into differential topology.)

[lapis venture]

bro @agile vigil how long have you been typing for

[agile vigil]

Keep in mind that I'm a rising 2nd year, and the following is a salad of what I've heard from grad students and upperclassmen.

Coursework, research, and rec letters(!) are important. Research is great; only issue with this is that math papers take a long time to be published, so preprints suffice. Ik an upperclassman who didnt do math research, but he took at least a few grad classes, and I'd imagine he got good rec letters. So, research is not necessary. (He did cs research tho)

These three things are easier to do in a more prestigious program. But, REUs exist (where you can do research and get rec letters). Cross-registration or independent study might exist.

[agile vigil]

30 mins? Idk.

[lapis fractal]

Purdue safety. It's a big school but the pricing is sane and you could get good CS exposure

[loud wind]

purdue is a safety??

even honors?

[grim turret]

it isn’t

[barren roost]

It is for math

[civic iris]

shmamble

[loud wind]

kgeg

[civic iris]

shmambles purdue is definitely a safety for u

[loud wind]

😬

i mean idk if ill apply either way

[lapis venture]

na u not smart enough 😘

[loud wind]

👨‍❤️‍💋‍👨

TRUST ME BRO

this course rigor is gonna pay off

[jade flame]

@loud windi think you should cut ur college list down

apply to the following schools

1. Eastern Buckley University
2. California State University -- Dominguez Hills
3. SUNY Old Westbury
4. UT Permian Basin
5. UT Rio Grande Valley
6. Slippery Rock University

those 6 schools are all ultra reaches but if you dont get into them then whats the point of going to college right?

[loud wind]

i'm so so worried about not having safeties tho

ebu was my dream school but i'm below the 25% sat

and they r test required

[loud wind]

oh i also have csudh legacy cause john is my dad and he went there

do they consider it?

[lapis venture]

please no shitposting, move to #🚀-general-chat

@loud wind

[jade flame]

!warn @loud wind rule 5 section 6, rule 1, rule 6