Reply to Advice Needed: NOVA Credits vs Reaching for MIT / Ivies / Georgia Tech / Purdue / Vanderbilt / Top Schools

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Looking for advice from parents/students with real experience.
My child is a Virginia student with:
1595 SAT
3.8 unweighted GPA
Very rigorous schedule
Strong coding background since childhood
Interested in [b]advanced math, computer science, engineering, and eventually Wall Street algorithm / trading / math driven careers[/b]

NOVA direct and dual enrollment courses completed or in progress:
Calc I, II, III
Linear Algebra
Differential Equations
Discrete Structures
Computer Organization
English / History / Gov

We are considering:
MIT
Princeton / Cornell
Carnegie Mellon
Georgia Tech
Purdue
Vanderbilt
Michigan
Texas Austin
Texas A&M
UVA
Virginia Tech

Some are reaches, but I feel he should aim high.

His biggest concern is making sure NOVA credits transfer so he does not retake courses. Virginia schools seem safest for that, but I worry he is overvaluing guaranteed transfer credit.

He is also not very into the liberal reputation of UVA, though maybe that matters less in math / CS / engineering.

Questions:
Has anyone had NOVA credits transfer to these schools?
Do advanced math credits transfer as real credit or just placement?
Do CS courses transfer?
Is [b]prioritizing transfer credit a mistake if stronger schools are options?[/b]
If this were your child, stay in Virginia or aim higher?[/quote]

If your student wants math/engineering with the best track to quant /Wall street you need Harvard, Penn, MIT, Princeton, CMU, UCB, Stanford, Columbia, Cornell  to be a top target. Next group includes the less-techy ivies (B, Y, D) as well as Northwestern, Duke, GT and on down to partial targets like UVA, Vanderbilt. Below that top trading is not happening unless he goes to grad school at one of the target schools.

With a 3.8 uw in Virginia he is out of range to have a shot at the top, and even UVA.
The choice to take DE vs AP lowers his chances further but the 3.8uw is the main hurdle. 
DE DiffEQ, Linear, etc are no where near as hard at CC or at average public 4yr college as they are at the wall street target schools. He should have easily been able to ace those DE courses if he has the math goods to get into quant.

Mine took DE math in high school at a regional 4yr college not a CC, because they finished BC cal early and there was no more math to take. They attend one of the top target schools. The curriculum of vector cal, Linear, etc covered double the material compared to the DE version and the problems were much harder. They got A's anyway. The joke on campus was how much material was new despite taking their DE version. Same with the equivalent of BC cal, it was another level above the AP version, for those that took it by choice or because they did not place out despite having taken BC and gotten a 5. Mine placed out.
[/quote]
How did it compare to the MIT OCW courses?[/quote]

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