Oxford or Cambridge for Pure math major

[Anonymous]

Also, while Cambridge is better for maths, it's better to get into Oxford than the get rejected from Cambridge. You can't apply to both.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Inspired by the Physics at Oxford thread, my DS is thinking about adding Oxford or Cambridge on his list.

He has 800 on SAT math, and will need 5 x AP tests (score of 5). Anything else he should know, or prepare for?

Which school is better for Pure Math? or applied math?

Cambridge is better. And this comes from someone whose kid studied Math at Oxford. But now it getting his PhD in Math at Cambridge.

For Oxford you need to take the MAT. I’m not sure if that is the case for Cambridge. But my son tells me that his Cambridge tutorial students have a little more to them than his own crew at Oxford.

The truth is you cant go wrong with either. BUT if you want to be picky, it is Cambridge first, then Oxford for Pure math.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Inspired by the Physics at Oxford thread, my DS is thinking about adding Oxford or Cambridge on his list.

He has 800 on SAT math, and will need 5 x AP tests (score of 5). Anything else he should know, or prepare for?

Which school is better for Pure Math? or applied math?

Cambridge is better. And this comes from someone whose kid studied Math at Oxford. But now it getting his PhD in Math at Cambridge.

For Oxford you need to take the MAT. I’m not sure if that is the case for Cambridge. But my son tells me that his Cambridge tutorial students have a little more to them than his own crew at Oxford.

The truth is you cant go wrong with either. BUT if you want to be picky, it is Cambridge first, then Oxford for Pure math.

Cambridge has the STEP which is harder

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The first order of business is to start calling it ‘maths’ instead of ‘math’.

Maffs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also, while Cambridge is better for maths, it's better to get into Oxford than the get rejected from Cambridge. You can't apply to both.

And OP's kid isn't coming in with any strong credentials for Cambridge. The entrance exam has more in common with competition math than the US calculus curriculum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How was he able to take calc bc as a sophomore?

Honors precalc in 9th, algebra 2 in 8th, geometry in 7th or doubled up with algebra 2.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Inspired by the Physics at Oxford thread, my DS is thinking about adding Oxford or Cambridge on his list.

He has 800 on SAT math, and will need 5 x AP tests (score of 5). Anything else he should know, or prepare for?

Which school is better for Pure Math? or applied math?

Can you share more about the hat enrichment class? It's sounds fascinating.

[Anonymous]

The person I know who attended Cambridge for maths was a USAJMO qualifier in HS, and had a several top 10 and recognition awards in less-popular but still prestigious national-level pure and applied, individual and and team, exam and project, math contest
award, and a research internship in HS.

That's about top 100 to 200 in USA in-grade-level performing HS math student.

[Anonymous]

https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/statistics/undergraduate/aea/

Also check this out for an intermediate step to MAT/STEP exam questions

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The person I know who attended Cambridge for maths was a USAJMO qualifier in HS, and had a several top 10 and recognition awards in less-popular but still prestigious national-level pure and applied, individual and and team, exam and project, math contest
award, and a research internship in HS.

That's about top 100 to 200 in USA in-grade-level performing HS math student.

It may be true that there are a good number of high performing math olympiad kids studying math at prestigious university math programs. However, competition math and the math you study in college are quite different. Competition math is not everyone's cup of tea and you don't need to have invested in becoming a math competition champ to be good at the kind of math one does in college or graduate school or as a career mathematician.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The person I know who attended Cambridge for maths was a USAJMO qualifier in HS, and had a several top 10 and recognition awards in less-popular but still prestigious national-level pure and applied, individual and and team, exam and project, math contest
award, and a research internship in HS.

That's about top 100 to 200 in USA in-grade-level performing HS math student.

We know a student entering Cambridge for natural sciences. They are frankly just educated and keep up with the field, no fancy awards needed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The person I know who attended Cambridge for maths was a USAJMO qualifier in HS, and had a several top 10 and recognition awards in less-popular but still prestigious national-level pure and applied, individual and and team, exam and project, math contest
award, and a research internship in HS.

That's about top 100 to 200 in USA in-grade-level performing HS math student.

We know a student entering Cambridge for natural sciences. They are frankly just educated and keep up with the field, no fancy awards needed.

What is "keep up with the field"?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The person I know who attended Cambridge for maths was a USAJMO qualifier in HS, and had a several top 10 and recognition awards in less-popular but still prestigious national-level pure and applied, individual and and team, exam and project, math contest
award, and a research internship in HS.

That's about top 100 to 200 in USA in-grade-level performing HS math student.

It may be true that there are a good number of high performing math olympiad kids studying math at prestigious university math programs. However, competition math and the math you study in college are quite different. Competition math is not everyone's cup of tea and you don't need to have invested in becoming a math competition champ to be good at the kind of math one does in college or graduate school or as a career mathematician.

"Competition math" (aka advanced, more abstract, deeper math) is the closest thing to college/grad/mathematician work than anything else done in high school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The person I know who attended Cambridge for maths was a USAJMO qualifier in HS, and had a several top 10 and recognition awards in less-popular but still prestigious national-level pure and applied, individual and and team, exam and project, math contest
award, and a research internship in HS.

That's about top 100 to 200 in USA in-grade-level performing HS math student.

It may be true that there are a good number of high performing math olympiad kids studying math at prestigious university math programs. However, competition math and the math you study in college are quite different. Competition math is not everyone's cup of tea and you don't need to have invested in becoming a math competition champ to be good at the kind of math one does in college or graduate school or as a career mathematician.

"Competition math" (aka advanced, more abstract, deeper math) is the closest thing to college/grad/mathematician work than anything else done in high school.

No, much of competition math is fun tricks and skills particular to the competition format. Taking actual math courses is the closest to college math work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The person I know who attended Cambridge for maths was a USAJMO qualifier in HS, and had a several top 10 and recognition awards in less-popular but still prestigious national-level pure and applied, individual and and team, exam and project, math contest
award, and a research internship in HS.

That's about top 100 to 200 in USA in-grade-level performing HS math student.

It may be true that there are a good number of high performing math olympiad kids studying math at prestigious university math programs. However, competition math and the math you study in college are quite different. Competition math is not everyone's cup of tea and you don't need to have invested in becoming a math competition champ to be good at the kind of math one does in college or graduate school or as a career mathematician.

"Competition math" (aka advanced, more abstract, deeper math) is the closest thing to college/grad/mathematician work than anything else done in high school.

No, much of competition math is fun tricks and skills particular to the competition format. Taking actual math courses is the closest to college math work.

Please explain the "fun tricks" particular to USAMO: https://artofproblemsolving.com/wiki/index.php/2024_USAMO_Problems

Being able to solve these types of proof-based problems is a much better predictor of your ability to succeed in pure maths than how well you can plug and chug in a college multi/diffeq/lin alg course. That's why trinity college in Cambridge, the most selective Cambridge college for maths, maintains such a close relationship with the UK's top competition math students but not the accelerated students who take university math classes through the Open University.